dual standards when it comes to spending money

I'm currently stuck in a battle between trying to save money for our own place and trying to fix the Mazda. Mazda generally takes priority because I need a daily to get to work. 

volvoclearinghouse said:

I once replaced a burned-out headlamp with a used headlamp in my daily.  Right around the same time I dropped ~$400 on a set of pistons for a project car.

Let that sink in for a minute...I not only installed a used headlamp in the car that I drive every day....but I had, at one point, removed that headlamp from something else, and saved it for some period of time, figuring (correctly, as it turns out) I'd need it some day. 

That used headlamp lasted the rest of the time I owned that car.  

I haven't bought a new battery in years.  When a customer would want a battery replaced for maintenance reasons, if it tested better than what I had, i would trade the core for my old one.

I bought a Quantum in 2009.  Around that time, a customer had to jumpstart his S60 a couple times in one week, the battery was a 7 year old OE battery so he had us just change it.  Group 41 batteries are flippin' expensive so I gambled and put it in the Quantum.  Battery was still good at the end of 2016 when I scrapped the car.  (It was able to drive the car onto the trailer with the starter when I towed the thing to my new garage in 2015!)

There are times when i catch myself out.  Like when i spent about $400 in parts rebuilding my rearend after it sort of ate itself in record time, and I balked at buying $18/quart Redline oil instead of $14/gallon Coastal because I didn't want to spend that much money.