Lessons from the Greatest Generation: Part 3

This article was written by my lovely wife. -Mike

Lesson 3: Fix it Don’t Throw It

In our Amazon ordering, completely automated, throw away society, many skills are being lost. When was the last time you saw teenage boys in the driveway trying to fix an old car? In grandma’s day, it was common. When I was at a car dealership getting a recall repair done, I heard a woman complaining about how she didn’t know what service was done on her car the last time she took it in. She was upset because the oil hadn’t been changed like she believed. Her approach to car maintenance was blindly drive into the shop and hand the keys to someone. What happened to the days when people did their own basic car maintenance?

True, many cars these days are manufactured to be difficult to maintain, but it’s not impossible. Go to YouTube, type in “oil change” for nearly any make or model of vehicle, and I guarantee you will find something to show you how to do it. (This is how I learned to change the oil in my car as well as flush the radiator.)

But car maintenance is only a drop in the bucket of skills we are losing. When was the last time you met someone who patched holes in their clothes? Do you know anyone who can darn a sock? Yes, these abilities might seem unnecessary when supply chains are good, but if the grid goes down, I bet your feet will thank you if you know how to repair holes. You can learn how to do that in less than 7 minutes.

Clothing repairs are a very important skill. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve made over the years because I knew how to re-hem items, replace zippers, and the like. Sewing machines are cheap and take up very little space. You don’t have to be capable of constructing fancy clothes to master the basics. Be sure in buying a machine it is capable of doing a darning stitch (see picture below for reference). This is the most valuable stitch you can have, since it is a lifesaver when reinforcing clothes for patching.

Like we talked about in lesson 2, try to save salvageable parts to be used for repairs. When Mike and I were first married, I often needed to fix his work clothes. I found the best way to do it was to take a pair of pants that was beyond help and cannibalize it for patching the other ones. This maximized our savings, since he only had to replace one set, as opposed to three.

In conclusion: mindset is everything. Re-orient yourself to a nothing goes to waste mentality. Try to repurpose everything, and what you can’t repurpose, save to repair something else. Make the German, penny pinching Grandma proud.

~Mrs. Von Steuben