How to deal with "Runnables" and I'm not mechanically inclined to fix?

I've had fairly good success with Googling the year/make/model plus symptom(s). Also can find videos of just about any repair on youtube. Those have been really helpful.

I've been there, tried that with a mechanic buddy. He says he wants work, but when I find him stuff, it's like meh...

I have another guy that does pretty good work but it's spendy.

Not sure if this was suggested, but what about throwing it on CL as a mechanic special?