A frugal life is an easy life!

The days of car body repairs being done at home, by the car owner are sadly long gone. We live in an age where everything car related has to be covered by an insurance premium and backed up by a no claims protection premium.
As most garages charge the same, for the more frugal amongst us, there is little choice between them. Or so it would seem...

Many people do not realise that finding an exact paint match for your car, is relatively cheap and easy to do!

On your engine plate (which can be found around your engine) or on the side of one of your doors, there exists a paint colour code for your car.
If your paint code (which every car has) is particularly hard to find, you can always ring up a dealer in the make of car you have (ford, peugeot, etc.) and quote your registration plate, they will have your paint code on file.

Once armed with this code, you can walk into any Halfords, or other car maintainence shop which mixes paint and pick up either a touch up pen, handy aerosol or even a two and a half litre tin (for use in a spray gun if you have a large area to cover) of paint exactly matching your car's paintwork.
This can also be obtained, from your local college that trains apprentices in car mechanics and car body repair.

Once you have found a college that runs these courses, you have in an instant, given yourself a choice, and by definition, will also open the door to saving more of your hard earned money!
One of the biggest costs to anyone having their car repaired, is labour charges.
On average, labour charges are around £90 per hour.
Factor in the charges that insurance companies pass on to each other, often for relatively low cost claims, if a repair bill comes to less than £1000, we can all save some money, in labour charges, insurance premiums, etc.

A small graze, no bigger than a 50p, on a 10 year old car cost the following to repair;
* Garage quoted £152 to repair, saying they would have to spray a quarter of the bumper
* Bloke got his own insurance to put it through my insurance, who then billed my insurance £552
* For a 50p sized graze, that one sheet of wet and dry would smooth out and a £12 aerosol of exact matched paint (or a touch up pen) and a pound of rubbing compound would have blended in nicely, cost me two years of my no claims bonus, on my insurance premiums next year!

If your car is damaged, your options are limited to premium prices of a car dealership or a general garage, which is costly.
Before you use any of these, use your thrifty head and check with your local colleges, it could save you a small fortune!