Save Money! Fix It UP!

This is a guest post by Karl-Erik Bennion, a freelance designer and artist who knows first-hand the importance of living frugal and cutting costs.  You can find him at kbennion.com and kebstuff.com

One thing that’s been common among the current generation is the “throw away” mentality. Many things are made of plastic, cheap and meant not to last very long. A toaster that doesn’t work anymore is tossed and we go spend $5-10 on a new one… and that endures about as long as the last one. The cycle continues. Think of all the fixable things taking up space in a landfill.

The lever on our toaster no longer stayed down. In order to toast your bread, you had to stand there and hold it down until you thought it was done. That became old fast. So I unplugged it, took out a few screwdrivers and took the thing apart.

I don’t know a thing about electronics, but I just thought I’d open it up, clean it out and see if I could make it work. I brushed off all the crumbs, made sure all the moving parts were moving and put it back together. It worked again! (albeit, there is a little trick to how you push down the lever) We were given a toaster for Christmas, but, instead of opening it, we stored it away for use when our current toaster becomes unfixable.

The moral of the toaster? I saved $10 bucks.

I recently had a flat tire on my bike and my first inclination was to buy a new tube at $10-15. But instead I bought a patch kit around $1.50. I took out the flat tube, pumped it up a little, put it underwater to find the leak and then learned to patch the tube. I still have at least 3-4 more patches out of the kit I bought. I saved around $13.

Regardless of how “handy” you are, learning to fix things around your home is a useful skill, and then when money is tight, you fix it – or you go without. Sure, my things don’t always look brand new, but you’d be surprised by what can be done with a little left over paint and stuff you have around the house. Despite a “used” appearance, items are functional and providing for our needs.

I’ve fixed rickety dressers, made a work stool and bar stool out of parts from an old office chair, repaired my belt at least a dozen times, made a wallet out of an old purse and the tread belt of a treadmill, hand-sewed spring straps to the trampoline, used rocks from the empty lot next to us to create a paved path in the back yard, took apart an old stereo to get the toys put in the CD tray….etc. etc.

The trick is to be resourceful. Keep screws from things you’ve had to toss and save materials that you think will be useful. I have a box for miscellaneous metal parts and one for plastic pieces. More often than not, I have been able to use things again, in ways I never imagined.

In my current situation, before I throw away anything – it’s got to be completely dead, and even then it’s stripped of its useful parts. A return to such a way of life may not only help our budgets, but also provide incentive for corporations to make better, longer lasting products.

A wise person once put together this couplet:

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

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