Make do and mend

We are pursuing a bit of the old Blitz spirit here at Paulkyville. As we will (hopefully) be moving to Oz next year, we decided to try and put up with what we have rather than replace things, such as TVs, white goods etc. Apart from the different voltage in Australia compared to the UK, things such as TVs tend to be cheaper as they are closer to the source (i.e, the Far East) of manufacture.

Of course, having decided this, fate bowls a googly.

First our kettle dies, so we buy a cheap replacement. This tends to make a suspicious buzzing noise when it's not in action, so we now make a point of switching it off at the mains when not needed, less the house burn down.

Then our colour printer ran out of ink. Well, no problem there, buy an ink cartridge! So off I trot to WH Smith and buy a black and colour cartridge, which cost £61! It was only when I get home that I realise you can actually buy a completely new printer for that.

So I take the cartridge back and we buy a new printer (which we didn't really need, and won't work without an adapter in Oz). The new one is a better spec than our last one and cost only £5 more once we'd bought all the gubbins required for it.

So I feel we live in a throw-away society, one where it's actually cheaper to buy a replacement than use what you already have.

And why the hell is printer ink so expensive anyway?