While fixing a thermos of coffee for my husband to tote to work one morning, the seal snapped.  A thermos without a rubber seal isn’t much good, but there wasn’t time to run out and slap down $25 for another Stanley, much less order a new seal.  He needed the thermos now!   In desperation, I remembered the broccoli I had purchased the day before, snagged the thick rubber band from it, folded it over, and presto!  The improvised seal has now lasted longer that the original seal which came with the thermos, and when it does go, we will just have broccoli again. If we hadn’t been in such a hurry, I probably would have plunked down the cash for a new seal or thermos.  Since buying new wasn’t an option, I was forced to think outside the box, with frugal results.

How many times do we throw away items which aren’t so very difficult to fix?  Just by keeping a basic supply of glues (super glue, wood glue, epoxy, gorilla glue), stain removers, touch up paints, and approaching the problem from the standpoint of “I can’t buy a new one, so how do I make this work?” you might be surprised to find just how much creativity you posess.  Some of our favorite fixes include a 50 cent cabinet handle on a crockpot lid, vaseline to hide scratches in an LCD monitor (that solution was found in a Google search), WD 40 to remove melted crayon from clothes, and mini blind brackets screwed into a plastic toy rifle to hold the barrel on.

In my less frugal days, I once purchased a new coffee pot, then discovered that the old one only needed a more thorough cleaning.  What a waste of $45!  Are you ready to take the fix it challenge?  After all, if it’s already broken, what do you have to lose by doing a little experimentation?