When I was a kid, I understood that we were not in good financial shape. My dad budgeted to the penny, doing everything on these enormous 2x3 foot sheets of paper. But I didn't quite understand why he'd spend so much time working on our cars.

A friend of the family ran an auto shop, so I didn't see why not take the car to him.
I watched my dad swear at a carburetor rebuild for a weekend or two and I didn't understand why.... until I was told what a pro charged for the work. I did at least understand that we didn't have that kind of cash.

When the carb was back in the car and it was running smoothly, my dad yanked the carb out of the other car and rebuilt it. Didn't take but a few hours. Anything that didn't involve cracking the engine open, my dad did himself. He taught me the same.

Despite long-since being able to afford to pay to have my cars worked on, I still do it myself. I always had my son "help" me. This last weekend, he took on a clockspring replacement in his own car. He's never been a tinkerer or handy, but he's in college now and understands why I did this myself all those years. He and I only recently found out what a shop charges for an oil change these days.... and it's nuts. You pay yourself $50/hour or better to change your own oil.

When your car needs work done, look it up on youtube first. If you think you can do it, it will be cheaper to buy the tools you need than it will be to pay someone else to do it. My car recently had a rattling heat shield. The dealership said their base charge was the $300 eval plus parts and labor. (P&L on this job would have been $0, but I saved $300 by doing it myself - it only cost me the stainless steel bolt and nut I had lying around in the garage.)

My daughter is now 11 and she can now change the oil in 3 different cars. She thinks its pretty gross, but it's worth the $5 I pay her each time and she tries to hide that she actually loves it. It's an investment in her eventual freedom from costly repairs and shady mechanics.