Manual Shredders Vs. Electric Shredders: Which Way To Jump?

We all know about shredding our documentation on a regular basis these days, right? Even my gran rips everything to shreds before it goes in the recycling bin, and it's not as if she's paranoid or up to snuff with the ways and means of avoiding identity theft in these tricksy and fraudulent days. There can't be many private domestic homes, at this point, without a shredder in the corner of the living room, at minimum, and probably in the home office and a couple of bedrooms too. It isn't paranoia! It's just good sense and taking care of your paperwork!

But if you're still shredderless, and planning to remedy that, then how do you go about it? How best to choose which shredder to buy, out of the multiplicity on offer in any electronics store, supermarket or online shopping emporium? Of course, you can simply look at the rankings in review sites or magazines, or the number of stars a product has achieved in aggregate on a retail website. But before you can even do that, you must choose which type of shredder you're looking for. And there are a number of questions to answer: cross-cut or long strips? (Risky!) Luxury model or economy? And more fundamental than any other question: manual or electric?

When I first bought a shredder – oh, many moons ago, beloved – I never seriously considered getting a manual model, I confess. I didn't even check out reviews for manuals, I don't think – I simply assumed that an electric model would be so much more efficient, more powerful, would whip through a much greater volume of confidential documents and be a mountain less trouble than a manual.

Well. I didn't know everything, did I? I certainly didn't know about paper jams, and the gungey detritus that gets caught up in the teeth of an electric shredder if you're even a little bit carefless about how many sheets of paper you put through, or if there are still plastic windows left in window envelopes. I didn't know about overheating, or a shredder that, while not broken, simply decides it's too gunked up and hot and is going on strike for a few hours.

And now I have me a manual shredder, and I'm very happy with it, thank you. It never goes on strike! If it gunks up I can easily and safely de-gunk it with a pair of tweezers! And you know what, it couldn't be cheaper to run...