Researching purchases

Very unexpectedly the broom broke. I was a bit cross as I had only bought it last September. I had bought it at our favourite independent hardware shop in town. It must be everybody's favourite shop as it has just won the town's award for best business. It had a plastic handle which screwed into the wooden brush head. I thought that it was a thrifty purchase as I could always just replace either the handle or the brush head when it was needed.

However, what happened was that children who used the broom often liked to stand on it and play horses, twisting the lightweight handle from side to side. Eventually the handle broke off with the screw part still screwed into the brush head. The handle was useless as there was no longer any way of attaching it to the brushed and the brushed was useless as there was no way of attaching a new handle to it.

Now if I had been super thrifty I expect that I would have asked Mr Shoestring to try and attach the pieces using super glue but I am afraid of the stuff and we didn't have any at home. So I decided to try and buy a whole new broom cheaper than the cost of the superglue.

I succeeded ! I didn't think that anyone would beat the little hardware store on price but a national chain called Robert Dyas did, by quite a bit. So I walked into town and bought 2 new brooms. One to use and one for a spare. I was so glad that I had researched price before I replaced the item. I more than a pound on each broom and these ones do not have plastic handles ! I hope they last at least a year !

Where do you buy household goods ?