I’ve been through that. I have not changed my own oil in about 20 years. I do my own brake jobs, however. I consider the cost to have it done vs how long it takes me to do it. It’s very cost effective. Anything that is easy to do, but costly to have done, I do myself.
I seem to know more about fixing cars than any of the people I know who don’t do it as their day job.
I’m about to have my brakes done. With the Prius, you don’t have to do this often, since the motor/generator does a lot of the stopping for you.
But I’m at 8 years and 140,000 on the one car, and I’ve worn them pretty good — to the point where I think they’ll recommend replacing the rotors (or maybe just turning them).
I don’t expect to drive the car past 250,000 miles, so I think this will be my only brake job. So it will cost me a bundle, and I’ll be done with it.
I did my own brakes in my older cars, and would buy rotors in a local junk yard where they would turn them for like $10.