I am naturally frugal by nature. I remember as a kid telling my parents I did not want the pink jeans at the store because they would not match as many of my shirts as the regular blue jeans, therefore making less financial sense. I also had a slight obsession with the colors in my clothing matching, but that is an issue for another time. While I do not obsess about my clothes matching anymore, the frugality has stuck.
This evening I was sitting at my sewing machine, zig-zagging over a rip in a pair of jeans that have obviously seen better days, trying to make a nice repair. My silent plea to my pants is to give me another three months. These jeans have been with me for about a year now, and I wear them a lot. I should probably just let them go, and I know this is in a certain part of my brain. However, the penny pincher in me yells for me to rise to the challenge and see just how long we can use them. It is not that I can not afford another pair, it is that I, plain and simple, do not want to buy them yet.
When the green movement started gaining popularity, I was irritated by the whole thing. It seemed to be that the only message was to spend more to save the earth. After a while it occurred to me that buying more stuff, be it made in an environmentally friendly way or not, does nothing to save the earth if you did not need those things in the first place. Here is where my frugal side and my green side sing together in harmony. If I fix these jeans….if I wear these shoes a bit longer… how much pollution (and money) could I be saving over my lifetime? It is a perfect match.
I do realize that there is a time to tell the jeans good bye. Of course, it is not really good bye when they just get moved out of the closet and into the scrap fabric pile, perhaps to be turned into a new purse.
I pretty much wear the same thing every day and my jeans have been hanging in there for a few years. We try to reuse everything we possibly can and are as frugal as we can be. I understand.