Scent of a Cheapskate: Frugality Gone Wrong

I thought I would seek solace in the Humble Dollar community for my latest self inflicted wound: an own goal of reasonably epic proportions.

It started innocently enough. I noticed a split developing on our twenty year old, 600 gallon plastic oil storage tank. Visions of catastrophic failure danced in my head. I pictured the tank groaning under a full load of fresh kerosene and then… well, you can imagine.

After gathering quotes for supply and installation of a replacement, I noticed every single one carried a separate line item for removal and disposal of the old tank, which was somewhere in the region of $750. My frugality gene twitched violently. A quick call to the disposal facility confirmed they accepted old tanks, and just like that, I had convinced myself I could pocket $750 with minimal fuss.

Over the following days, I was repeatedly reminded of Jonathan Clements’ quiet wisdom: “Money is a tool to lead a happy life, not an end in itself.” I really, truly wish that thought had surfaced before I introduced my electric reciprocating saw to the tank.

Here is something I did not know, and learned the hard way: when an oil tank is “empty,” there is still a very generous amount of oil sitting below the draw off valve. I discovered this the moment I removed the top of the wretched thing. What followed can only be described as an extraordinarily messy, eye wateringly smelly, and soul sappingly long affair. Chopping up the tank and wrestling the sludge coated debris to the processing facility was, to put it charitably, not how I had envisioned spending my week.

Did my frugality instincts save me $750? Absolutely, without question. Did I earn every single penny of it? Also absolutely, without question…have I mentioned kerosene stinks? Even after three showers?

Let’s talk about the opportunity cost of not spending that $750. To deal with the tank myself, I had to buy a small pump to syphon the excess oil, four 5-gallon drums to transport it to the disposal facility, and three bales of sawdust to soak up the sludge. I burned through two saw blades, binned my kerosene-soaked clothes, and endured four days of absolute misery. Suddenly, paying someone to dispose of the damned thing sounds like a bargain.

And that’s before we get to the social fallout. For a solid week I’ve had to stand downwind of everyone I spoke to, including my wife Suzie, who seemed to have somewhere else to be every time I entered the house. The smell of kerosene was literally seeping out of my pores.

Coming back to that nugget of wisdom regarding money as a tool for a happy life, I am forced to concede that handing over $750 and watching someone else drive away with the problem would have been, by a considerable margin, the wiser deployment of capital. Expensive lesson. Valuable lesson. The scar tissue is emotional rather than financial, but it is there.

So I will put the question to the floor: has anyone else allowed frugality to override the perfectly sensible option of simply paying someone to make an unpleasant problem disappear? Or have I secured the village idiot title uncontested?