#27 | in my insourcing era

Things I should have learned in school when I was learning calculus instead

By now, you may have heard the viral “How hard can it be? Boys do it” sound sweeping across TikTok & Instagram. (If not, it’s worth a listen!)

To say I’ve taken it to heart is… an understatement. It is now a pillar of my personality, which was not a hard transition at all considering I’ve operated from this mindset for decades without putting it into those words.

This attitude + an excess of free time means I’m now deep into my Insourcing Era.

The roots of this insourcing have been developing for years; the absolute dumb dumb of a financial advisor I met with last year has filled my rage cup for a full 12 months now (& my investments are doing just fine without his “help”).

I also got a KitchenAid stand mixer for Christmas this year, so of course I’m making my own bread, bagels, and pizza dough.

But the pièce de résistance of my insourcing so far is replacing the headlights on my car (!!) in under 10 minutes (!!!) all by myself (!!!!!).

I have no idea how much a body shop would have charged me, but I do know it would have been more than the $28 I spent on Amazon for two new headlights¹. Plus I didn’t have to leave my house (the real win) or worry about some sales guy trying to upsell me on new washer fluid.

My favorite part of this story was telling my dad, who was confused as to why I did this myself but supportive nonetheless. This man, a full 65-year-old grown adult who has been driving for 50 years, claimed that he’d never had a headlight go out.

SIR.

I promise that at least one of the many headlights he’s been responsible for over the years has gone out but was fixed during a routine service appointment or by my mom noticing & just taking it somewhere to be fixed.

Luckily for him, now he can just call me 😎

1. I encourage you to tackle this project yourself & also to replace both headlights at the same time because if one goes out, the other will follow soon!