The True Value of Thrift

We recently had a cheap brass splitter for our hose fall apart. It cost under $2.

I had a number of options. There are usually a few things laying around to take back to Menards, which I batch and knock out at the same time. That’s easy enough. Or I could have decided it wasn’t worth it at all, even just an extra minute when exchanging more costly items, and purchased the same or comparable item. This is an item that would likely arrive the next day from Amazon, in our mailbox faster than I could make it to the hardware store.

What I did was inspect why it fell apart, and fortunately no pieces were missing. I matched the little grove on the bearing on the inside with the corresponding part of the paddle switch, then screwed the hose receiver back on the the fixture. It wasn’t apparent at first, but the part that our hose tightens into unscrewed from the rest, causing the pieces to come out, but everything was still sound. It seemed like a goner at first, but with a little observation, and even less effort, it was good to go.

When you’re able to keep an item in service without delay, even waiting for a replacement, you are saving something much greater than money.

Time is your most valuable asset, irreplaceable, and you’re saving both the time to recover the equipment, and the time saved by use of the equipment itself in the meantime.