Monday 17 October 2011

Pride Before a Fall

Up until today, Buy Nothing New Month, had been going pretty well. I'd been feeling very smug so had gone for the extreme version & vowed to buy necessities only (food, medical, travel). When contemplating a purchase, I carefully considered the questions posed by the website;
  • Do I really need this? 
  • What is its life cycle? What went into making it (time, labour, resources)
  • What are the alternatives?
  • Where did it come from? How did it get here?
  • What is its environmental and social impact?
  • Who benefits from the purchase? What will it do for me?
  • What's in it? Who made it?
Then today my sewing machine died. It had been 'clunking' for a while & I had ignored it, put my head in the sand & hoped that it'd just magically get better all by itself.


It won't.

A sewing machine cannot be classified as food or travel or medical (unless you include sanity?)

There followed about 30 seconds of anguish during which I reviewed the questions above & persuaded myself that spending money on a repair is acceptable & is within the 'rules'.  (The alternative was using my mother-in-law's sewing machine that Mr TH mended & now only stitches in zig-zag..)

I phoned the repair man.

I'm taking my machine over to him this afternoon...

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps "maintenance" would sound better than "repair". Not least, sewing machines do need maintenance, and next year you could schedule it for before Buy Nothing New Month!

Thrifty Household said...

Yes, you are right...I will schedule myself ready for next year!

Pomona said...

Definitely medical I would say. And anyway I am sure repairing doesn't count - many would have just thrown it away and bought a new model. So no worries!

Pomona x

BadPenny said...

So glad that when you went " surfing " you found me ! I don't sew but one day into hubby going away the computer decided to play up ! Luckily my son fiddled around & got it going !

nimble fingers and steady eyebrows said...

I think repair definitely doesn't count. You are not buying anything new and by repairing it you are supporting a skilled job probably done by a small business. That seems just the right thing to spend money on. Also I couldn't leave with out my sewing machine so sanity is much more important. - Annie

Thrifty Household said...

Thank you so much for all your lovely, supportive comments. I'm feeling less guilty now!

silverpebble said...

It is ESSENTIAL. Of course you need it!

Scented Sweetpeas said...

I think a repair is a great idea, you will be saving lots of other items from landfill by re-sewing them into new items, you will be saving a lovely machine from landfill that would never decompose, also, like you say, it is for your sanity :-) I was really chuffed last week to turn a pair of trousers from a charity shop and and old table cloth into a bag for my little ones birthday (it looks a lot better than it sounds honest, will blog photos soon).

Claire said...

Repairing something certainly isn't buying something new, so I think it's well within the rules of Buy Nothing New Month. Though if you really wanted that halo, you could have done the repair yourself. The last time the timing went on mine I found some service instructions online and tried fixing it myself. It took just over an hour, but is fixed now, and I now how to service it myself now too.

Thrifty Household said...

Thank you for the tip Claire- I shall do some online research (& polish my halo at the same time!)

Can't wait to see Sweetpea's blog about the trouser & table cloth conversion...

Annie Cholewa said...

Definitely medical, and not just with regard to your sanity ... struggling on with a zig zag only machine would surely have raised your blood pressure ;D

Alison said...

Repair is definitely allowed under your rules! Some repairs don't even need new parts!

Now, if you'd thrown it away and got a new one, that would have been different... ;)

Anonymous said...

I think it comes under medical too - it's treatment for the machine, isn't it? No need to angst over it at all. Good for you though, re buy nothing new month. I'm not sure I could manage it - too many surprises via the children, random birthdays and replacement of lost PE kit etc, etc.

Calico Kate said...

I think a 'well done' is deserved not a guilt trip! Absolutely in the rules I think. Lucky you for having someone nearby to take it to too!
CKx

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...