Save money by avoiding hardware stores!

A few years ago when I was renting an apartment with my girlfriend (now wife), she accidentally dropped a bottle of perfume in the sink. This resulted in a massive crack down the middle of the inside of the basin. We had only moved in a couple of months and as this was our first time renting, we freaked out! 

Not the actual sink!

I phoned the landlord and explained what had happened, I asked him if he wanted to take care of it and be reimbursed or was he happy for me to pay for the replacement sink and installation. Being a middle aged stoner, he asked me to take care of it and keep him updated.

I then set about trying to figure out how much this was going to cost me, we didn't have a lot of money between us but we needed a sink so this needed to happen soon!

We went to the large hardware stores in our town with our measurements and had a look at similar sized white sinks. The sinks we found that matched the size we needed were €129 in one store or €230 in another. We didn't have enough for either so we had to put our thinking caps on.


I spoke to her uncle who knows about these things, and everything else. He gave me the address of a plumbing wholesalers not too far away. They would be open on Monday, as this was Saturday we spent a couple of days brushing our teeth in the kitchen sink!

Monday came about and I called to the plumbing wholesalers, gave them the measurements and the guy brought me out a sink they had in the stock room. It matched perfectly and was nearly the exact same as the sink in the large hardware store.

"How much do you want for it?" said poor feeble me....

"€35, that okay?" said my new best friend.

So I left there with my new sink and a tube of silicon for less than €40.

The next day I fitted the sink with my future father in law. 

Job done!