If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it is, FIX IT!

If a branch falls and knocks into your back porch, do you sell your house?  If you get a flat, do you just get a new car?  If you’re computer gets a virus, you don’t just get a new laptop, you fix it.  Why do we do this?  Because no one is insane enough to dump a $200,000 investment over a $500 repair.  So why don’t we use this theory of thinking with lesser valued items?

My main thought on this is that when something small breaks, it gives us an excuse to get something new, and new is always better, more fun, thrilling to search, buy, or whatever.  Some things price themselves out.  You can’t really repair a $10 pair of headphones.  It’ll never cost you less than the price of a new pair, but there are many purchases that are in between that $10 pair of headphones and the $200,000 house.  Most are clothes and they’re easily repaired by someone who really knows what they’re doing.  I would like to tell you that I re-sole my own shoes, but unfortunately that falls into the same category as doing my own brakes.  I’d love to know, and by the time I die, I’d like to know.  Instead, we use several local folks to help us with most repairs that we can’t deal with on our own.  I’ll sew a patch on, or reinforce the knees of the jeans that I use for wood splitting, but beyond that my skills are only good for straight lines and simple patterns.  I’m not trusted to fix anything of value.  I leave it to the experts.

Liz and I use two folks that can be of great use to you.  Here are two examples of how they have saved us money, time, effort, and a favorite pair of apparel.

1. The Cobbler – Find one.  Find one now.  Our guy is great.  He has a thick Russian accent, and that’s about what I look for.  I figure it this way: if they guy has a hard time getting his point across and still makes money, then he has to be good.  My favorite pair of dress shoes cost me $90 and I wear them with any dark pair of pants.  I love them.  They’ve never needed to broken in and they just feel perfect on my feet.  The problem is that they sit on leather soles and leather soles just do not function well in New England weather on a guy who doesn’t pay attention to these sorts of details.  Our cobbler fixed my shoes for $20.  That means that for the price of a new pair of shoes, I can repair the ones that I love four times before we start talking about equal value.  As my friend Niamh pointed out to me the guy she uses does buckles, straps, and more on things other than shoes.  It just makes so much sense.  Why throw it out or count it as useless when you can get it fixed for a fraction of the original price.  Knowing a good leather worker is essential.

2. Seamstress (what’s the male equivalent: Seam-I-still-like-football-stress?) – Liz swears by the lady she uses.  Liz is pretty good with a needle and thread, but replacing a zipper in a pair of jeans can be quite a challenge.  The woman she uses charges between $10 and $15 per job.  Compare that to the cheapest pair of jeans that you can find short of the Goodwill and you’re saving money.  Remember the beauty of this ladies is that you get to keep a pair of pants you know fits.  You don’t have to go out and worry if the new pair of black pants will look right or if the new pair of jeans will make you look ____ (fill in the blank).  I don’t use that word in reference to any woman as I have learned that my marriage will be annulled if I do.

Finally, I like the idea of hand-me-downs and will write on this topic in general at a later time, but in this vein of reusing or reinvigorating an old pair of shoes/pants, I want to share my theory of sneakers with you.

As I stated before, I don’t skimp on everything.  Running shoes are one of my vices.  When I ran cross country in high school and put nearly 12 miles in a day, I learned a lot about shoes quickly.  First, Nike shoes look great but have no arch support.  Sorry Nike, first hand experience.  They make great flats, but when I want something that hasn’t taken out all the support in favor of weight I make a different choice.  New Balances are bricks, but good for wide feet, and Saucony do pretty well, but I fell in love with Asics.  They are very expensive.   I have paid $80-$120 for a pair.  Still, I get every penny out of them.  I try to get them on sale now as I’m not going through a pair in a season like I used to, but I still end up paying $60 without sneezing.  It’s just hard to get lower.

Anyway, I hand down to myself.  My good pair get worn out and taken care of until they wear out in the heels and the ball of my foot.  I walk funny and my wife says I’m bow legged.  I don’t believe it, but she swears to it.  So when they are about done for running or walking around, I hand them down to my working self.  They become my summer work shoes.  I use them to mow the lawn, split wood, do work where I don’t want to ruin the pair that I’m wearing out.  When they get really bad (and green from the cut grass), I trade them down to my gardening self and tromp around in the mud with them.

In this way, I get nearly three years of life out of them.  I figure that I buy one pair a year and that keeps my arches in shape while still giving me a decent shoe to work around the house in.  Besides, what feels better on your foot than that broken in running shoe that is molded to your foot and doesn’t need to be untied to be put on?  Nothing.  It’s a way I justify the expense.  I wear them until there is a hold in the sole and then I just lie to Liz for a while.  Finally I walk a hole in my work socks and she makes me buy a new pair an retire the old good ones.

So just remember that not everything can be repaired, but many things can, and the repair often ends up being pennies to the dollar of replacing it.  And every time you do this, someone is not making a whole new pair of whatever and that in itself is helping the environment by keeping things out of landfills.