Do your own maintenance and inspections too.
Or, I have heard of mail-order annual inspections: send the logbooks with some green inserted; get logbooks back, signed and dated by the licensed mecknik.
(Quite familiar with the C172; helped Porsche install one of their engines w/reduction gearbox in a 172, back in the late 80s)
I help my AP with the annual and if everything is pretty good and doesn’t require a lot of extra stuff it runs about $900, pretty reasonable.