How much time did you spend changing oil?? It's a 20-30 min job once you have done it coupe of time and know the ropes. I sometimes do it myself not because I want to save few bucks, but because it's sometimes faster than going somewhere.
I read that as "I risked 50+ remaining years of my life (or serious life-changing injury) with low-probability" not "it took me so many wasted hours with probability 1.0"
I'm assuming you're leaving out the time it takes to drive somewhere to dispose of the used oil and driving back. I grew up in the boonies, and my dad was one to dispose of oil "out back". It was such a shock the day he brought home a proper catch can to have it disposed of properly
This isn't that bad for most people living in the US, given every major auto part chain in the country accepts the fluids for free (o'reilly, autozone, etc). There's often an auto parts store next to the supermarket or close by. Besides, for most cars we are talking about a once every 12-24 month event for only ~5 quarts of old fluid.
You can show up with the used oil in any receptacle you like, there's no such thing as a proper container beyond not leaking, they will take the contents off your hands.
there's a caveat to "most people living in the US" regarding what their lease/deed/HOA contracts/etc say restricting the working on one's car on premises. you'd be amazed at how restrictive they can be. in an apartment, you'll be lucky if they allow you to jack up your car to change a tire. opening the hood for anything more than adding fluids is also a no-no. even single family homes with strict HOAs do not want a car in the front drive actively being worked on (sometimes that comes with "for extended period" caveats, but not always). I gues they figure if you can afford to live there, you can afford to have someone else work on your car at their place not in their neighborhood.
"Don't buy in an HOA if you like to use your hands" is probably pretty fair advice.
HOAs serve a pretty useful purpose: to coarsely/imperfectly segregate people who want to live in an HOA away from people who would never want to live in an HOA and vice-versa.
Those two groups are somewhat prone to having conflicts with each other and HOAs let both be happier than if they were to be annoyed by living next to each other.
How much time did you spend changing oil?? It's a 20-30 min job once you have done it coupe of time and know the ropes. I sometimes do it myself not because I want to save few bucks, but because it's sometimes faster than going somewhere.