One of the most interesting things about this No Buy challenge is that it’s almost like a switch has flipped in my brain, and the compulsive small-item-purchasing has pretty much stopped. I think going into every situation knowing that I’m not going to buy anything has changed my relationship with impulse buying. I never thought much about the small, random things I might pick up (and window shopping is hard when you *could* just get this *one* thing), but the blanket “I’m not buying ANYTHING” statement is…freeing?

The other thing that’s happened that’s really neat is that I suddenly have the funds to do all of the other little things I’ve been putting off for months. There is flexibility in my budget now for lunch with a friend or getting my hair done or whatever other little thing might have needed better planning. And this is without going beyond my budget, and accounting for savings. So yay!

I want to highlight one of our repairing (rather than replacing) projects that we did a couple of weeks ago. For years I searched for a sturdy wooden coat tree for the front hallway, so when I finally found one a couple of years back, I was super excited! It was a two piece affair, and the base screwed into the top. Unfortunately, I think it was a victim of military moving….

…because a couple of weeks ago it essentially snapped in half.

Yeah.

I think what happened was that with getting disassembled and reassembled in the move a year ago the screw started to strip, and over the course of the last year it worked itself out of groove until it was beyond help.

But let me emphasize– it took me YEARS to find a coat tree. The last thing I wanted was to have to find a new one, especially when we had all of the pieces! So in the spirit of repairing-to-not-purchase, Jared and I set about DOING CARPENTRY.

The first matter of business was to find a way to reconnect the pieces, and in our toolbox stash we found small wooden pegs from some previous furniture repair. With the pegs in mind, we made a little template to help us mark out four spots in equal distance from the central screw, and marked them with pencil.

We drilled into the four segments with a bit the right size for the pegs, then set about fitting them into place. With a liberal application of a heavy duty (furniture grade) wood glue, we wiggled the two pieces of coat tree back together, and ta da!

Just 48 hours later (after drying) we had our coat tree back! Total cost: $5 for the wood glue, which we now have for any other project that might come along.

I can’t tell you how relieved I was. It’s so difficult to find a coat tree anymore, which is strange because it seems like such a useful item! And when I posted about this on instagram, I received multiple replies asking where I’d gotten mine. The moral of the story is if you’ve got a coat tree, hang on to it! Oh and I guess also that repairing things isn’t that hard if you take the time to do it.