Half the Distance To…

Sometimes, living green and saving money doesn’t come with easy choices. For instance, I know that repairing my children’s clothing, as I’d posted about here, was the right thing to do for lots of reasons. It was easy, I could do it myself, and it saved me from having to go out and buy new clothes. Oh, and it saved the earth from discarded clothes tossed in the trash.

With food shopping you know that I take my reusable bags to the grocery store, but sometimes my writing business gets in the way of my having time to actually grocery shop, so I order my food online and drive to my nearest ShopRite to pick it up. Obviously, I can’t use reusable bags in this instance because ShopRite bags my stuff as they put it in the cart for me. I would have driven to the store anyway go food shopping, so sometimes ordering my groceries online feels almost like it’s a “carbon-neutral” decision, based on my current lifestyle, of course.

Looking forward into 2008 I see myself getting increasingly busy (a good thing for my family’s bottom line), but this means that the 40 minutes or so that I take to drive to and from the grocery store to pick up my groceries may soon become time that’s too valuable for me to waste. So I’m considering switching supermarkets and ordering online from a store that will deliver the groceries to me. I know this would be a better choice from a time-management point of view, but is it a better choice for the environment–sort of like Internet shopping at the holidays possibly was? If the delivery truck was going to be on the road anyway, doing its rounds, and because it will be bringing me my groceries (or catalog orders) and saving me from having to put my car on the road, is this the greenest choice possible? I’m still not sure.

My newest dilemma involves our vacuum cleaner. Since firing the cleaning lady nearly a year ago, I’ve taken on the role of cleaning lady (though dwindling time might change that too, and then I’ll need to find a green cleaning service, if such a thing exists locally). Anyway, what this means is that cleaning tools like my vacuum cleaner have gone into heavy rotation.

With regards to our vacuum cleaner, we have a Kenmore Canister vacuum with a separate nozzle, which we picked up at Sears three or four years ago. It was not cheap, but it’s been well worth the money we spent. Without Sears paying me to say so, I can honestly say that it’s been the best damn vacuum cleaner I’ve ever owned. However, because I live in homes with mostly hardwood floors and I’ve got a dog that sheds, I use this vacuum cleaner a lot and it has taken quite a beating.

First, the wheels on the motorized nozzle fell off. I’ve screwed them back on time and time again, but the threading is shredded on both of the wheels and in the nozzle itself. Then the pieces of the telescoping wand started breaking off. I was able to keep the wand together for the most part, if I held it in a certain wway and didn’t push too hard. After our move, one part of the two-part telescoping wand disappeared all together, leaving me hunched over like an old lady while vacuuming.

I was able to do without for a few months, since a public relations person had sent me an Electrloux upright, lightweight vacuum cleaner to try out for a story I was writing. It worked fine during the story review, but about a month later the rotating brushes stopped working. And it no longer sucked up anything, which sucks big time. (Note to self: stay away from Electrolux vacuums.)

So I’m back to my handicapped Kenmore canister cleaner, and I don’t think my back can take it anymore.

This morning I looked up replacement parts on the Sears’ parts website, and here’s where my “half the distance to” dilemma begins.

To replace both parts of the telescoping wand and the wheels on the nozzle head, plus with shipping and handling (the parts are not available at any local Sears’ stores), I’m already more than half the price distance to a new vacuum cleaner. Granted, it wouldn’t be the deluxe model I have but a similar model currently retailing for about $150. There is a vacuum repair shop that just opened two towns over, but I can’t imagine that they would be able to repair or replace these parts for much cheaper than what Sears could. Of course, I will call them and ask, but I don’t have high hopes for their response.

I was brought up to believe that if you’re paying more than half the value of something to fix it, you are better off just buying a replacement. But is that still true in my green and frugal world?

Is it better for me to drive 20 minutes to get the vacuum cleaner parts replaced, regardless of how much it costs? Or should I just give away my partially functioning vacuum cleaner on Freecycle, and dig down and cough up the $150 for the new vacuum cleaner? In this day and age of seemingly disposable small electronics, you just have to wonder if you should be thankful for three to four years of a vacuum cleaner’s faithful service and accept that it’s time to move on.

Which do you think is the right thing to do?