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Our shredder keeled over a while back, and I figured we would wait until we could get a deal on a new one to replace it. In the meantime, we started piling up the things we needed to shred on a shelf. When we got a little stack, I took it in to work and slid it into the container that gets picked up for document destruction. (We’d already checked, and that was ok to do.)

After a couple of times of doing this, we began to see the benefits to not having a shredder: no need to spend the money to replace our old one, no need to empty it or vacuum up the little bits of confetti that spill onto the floor, no need to listen to the noise, no need to clean up after the cat knocks it over, no need to spend our time shredding, etc. At this point the only potential downside I can see to not having a shredder is that the document service may not recycle.

What is the point of all this? It pays (often literally) to question every purchase. Don’t assume that you need something just because you had it before. Figure out what the real need is, if there is one. In this case, we don’t need a shredder — we need to have identity-related information rendered unusable. Maybe we’ll continue dropping off papers at work, if they turn out to be recycled. Maybe taking a black marker to the identifying information would work as well. Maybe there are other alternatives. Maybe we’ll decide that we do want a shredder after all. But whatever we decide, it will be a considered decision.

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