The story of a bulky microwave

We all have at least one “little hidden heirloom” around the house that we keep because by now it “is part of our life”, without realising that it costs more to keep it than to no longer have it.

It makes me smile to think back to that damned microwave I had bought a few years earlier, an appliance that is by now as common as it is useful. Don’t get me wrong, I use it practically every day, but it had given rise to a bizarre situation that was causing me more stress than I was realising.

I had to buy a new kitchen because, having bought a house not long before, I needed one. I already had the microwave, paid a great deal for and still in excellent condition, and in the old house where I was renting I had set aside a place all of its own for it. I realised that in the new kitchen there was not the space needed to position it comfortably. I looked at the microwave and thought :“What a fool! I have no room in the new kitchen, even though the one I want to buy seems perfect in everything else!”

I spent a month looking for a more suitable kitchen, changing the quote already drawn up for the one I wanted to buy, and I even considered giving up other space I needed just to fit in those 60cm of microwave. The most obvious choice was, and turned out to be, to buy a smaller one. That’s right, spending more was what actually let me save.

“Sorry, but didn’t you say you bought another one? how is it possible that you saved money when you had to buy a new one?”

Exactly. Simply because buying a smaller microwave, better suited to the kitchen I was buying, was the cheaper choice: I did not have to sacrifice any more space from the configuration I had chosen, nor add anything that would raise the price of the made-to-measure kitchen itself.

It is not only a question of money, but also of personal time thrown away looking for a solution to a problem I could have solved simply by giving away or selling the old one and buying a smaller one, better suited to my needs.

Looking back at it now it makes me laugh, but that problem caused me more stress than I care to admit; if only I had kept a personal journal I would have recognised the mistake more easily (and without going round another 5 shops).

Having less is sometimes having much more: much more money to buy something of value, much more energy to enjoy what we already have and much more mental clarity to handle the problems we meet along our way.