I usually let my shredding build up and do it like every 2 or 3 months, and still it isn’t a ton of stuff. So I thought this little shredder would perfectly fulfill all of my shredding needs. It does paper, cards and CDs, and I got it on sale with a store coupon.

I only paid like 15 bucks, so I had saved over 50% off the original price. I have only used this shredder 5 or 6 times now, and it decides to be an a$$hole! I had my pile of stuff all ready, plugged in the shredder, put my first document in and NOTHING.

It wouldn’t do anything, so I tried a different outlet and again nothing would happen. Then I thought I should try pushing those little buttons between the outlets—nothing.

I figured this might be a Man-Job, so I summoned my Honey for assistance. I don’t know what I would do without him. Honey discovered a little piece of plastic on the inside where the actual shredder sits on the bucket-thing was broken. I believe he called it a “shredder interlock,” so out came the super glue.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t stay glued to the inside of the bucket; Honey ended up gluing it to the shredder itself where it would go when the shredder was sitting on the bucket. Yay! Nope—once working again the demonic shredder tripped the outlet or something. The shredder is broken, and has some kind of electrical problem and I got a pile of crap I need to shred.

My Available Options:

1) Contact the manufacturer and try to get a new shredder from them.

2) Throw it away and curse all shredders and start burning all of my stuff in the fireplace, which we don’t use and is blocked by our large TV. Or I could spend endless hours with a pair of scissors and try to be my own shredder.

3) Take it to Staples for their shredder trade-in program. It only works on shredders priced $149 and up, and would take 50 bucks off a new one. So, that would cost $99 at least for the new shredder. I could get it cheaper if I used a $10 off a $50 purchase coupon and waited until I got my Staples Reward from my free batteries. But still, that would cost around $75 or more.

4) Find another cheap shredder

I guess I will try to contact the manufacturer first, since I prefer to save money. Hopefully, they will replace it. If that doesn’t work, I’m not really sure what I will do.

UPDATE: Apparently writing up this post gave a push. I just sent them an email and asked them if they could replace it. We’ll see…. *crossing my fingers*

NEWEST UPDATE: No replacement for me. They said that because I purchased the shredder more than a year ago, I couldn’t get it replaced. They don’t care if I only used it 3 or 4 times (at most) in the last year. I was really hoping for a new one; I guess I’ll just try to avoid the same manufacturer for my next shredder.