Usually, the ecofrugal triumphs I submit in this blog are times when I've managed to fulfill a personal want without looking for something new. I'll write, for instance, about how we controlled to repair our vintage Roman shades with an $8 ball of string as opposed to doling out $a hundred or more on new window treatments, or how Brian built me a brand new table organizer for my pc peripherals out of scrap wood and stain we had handy. Small victories like this are the essence of the ecofrugal lifestyles. They show how it's feasible to do greater with tons much less?To store money even as additionally stopping waste. They maintain your tinkering competencies limbered up and encourage you to strive for ever greater feats of tightwaddery.
All that said, it's important to remember that frugality isn't about not spending money. It's about not wasting money on things you don't need. Sometimes, making a purchase—even a fairly pricey one—is clearly the wisest thing to do.
A working example is my new wintry weather boots. I've published earlier than about how hard it's far for me to discover footwear that fit each my toes and my values (each of which can be, shall we embrace, a piece out of the mainstream). For me, the perfect pair of footwear desires to be leather-based-primarily based-free, cushty, first rate-searching, pretty well-made, no longer too high-priced, and to be had in my period?A combination that is about as unusual as a green unicorn. Back in 2013, I concluded that if I wanted to make it via the wintry weather with dry feet, I turn out to be going to have to compromise on at least this form of requirements.
At that time, I ended up shopping for a $50 pair from Payless that compromised just a little bit on several of them: the in shape end up proper but now not best, they lacked in useful resource but were good enough with an insole brought, and?The largest hassle of the lot?They were now not very long lasting. They held out for the relaxation of that wintry weather and most of the subsequent, but by the time 2015 rolled round, they have been letting in water like a sluice gate. They have been k in dry climate, but stepping in a single puddle (it truly is regularly unavoidable with our town's lousy drainage) would depart them essentially useless for the following two days.
For the relaxation of 2015 and all of 2016, I managed with more than one secondhand Timberland trekking boots that I'd picked up at Goodwill for $15. But the closing time I wore the ones out inside the rain, it end up apparent that that they had fallen sufferer to the same sort of leak due to the fact the preceding pair. I ought to have tried to restore them with Shoe Goo, however that might leave me with out boots for more than one days whilst they dried, and there has been no assure the patch process should actually do the trick. So, reluctantly, I started out out purchasing.
This time, I concept I had a trick up my sleeve. I had located in some unspecified time within the future that whilst a D width is
So after consulting The Wirecutter's report on the best winter boots, I decided to try the kids' version of the Columbia Bugaboot. While the adult boot sells for around $120, I was able to find the kids' version on sale for just $55—and, just to make sure I got a pair that would fit, I ordered two sizes, a youth 5 and a youth 6 (the largest available). The smaller pair ended up being canceled because it wasn't available, but the 6 was wearable—sort of. I could get my feet into them, but they were so huge and bulky that I felt like an astronaut. I had to sort of march instead of walking because my ankles wouldn't bend normally.
So those went back to the store and I tried a pair in a duck-boot style from Sperry Top-Sider. I had high hopes for these, because the entire base of the shoe was fully encased in rubber, which I thought was sure to be both waterproof and durable. Unfortunately, this design also made the boots stiff and inflexible, so it was very difficult to squeeze my feet into them—even with the kids' size 6. They weren't too uncomfortable once I managed to get them zipped, but I couldn't imagine going through that kind of contortion every morning—and with my thickest socks, I doubted I'd be able to get them on at all. So back they went to Zappos, which fortunately offers free shipping both ways, so I wasn't out any cash for that unsuccessful attempt.
After that, I wasn't sure what to try, so I tried doing a search on shoes for wide feet and found several recommendations for a brand called Propet, which offers shoes in a vast range of widths—from men's narrow to women's extra-wide. Back to Zappos, and I found a Propet boot that came in both wide and extra-wide and appeared to tick pretty much all the boxes on my list. It was completely leather-free; reviews described it as warm, dry, and comfortable for walking; and it looked unobtrusive enough to wear indoors as well as out. The only downside was the $80 price tag—but since several owners also said the boots were quite durable, I figured I'd probably get my money's worth out of them.
Since reviewers disagreed about the fit, I decided to hedge my bets by ordering both a 6.5 wide and a 7 wide—a sound decision, since the 7 turned out to be the better fit. So the smaller pair is boxed up waiting to go back to Zappos, and the larger pair has now been put to a trial by fire, or rather ice. It was 20 degrees out yesterday, with heavy snow and a stiff wind, and these boots kept my feet snug, dry, and skid-free through several rounds of shoveling and a trip to the train station to pick up my folks. Plus, I've walked a couple of miles in them and suffered no foot fatigue.
So this story has two morals. First, if you have hard-to-fit feet, Propet footwear is definitely worth a look; and second, sometimes spending more money up front is the most ecofrugal choice. I could have tried to make my old, leaky Timberlands last the rest of the winter, and I might even have succeeded—but it would only have postponed the inevitable, and in the meantime, my feet wouldn't have been nearly as warm and dry as I expect them to be in my new boots. They cost more up front than I've ever spent on a pair of winter boots before, but an $80 pair that should see me through the next several winters is a better deal than a $50 pair that will barely make it through one—and it means I won't have to go through this same shopping rigamarole again next year.
