Having lived in Switzerland for a few years, I’ve come to realize that common services like auto repair, gardening, electrical work or plumbing are a huge part of my budget. Yet, I see little discussion on how to lower these costs.
Fellow mustachians, how do you find good services at competitive prices? How do you locate good companies? What do you do yourself versus hiring out?
Auto repair: getting to a point where I’m able to do some of it myself would be too time consuming for me → I’m gladly outsourcing this one. There are real savings to be done by getting more crafty in this area, though.
The mustachian way is probably to sell the car, find a job/home within bikeable distance, buy a bike and take care of it oneself.
Gardening: I consider this one to be partly leisure, partly chore. If it ceased to be enjoyable at all, I’d try to downsize so that I wouldn’t have exteriors to care for anymore. The non-mustachian way is to hire someone to take care of it.
Electrical work and plumbing: I have enough cross skills and these areas are close enough to my main interests that I can handle the small stuff myself. I’d still hire a professional if major works were involved. I would think problems with electricity/plumbing aren’t that frequent that paying for a professional to come take care of it would make a huge dent in my ability to save and invest.
As to how to locate good companies, I’m biased as my experience is in small villages where word of mouth is a good option (and there aren’t 10 electricians you can call on anyway, you either get well with the 1-2 you have as option or you’re screwed). Discussing with other homeowners as well as discussing on the side with tradesmen and/or the municipal works when I’m dealing with them would be a way I’d use to try to get names and recommendations.
There is no miracle, though. I’ve never gotten an electrician to be able to consistently be able to fulfill their deadline promises, as they’re crowded with work in my area. Having someone on call who cares for you is very important and helps but sometimes, it’s important too to be understanding on our end and accept that there might be delays and we may not be their top priority (assuming the problem is minor and doesn’t require immediate intervention).
Edit: as a rule of thumb, anything that can be understood by watching a quick video on the Internet and using a screwdriver is something I would do myself. Purging air from the water heating circuit, changing a light switch, these kinds of things (though, please, do cut off the electricity before dealing with it and follow other common recommendations).
What do you mean by “huge”? Why do you need these services so often?
In the almost 5 years we live in our house, I only had to call the electrician once, the plumber never and a guy for the heat pump once and all together it didn’t even cost us a thousand francs.
Maybe huge is an overstatement, and my perception might be skewed by the fact that I just bought a house, so I need an unusual amount of help.
However, I have a garden with a decent amount of trees which will need regular maintenance. Car maintenance is every year or so. Every few years, the house will need a paint job (it’s got a wooden exterior).
Each of these things is often several hundreds or thousand francs. It adds up quickly. It makes sense to want to get a good deal, no?
I feel you.
Listen to Wolverine, he’s the resident Swiss voice of reason and experience.
As to your specifics:
Learn to cut your own trees. It’s not rocket science - it’s fun to learn and to do and to watch the development of the trees as a result, and a cool skill. If chainsaws need to be used, do a course. If it involves ladders or chainsaws safety first and never alone.
Quite possibly painting wood isn’t rocket science either. Find some friends/neighbours who also need their house painted, involve a partner/kids. Much less interesting though so maybe try to find a good deal instead.
As to the car, probably eather eat the cost or find yourself some friends interested in learning and doing basic car maintenance with you. Heck, with the costs going on here, I probably already saved 100s of CHF changing two light bulbs with some help.
Totally agree on the previous comments, learn to do stuff yourself, it’s the most mustachian thing (after not owning a car and a house with garden).
Thanks for the advice! Personally, with three kids and a full-time job, I’d rather spend money and have these big jobs done for me, and I’m ready to pay for it. I’m mostly wondering how to get decent deals. Google Maps probably isn’t great, as any business that is visible on GM with good grades will likely be expensive.
I know Switzerland has thousands of small businesses offering these kinds of services. The question is how to find the good ones (and possibly how to negotiate a good price).
Others might have other experience and I can’t help with the car thing (I’m myself probably financing the deals others are having at my mechanic. xD) I’d say it’s an area where a bit of doing it yourself (bypassing your mechanic for ordering tires and other parts, for example) can yield interesting savings.
For landscaping, wood-maintenance, plumbing and electricity, I feel it’s important to note that people aren’t becoming rich practicing these trades: the quotes you’ll get are likely to be reasonable.
That doesn’t mean you can’t get a better deal/better service/have them being more responsive to you. My experience is with local small businesses, big brands probably offer different advantages that may or may not better align with your goals.
It’s likely (but not guaranteed) that the website of your municipality provides a list of local businesses. I’d discuss with my neighbors to see who they are using/how they’re doing for their own property. Having someone come and do several properties at once gives you something to negociate on. If they can’t recommend someone they’re happy with, I’d go through the list of the municipality, meet with several of them, see if I have a good feeling about them, what price they’re offering and then choose one. It’s better for you if you come recommended.
While I think on average that’s true, I think some of the owners of such businesses are doing very well. And I see large discrepancies from one business to the next in terms of effort to invoice ratio. Some will charge you a lot for very little work, while some will work hard for a modest fee. As such, I feel it makes sense to reward the hard workers.
Thanks for the municipality advice, it sounds like a great idea. I will take a look to see what they have.
Hoping for advice on how to not pay top price for car repairs myself now (I rent).
That’s perfect. As soon as the first of the kids is older than 5 you’ll save for the house- and car repairs by spending a couple of weekends learning how to and cutting trees instead of taking them out.
I’m serious. It’s fantastic time to spend learning and doing. And fascinating to watch the trees react to the cut. Your kids will learn some serious skills.
Unless it really is a wood? Offer it up to a nature preserving organisation in exchange for them cutting down the trees endangering your dwellings.
Still not convinced of the benefits of getting your kids involved in physical and mental activity in the fresh air and sunshine that gives long term awards?
If you’re less than 30 minutes from where I live, I’ll take care of your trees in exchange for 500 sqm for gardening 
ETA: cutting trees is nothing like cutting a lawn. Get rid of your lawn if you have some. The better it is cut, the less useful it is for the flora and fauna and boring as hell to care for. Tending to trees is fascinating and rewarding.
Word-of-mouth marketing. When I need a service, I first ask my colleagues in the village for recommendations.
On a lawn I can play football, Volleyball, play water games, take a nap… only some of them are possible on trees. I strongly believe that a classic lawn is a important piece for a garden, especially with kids around.
Me for myself I am DIY Guy. Prefere to spend 1000.- on tools than on a job. Reason: the tools will help me do it again the second time. Sure, with 2 kids now time becomes an issue. But the older is with 2 years already eager to help(=watch and hide things). And I am getting super fast since many tasks have to be done during nap time:).
Anyway, my suggestion for you is to tray do things you might like your self. Garden is ideal, you do not need costly equipment.
If you live on the countryside talk to the local people who might help with a service. For small jobs there might be some people around doing it in their spare time.
Regarding trees, if they’re fruit bearing, I’ve usually always had too many of them for my family, even after distributing to friends. If that’s the case for you, one possibility is to find a deal with a local farmer that they tend to the trees and get to harvest them after you’ve taken what you needed for yourself.
Make lots of jam.
After that, lots of alcohol.
As others here have said, learn (and learn to enjoy) doing anything yourself that you could hypothetically do yourself. The savings for this portion are only limited by your desire/aptitude for learning new skills. E.g. A friend of mine built an excellent house entirely from scratch by following tutorials on Youtube, though he had no previous experience in construction, electrical engineering, plumbing, etc. That’s obviously an extreme example, but shows how much you can do these days using free online resources.
For the complicated stuff, my personal recommendation would be to hire an ESTABLISHED local business with a strong reputation (and therefore a strong reputation to lose). I wouldn’t really see the price as a major criterion for this portion, because poor workmanship will almost inevitably cost you much more in the long run.
I sometimes exchange services. Just had a plumber here who agreed to a Spanish lesson in exchange for his services. Old motorbike friend of mine, retired, but still works.
All in all what pays is to have friends. I probably did tons of free services to my friends during my lifetime and now some of it comes back.
I normally use renovero where I post the job that needs to be done and various people make offers. It has worked fairly good to keep prices low, after carefully trying to weed out the riskiest offers (bad/no reviews, reviews only relating to other, smaller, types of work).
Thanks for the tip, I try it for my garden. Let you know how it went. Any tips in addition for renovero?
Already got an offer after 5 minutes. But it is like 90 minutes driving time what would be 180 minutes every day. No reviews, probably a scam. Will ignore for the moment.
Spot on. Although repairing the bike can be frustrating as well. I have one bike (less used) on my balcony, attached to a bike mounting stand, ready to be fixed…since last September.