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Resourcefulness is invaluable!

Published September 08, 2026

Welcome back to Daily Dogmas!

Today’s Daily Dogma is that resourcefulness is invaluable. Whether it be building your own website, changing your car’s oil yourself, making your own spreadsheet, or figuring out something yourself that you could have paid someone else to do, being able to figure out solutions to your problems makes you resourceful. Of course there are caveats to this. It is very resourceful to grow your own food, for example, but not everyone has the space, resources, or time to do so. Another example could be the oil change example mentioned above. Sometimes it is just easier and faster to pay someone to do something for you. Time is money after all.

What I would now like to share is my experience with resourcefulness.

Some examples of my own resourcefulness include:

  • Building the Daily Dogmas website with limited coding knowledge using an Astro template.
  • Changing my car’s oil myself.
  • Making a business spreadsheet for gig work to track earnings and expenses.
  • Turning a 10-year-old prebuilt computer into a gaming PC.

Building the Daily Dogmas Website

The first example of my own resourcefulness I would like to expand on is building this website. Building the Daily Dogmas website was no easy task, but over the course of two weeks and with help from multiple individuals and online resources, I was able to turn a simple Astro Blog template into a blog that looked and operated how I wanted. This is a major accomplishment for me because I had very limited knowledge of HTML and CSS. I am still learning, but I learned an enormous amount of information in the process of building this website and am continuing to do so.

I would like to extend special thanks to the following individuals for their help in creating Daily Dogmas:

CJ from the (private) Campus View Boys Discord server

  • CJ helped enormously in getting me started with Cloudflare and GitHub, without him, this website would not exist. At least not at this point in time.

    • marcos from the Astro Lounge Discord server

  • marcos helped enormously in troubleshooting some issues I ran into with the Astro Blog template. His knowledge and patience are exceptional!

    • Fakerko from the Astro Lounge Discord server

  • Fakerko helped enormously in introducing me to the seriousness of semantics in website development. Fakerko pointed out that my code was a little bit unconventional, which urged me to do further research in proper HTML conventions.

    • FullThrottle from the Astro Lounge Discord server

  • FullThrottle helped enormously by introducing me to some key Search Engine Optimization techniques and best practices, as well as some of what I could improve on.

    • Without the help of these four individuals, this website would not be where it is now.

    Changing my car’s oil myself

    Another example of resourcefulness I would like to share with you is changing my car’s oil myself. This is one of those things that not everyone has the ability to do. You don’t always have the space, physical ability, or the tools to do the job, but if you are able to, it can save you quite a bit of money at the expense of time.

    I have spent roughly 30 to 40 dollars per oil change (depending on the cost of oil and the brand of filters available) and have done four oil changes this year. That adds up to roughly $140 in supplies and roughly three hours spent doing oil changes. Compared to spending roughly 60 dollars per oil change at a shop and 15 minutes per oil change, I spent an extra two hours and saved $100. I would call that a resourceful win!

    Making a business spreadsheet for gig work

    As someone who has never been self-employed or worked heavily with Microsoft Excel before, making a business spreadsheet for my gig work was a feat. After a week of building and months of continuous tweaking, I now have a 24-page spreadsheet with which I can track and logs how many miles I drive each day, my earnings each week by platform and type, as well as my other expenses. This spreadsheet uses these inputs to calculate and track mileage expenses using the standard IRS mileage rate, taxes using five different variables, and expenses and savings targets, such as retirement and vehicle expenses.

    I am particularly proud of the spreadsheet’s flexibility. It uses a single input sheet to update values such as the year, tax rates, and expense rates. While this is quite a common concept for experienced Excel creators, it was fun and challenging project for me.

    Turning a 10-year-old computer into a gaming PC

    This example of resourcefulness is by far one of my favorites. With the help of Facebook Marketplace and Micro Center, I was able to turn a 10-year-old computer I got for just $100 into a gaming PC. For those interested in the details, I took a small form factor Dell OptiPlex 5040 and put an AMD Radeon RX 550 graphics card in it. So far, this computer has gotten me through many hours of livestreaming, countless games of Rocket League, and most importantly, two college classes.

    Without this cheap, but reliable PC, I would not be where I am at today. I sometimes take it for granted when it doesn’t perform the way I would like, but I am thankful for it every day.

    I hope these examples of resourcefulness can help inspire you to find ways you can be resourceful in your own life. Resourcefulness does sometimes take compromise or even sacrifice, but I feel that it makes me more flexible and able to accomplish my goals.

    Thanks for reading!

    — Indiana Justin