Everyone knows that saving time and money (or being more efficient and effective with your time and money, if you will) is a key barometer of having control over your life (call it success, or productivity, or whichever you prefer). Life is a string of time and money yields the string of options and actions you can take within that period of time (it doesn’t cover all of them, of course – but it adds to it considerably). Thus investing in your life at this level is the most fundamental form of investing, and its returns may be even farther reaching than the more narrow sense of dividends and interest payments.
Remember when they first introduced the “reduce, reuse, and recycle” slogan? It was quite effective, and it seems so long ago. I can just imagine how worse off we’d be on the whole if the broad-based recycling programs never got off the ground.
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Financial Hierarchy of Recycling Costs
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It’s great if you’re a big recycler, and extra points if you compost, too – but how about fixing your own stuff? Or do you just buy new items to replace your “broken” ones? Replacing broken or merely worn-down items would be the worst option financially speaking. The second best option from a financial point of view would be taking it in to get someone to repair it. Your TV, computer, or other gadget. If it’s on warranty and free, it still costs you the travel time and the opportunity time of rearranging your schedule to do that. If you can fix it yourself, you can fit it into your own schedule and probably save on the time spent.
Since I’ve got a good grasp already on the “reduce” and “recycle” dimensions, I found it interesting lately to have become reacquainted with the “reuse” side of sustainability practices. Reusing something can definitely be broken down into repairing and repurposing. Perhaps “repurposing” does not seem that much different from “recycling,” but in the absence of any official difference, let’s just say that recycling pertains to giving your item away (whereupon it is either broken down and reassembled somehow, or where someone else finds a use of their own for it), whereas repurposing refers to keeping it yourself, but using it for a different purpose. I admit, this is a tenuous distinction.
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Reusing Socks as Rags
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Have you noticed that it’s only ever one sock in a pair that seems to develop a hole? Count yourself lucky if your socks wear down equally as much and at the same time. Here are two solutions. Buy mostly the same colors of socks, so that you can just match two left black socks together when the right heels of the other socks start developing holes.
And then take the socks with holes and add them to a “rag bag” – I don’t think I need to give you a list of suggestions as to what you might need rags for. The good thing is that you can wash the rags and reuse them again. Painting, cleaning, repairing pants – you’ll need a rag every now and then. You can always give the material away to someone making a quilt.
Waterproofing Shoes With Superglue
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I’ve tried some of the best brands in walking and hiking shoes – Merrell, Born, etc. – but inevitably the soles of the shoes wear thin after a year or two (depending on how often you walk) and if a hole or leak develops, you can’t even walk in the rain. So try some superglue.
You can use superglue to fasten together parts of the sole, and, as I am testing, to waterproof and protect the areas that look like they will be developing leaks in the near future. Buy a superglue like Loctite, with an extra-long nozzle that fits into tiny areas. Make sure your superglue can bond leather, rubber, and foam (some are better than others for this). I bought Loctite SuperGlue for about $3.99 just to try this out. So far (after about 30 seconds of holding them together), the soles on these shoes seem fairly securely bonded.
Fix Your Watch Band with Superglue
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Get some tweezers and the same bottle of Loctite and you can also fix the wrist band on your watch. Most watches come with two small wraparound bands into which you can slide the wrist band. I have a leather watch, and one of these little bands became torn and pulled out after about three years. I was actually about to consider buying a new watch when I realized the superglue could fix the arm band.
Push the tweezers into the “envelope” that used to hold the little band, and let the tweezers do the work of holding it open. Then drop in a few drops of superglue, pull the tweezers out, and use them to push in the tiny leather (or plastic, etc.) band. Squeeze it tight for 15 seconds. It should be fixed.
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Replace Watch Batteries at Walgreen’s
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Did you know that Walgreen’s sells little watch batteries? If you ask at the photo developing counter, they might also have the little watch screwdriver that will allow you to pry open the back of your watch. This is what I ended up doing. I thought I was going to have to take the watch into some specialty watch store somewhere that would take me a while to find – but it turns out it was much, much easier than I imagined.
Just note the battery numbers on your current watch batteries. These pertain to the size and make – and then buy the corresponding “generic” watch batteries for those numbers. It’s easy to figure out once you’re actually in there and looking at it.
I’m not that adept at calculating how much money and time this will all have saved me, but I do know that these steps have certainly extended the life and and usefulness of my watch. Besides, I’ve become attached to this watch – so all the better if I don’t need to replace it.
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{ 4 comments }
I just have some problem currently with my Nike shoes that I wear everyday. And its seem I could use some of your super glue! lol. This is super fun for me to read your post because its remain me of my grandfather who believe it or not, use to fix my running shoes with super glue when I was a child. It had always been fix, but there was always a trace of glue going out of the shoes and I had that trace of glue on my shoes that at I used to look at because its disturb me, having that trace of glue on my shoes. lol. Now that my grandfather is no longer, I had to glue my shoes by myself. Will I do a better job? I don’t know lol. Just very funny post for me to read :)
Whatever works! What’s amazing is that superglue is also great for waterproofing! Not the most fashionable option, perhaps, but it is frugal and effective.
I’ve been using shoegoo.com. A bit messy but effective.
Reuse/ fixing/ repurposing is definitely better than recycling – but careful you don’t become a hoarder in the process! Recycling will become obsolete once we get beyond peak oil (disposables become cost prohibitive) and once cities hit the inevitable tax wall (have to cancel expensive programs). Also remember that what is good for the planet (buy less) is lousy for the economy. Perhaps they will make fixing stuff illegal like in Japan where early scrapping of cars is ‘encouraged’ by heavy taxes and fees. No end to madness, eh?
@canbyte – I don’t know, that sounds pretty backwards to me. I don’t think recycling should ever become obsolete. We can still concede that post-peak oil will reduce the supply of brand new unnecessary plastic items, though. That will be a good thing.
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