One of the ways we save money is...

We don't take our cars into a shop for every little thing.  We'd rather not pay installation / labor fees.  K thanks.

In fact, when we were dating, I had a fuse go out in my Volvo and I took it in.  A dadgum 32 cent fuse cost me $50 for labor.  When I told him, I think that's when he decided he would marry me just because he felt sorry for me and thought he could at least fix my car and save me some coins.

DC's headlight went out a couple days ago, so he changed it himself.  While I watched, I thought this was way too easy and I'm sure tons of people could do it if they knew how...so here we are

Every car will probably be a little bit different and require different bulbs.  There are tons of websites and forums to help you pick the right ones, and a lot of them have step by step instructions.  Or, you could go to an auto parts store that you trust and ask them what bulb you need.  If they can't tell you, go somewhere else.

The supplies:  Screwdriver, Simple Green (to clean your hands- we use this on everything), some gloves, a headlight...for your head...so you can see, 2 new bulbs (he just decided to replace them both)

The bulbs DC got were Sylvania Xtravision H7.  This chart on the back can basically help you decide how much you want to spend on a bulb.  The one on the far left is a standard bulb, the one on the far right is a high performance bulb.  They compare life, distance, intensity, and width of the beam.

Some cars have combined high and low beams, but DC's has separate ones.  He was changing the low beams this time.

Are you bored yet, ladies?

Like I said, your car may be different than DC's but most of them will have a clip behind the headlight where you can remove a plastic headlight panel like this

Move this metal clip over and remove the panel

Pull the wiring harness plug off, move the 2nd metal clip (I didn't get a great picture of this, but you're smart, you can handle it), and you'll see the bulb.  Remove the old bulb

See the gap in the coil?  No good.

Hold your horses.  These bulbs are made of pressurized quartz and if you get any grease on the bulb, they can explode.

Don't freak.

Just remove everything, then put your gloves on to do the new bulbs.

Screw in the new bulbs, and replace everything.  Badabing.  You just saved yourself $80 in labor costs and it only took you 15 minutes.