23 ms·

Buy well, buy once

• gpspake 3y ago
  I like the idea of cataloging all my possessions. It seems like a nice way to put that particular necessity of life (owning things) in a box that can be neatly put away when you don't want to think about it and quantify/measure it in a way that lets you manage it (I don't want to own 200 things, etc). It also seems like it would be helpful for legal situations like a manifest for a house fire or a will.
  • bombcar 3y ago
    You can also catalog when you use something - many things we own are once a month or year items - and some can be replaced with a rental or hiring out.
  • senkora 3y ago
    This is something I like about backpacking / camping. I make a mini-list of everything I bring with me, consider each item, and then know exactly what I have as I set off. Doing it for all my possessions is probably too hard.
  • nextos 3y ago
    I've done this, and it's very liberating. Basically, all things I own, including consumables, fit inside a small Org file. It's less than 100 items. I went this route because I wanted to emphasize some good habits, and de-emphasize things that I considered less valuable. The process I went through was basically thinking about my core habits, mapping said habits to some objects, and then thinking about extra objects to support those habits. After that, I slowly started purchasing what I needed. Timing was great, because I sync'd that with moving countries. I spent some effort thinking about quality of individual purchases, and I ended up with a very minimal home, which is also great for maintenance.
    • bombela 3y ago
      Something I am curious about. Does this list would include tools and all the thousands of parts and pieces one accumulates over the year when hobbying around?
      • nextos 3y ago
        I relocated and I no longer have any hobbies that involve tools. For a different lifestyle, this list would be much longer and that is fine. There is nothing special about having just 100 items.
        • nvy 3y ago
          >There is nothing special about having just 100 items. Depending on where you are located geographically there may very well be something special. I live in the PNW and I bet if I counted all my forks, spoons, coffee cups, pots and pans, etc., I'd have more than 100 items right there, to say nothing about my tool chest. Between my home office and my wife's purse I probably have 100 pens and pencils around the house. To own a grand total of 100 items would be extremely spartan for just about anyone around here.
          • nextos 3y ago
            I meant it's nothing to brag about. I agree that in many situations, it'd be inconvenient to own so few items as it'd leave you unprepared for e.g. emergencies. But if you are renting a condo downtown, as it was my case, you may want to trim down your possessions as much as possible. Nonetheless, I think people tend to own too much stuff and this prevents focusing on what actually matters, it's a bit like with bloated software.
            • nvy 3y ago
              >Nonetheless, I think people tend to own too much stuff and this prevents focusing on what actually matters On this I agree with you wholeheartedly. It's very easy to accumulate cruft that one "might need later". I have a whole toolbox full of that shit. I might actually need a bunch of random capacitors, who knows?
  • throwmeaway1212 3y ago
    related useful post about insurance and keeping track of your possessions https://www.reddit.com/r/Tennessee/comments/fdju8r/cookeville_putnam_county_tornado_relief_fund_info/fjkkdtf/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Tennessee/comments/fdju8r/cookevill...
    • skeeter2020 3y ago
      My Hack: For insurance don't try and catalog everything in a spreadsheet or such; you're prematurely optimizing for a rare event that hopefully will never happen, you'll miss stuff or forget important details and it's impossible to keep it up to date. Once a year walk through every room in your house with a video camera, openning all drawers and closets and record it all. Drop your 20-plus gigs of high-dev video somewhere (I use AWS glacier for pennies a month) and then IF you ever need to, you can painfully go through it and catalog everything.
• deleted 3y ago
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• crazygringo 3y ago
  > I even keep a record of all my worldly possessions in a visual catalogue spreadsheet on Airtable. 192 items at my last count. > I don't count hoodies, t-shirts, socks or usb cables but I really don't own many. I count a pair of shoes in a box as 1 item. Huh? Either you're counting things or you're not. Saying you own 192 items except for the 800 (?) you're not counting doesn't make a lot of sense. Why are shoes an item but socks aren't? 192 makes no sense to me. I've probably got 192 items in my kitchen alone, just from wanting to be able to cook and serve a meal for 4 people because it's nice to eat with friends. A fork is a worldly possession, after all.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • bombcar 3y ago
    I have two items because I count my house as one and my car as the other.
    • hanniabu 3y ago
      You also have keys to each so that's at least 4 items, and then your clothes and computer, i'm sure you have soap and toothbrush and toothpaste, and hopefully you have toilet paper and a bed, and having a bed means you likely have a pillow, pillow cover, sheet, blanket, and mattress, etc
      • bombcar 3y ago
        I count all those as parts of the above! (Counting owned items can get entirely silly).
        • Ryoung27 3y ago
          I don't own anything at all, but my wife sure does have a lot of stuff I use often that she never uses, and happen to be in a men's large.
• sufficer 3y ago
  Thought the saying was buy it nice or buy it twice
  • nimish 3y ago
    "Buy once cry once"
    • SantalBlush 3y ago
      I've also heard "I'm too poor to be cheap."
      • mildchalupa 3y ago
        Honestly it's a fair point. For me it's I don't have enough time to be cheap.
    • bradenb 3y ago
      This is the one I always use. Especially popular in the overlanding world which is fitting because everything is so overpriced.
  • nicbou 3y ago
    I'd rather risk it once and splurge the second time if that item felt important. I have plenty of cheap tools that last.
• throwaway22032 3y ago
  This article, and people posting in this thread are saying that they own 100 or 200 things. I can't believe this at all. My utility room, which basically just has stuff like cleaning products and rags/cloths etc, has more than 200 items in it. It's all useful, we're talking things like bleach, deodorant, shampoo, handwash, etc. My house probably has 50 or more pieces of art on the walls and then another 50 pieces of furniture. My computery odds and ends bin easily has more than 200 items in it. Either you guys are all just-moved-out kids, single and living in a single room, or we're defining "thing" differently. Which is it?
  • pacifika 3y ago
    I think your house must be a bit bigger than most people, based on 50 pieces of art, compared to a minimalist living in a rented 2 bedroom apartment
    • throwaway22032 3y ago
      It sounds like the entire distinction is just renting vs owning to be honest, which makes it all a bit more boring. My house is a fairly normal sized house, there are millions of it in the UK.
  • FalconSensei 3y ago
    exactly. If you just count cutlery, dishes, pans, cleaning products, chargers, cables, etc... it goes up way too fast.
  • thfuran 3y ago
    No kidding. If you own 100 items, a made bed is like 10% of your belongings. That's nonsense.
  • lifeformed 3y ago
    Everything else is in their parents' basement.
  • rootsudo 3y ago
    "Either you guys are all just-moved-out kids, single and living in a single room, or we're defining "thing" differently. Which is it?" It's just a different lifestyle, there are obvious exceptions to it - but I was there once with a house and countless things - most of them I forgot I had and such. The idea is to do inventory and then catalog and see what you need and don't need. But no, I can say with assurance my life right now is basically two suitcases, by choice - and airbnbs/hotels. 20 lb of clothes/about 80 pieces total. Misc electronic stuff takes a ton of space, spare usb - chargers, usb cables, etc - having spares for spares.
• s5300 3y ago
  Things I have bought well and once: Vitamix 5300 - going strong after 13 years of near daily usage, 4 family blenders from department stores failed/poor quality blending before this Zojirushi Rice Cooker - also close to 13 years, usage of a few times a week Breville Burr Grinder - decade or a bit older, frequently used Sonicare Toothbrush - $150ish or so model, probably 8 years of near twice daily usage. Presume I’ll have to change the battery sooner or later, but fine aside from that. Being from poverty, I don’t think anybody in my family prior to me had ever spent nearly this much money on singular appliances. Having made the money spent on them on my own in my early teens, I consider it money very well spent - they’ve been with me in the Midwest, to the East Coast, and the West Coast (and through more than a few TSA baggage scans with people maybe wondering why is a young male flying with this kitchen equipment)
  • 22c 3y ago
    Sadly, my Diamond Sonicare toothbrush failed after just over 2 years. I spent several weeks back and forth with Philips. Initially they offered me 10% off buying a new one, which I was not happy with having spent so much on a top of the line model. I asked about the possibility of repair, they forwarded me the details of several local certified Philips repairers who, when I rang, all said they only really repair TVs or large consumer electronics devices and have no idea where to even start with repairing an electric toothbrush. I contacted Philips again and explained that nobody is able to repair it, they again offered me 10% off a new one (which I'd have to buy through the official web store, which is already more expensive than a retail store) which I declined, they sent me details of a repair shop in a completely different state. I rang that repair shop and explained in detail the entire story, they were empathetic but also said they have no idea how they'd repair a toothbrush or even why Philips would suggest I send it there. I'd say you got lucky with your Sonicare, and based on the runaround they gave me, poor customer service and poor serviceability, I would not recommend anyone buy an expensive Sonicare unless they're made of money and don't care about the possibility of having to replace it within a few years.
  • cactusplant7374 3y ago
    I was disappointed to learn Vitamix and Instant Pot aren’t dual voltage compatible. Can’t use them in Europe. So basically only low wattage stuff is 120 and 220 volts.
• deleted 3y ago
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• pers0n 3y ago
  I’ve noticed some minimalists go to the extremes of limiting items based on numbers. In a way it’s a bit of a luxury. Many people keep items or leftover stuff (one time use tools or extra glue, etc) because it saves money and time from having to drive to the store or order it online again incase they need it again. Those just incase items build up but they can end up being handy. As someone that’s moved every year for like 6 yrs in a row, I sell about 95% stuff I don’t use but I still have a lot of things just in case that take up little space in junk drawer, etc. I think focusing on what you like and enjoy is better. Putting a hard round number on items is too much of a mental waste of time
  • duxup 3y ago
    The few hard core minimalists I’ve met are single, get paid well enough to buy whatever they wish… and their parents are all holding their old stuff at home. All extra luxuries that enable them to live minimalist type lifestyles, but it’s not quite the whole story.
    • nonethewiser 3y ago
      I think its a bit different. When you can buy whatever you want, you realize stuff doesn’t really improve your life.
      • ip26 3y ago
        However, not having to drive to Home Depot every single time you need a screwdriver does. As does having more than one bowl.
        • mildchalupa 3y ago
          That's the spirit. Everything is a single use item if you are rich enough.
      • duxup 3y ago
        You also can discard things easier… knowing they can be had at will later.
• duxup 3y ago
  I have trouble keeping up with the minimalist type lifestyles. I don’t necessarily buy into many of their numbers (in this article we count things… except when we don’t), and I have trouble with the “buy it for life” type groups too. The latter groups surface goals I like but I find a lot of times they’re just interested in paying more for what are effectively pseudo luxury brands or strange ideas that because it is made of metal it will last longer…. but little in the way of anyone actually using the items much. It’s frustrating as I like the gist of the ideas but the folks practicing that I find on the internet seem off / miss the target IMO.
  • replygirl 3y ago
    Buying plastic and MDF everything because the minimalists are in the pocket of Big Steel.
  • kandel 3y ago
    My gramps will once a while gather a bunch of stuff in the house and throw it out. He always has great fun doing it he loves it lol.
• sundvor 3y ago
  Amen. Not exactly a minimalist thing this, but more about sourcing quality to "buy once": Rotel multi channel sound system (amp and pre amp) from 1997 here, still going strong with one repair five-ten years in, along with Infinity Kappa speakers from the same time - their surrounds replaced once, a decade ago. Amazing sound, I love how it feels. Where it loses most is connectivity. Amps use DB25 cables both between each other and for input, so the audio cable I've got hooked up to the HTPC's Xonar Deluxe with RCAs out is a very special one indeed - I'm amazed I found it at all, all those years ago (DB25-RCA). All audio has to go through the HTPC, for that reason, so the Samsung 65" QLED from 6-7 years ago is just a dumb display (not a bad thing!). For longevity I rarely if ever power the equipment down; it's gotten a bit finicky to start the preamp after a power outage, but for now it's still coming back. I'll attempt to have it repaired prior to getting a replacement if it ever fails. Oh and the Win10 HTPC is a decade old at the core too, but I've updated it with a modern case, cooling and storage - works fantastic with a wireless Logitech keyboard. Speakerbits in Melbourne who did my surrounds (they had all disintegrated) has ceased to exist now, but they did a stellar job - guy said the speakers had appreciated since my purchase, as decent mid range speakers just didn't exist anymore, it was either low end (rubbish) or the extreme high end.
  • rpearl 3y ago
    I respect using that stuff for a while (my amp is about 12 years old but I'm upgrading this year). Stick with what you have if it sounds good to you, but I do feel the need to point out two things: There have been significant improvements in room correction DSP algorithms particularly in the last decade. You don't need to ditch your amp to add these, there are DSP boxes you can put in the preamp stage. These will improve sound quality considerably. Audyssey, Dirac, and Anthem ARC are common names; there are others. And there are a huge abundance of speakers in the mid range $200-$600 that are absolutely fantastic; it's a pretty wide market segment. There's plenty of old options too, but... it's not hard to find a new set of speakers capable of great sound at a decent price these days. I don't know what exactly Speakerbits was implying, but it's not true now.
    • sundvor 3y ago
• jrflowers 3y ago
  I enjoyed this article about the minimalist man getting two minimally useful extra wallets.
  • replygirl 3y ago
    Mostly single-stitched and with unfinished edges to boot
  • mberning 3y ago
    Therein is the kernel of every hoarder pathology, which is ironic. “This is too <whatever> to get rid of!” Wrong. Throw it away and don’t replace it.
    • notatoad 3y ago
      or if throwing it away makes you feel bad, give it away. either it finds its way to somebody who will value it, or somebody will throw it out for you. either way is a win.
      • nebula8804 3y ago
        Giving it away has now haunted me. Father passed away two years ago and a bunch of computing equipment he bought for me had been donated years before he had passed when it was worth very little. Now in this post covid era all of those things are 'vintage' and super expensive. I have tracked down some of the original equipment through the people I originally gave it to but it has not really been possible to get those things back. Yes I was a mild hoarder aspiring minimalist before but now I have become a full on hoarder. I desperately do extreme organizing in places like my basement to be able to contain so much of the stuff I have. I don't really know how to reconcile this fear of losing something for good. A fellow hacker at VCF once mentioned to me that this obsession that many geeks have should graduate into letting go of items because down the road you can always buy another one if it scratches your itch again. He made a good point.
        • Fr0styMatt88 3y ago
• 0x53 3y ago
  I would love to be a minimalist. Unfortunately I have a wife who is the opposite of that and a woodworking hobby.
  • 2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
    Hobbies are a great reason to accumulate stuff though. You can’t get good at stuff if you have nothing or need to hire gear all the time.
• eep_social 3y ago
  They had me with the title but the content reads like an elder-millennial whose conversational voice got inescapably stuck in memes and referral links.
  • nocoiner 3y ago
    I loved the faux naïveté. “I can’t believe I’m getting a ~surprise~ package in the mail from the guy who recycles leather just two weeks after I sent him a passel of recycled leather totally out of the goodness of my heart!”
• rdoherty 3y ago
  Reminds me of https://buymeonce.com/ https://buymeonce.com/ . If this kind of thing interests you, check it out.
• subjectsigma 3y ago
  I might have over 100 physical paper books. I know I have well over 100 computer parts and accessories (including cables, adapters, extra hard drives, USB drives, game controllers, webcams, old CPU fans, PCIe cards, etc) I don’t think I’m making it to less than 500 items total. Maybe not even less than 1K. I also don’t see anything wrong with that.
• dhosek 3y ago
  I’m in the midst of a life transition and I’ve found that it’s a good opportunity to do some culling. I’m fine with some extravagances (I have probably about 1500 books, of which I’ve cataloged 1,166 on LibraryThing (my transition has paused cataloging activity as my library is mostly living in boxes now and part of the cataloging is shelving everything by Library of Congress call number). On the flip side, I have a very well-defined wardrobe now, with 9 long sleeve shirt, 9 short sleeve shirts, 4 pairs of trousers, 10 pairs of socks and 10 pairs of underwear (I make a point of doing laundry once a week, the more than 7 of everything allows me to occasionally let laundry day slip a little). I have a complete list of all the furniture in the house, which is going to end up being reduced somewhat. I don’t know that I’ll be down to 200 items (excluding books), but I think that once I’ve finished my transition, I will be definitely much more deliberate about what I allow into my home.
  • ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    A ways ago I started sliding towards DRM free digital books. They take up much less hoarding space.
    • cookie_monsta 3y ago
      I like the way a bookshelf looks on a wall. I like that friends can browse and discuss and borrow. I like looking at book titles and thinking about when I bought them or how I felt when I read them. An e-reader is amazing for travel, but doesn't give you any of the above.
      • dhosek 3y ago
        Pretty much that. My bookshelves are not merely a collection of books, but they’re also an expression of myself. Many of the books I have, I can tell you where, when and why I bought them. Even books that I’ve let go for the sake of space still carry that memory with them. Not to mention that many of the books I own are not available as ebooks and likely never will be (a lot of my collection veers towards the esoteric and specialized).
      • 3y ago
• charlie0 3y ago
  I like the concept, but this reeks of native advertising.
  • Ryoung27 3y ago
    Agreed, it just comes off as really odd. They don't want random stuff, but now they all of a sudden have two random wallets that they are grateful to have. While they "luckily" have a blog where they can thank the random stranger they sent their old leather to, who happened to take their time to handcraft them new objects out of it. It just seems too coincidental, and I don't believe that would ever happen to someone without advertising potential.
• mberning 3y ago
  In a way I admire committed minimalists. But I often wonder what their long term lifestyle is like. Surely many of them are single (or they only count the items which are solely theirs). They surely rent at a higher rate than own property. They surely own vehicles at a lower rate. And so on. I just get this picture of a person in an urban area, living alone in a studio apartment, dependent upon everyone else for basically everything.
  • dublinben 3y ago
    I’m fond of the conspiracy theory that the rise of minimalism is actually propaganda to placate Millennials who can’t afford the same level of material comfort as their parents and other earlier generations enjoyed.
    • digdugdirk 3y ago
      Or a conscious choice to live an alternative lifestyle to their parents. Seeing an unattainable future and choosing a separate path.
    • tnel77 3y ago
      Same with having children. “I don’t even want kids. They are needy, expensive, and tie you down.” All true, but having kids was never a choice for you given your financial situation so let’s not pretend you had a say in the matter.
      • xyzelement 3y ago
        I agree with you but I don't think it's a financial thing but a psychological/maturity thing. People have kids at all income levels. For every one who claims they can't afford kids - someone is raising a family on that same income.
        • est31 3y ago
          Yes but one of the most common desires is that you want your children to have a better childhood and life than yourself. Some people don't care or don't explicitly make the choice to get children, they just get them. But some people won't get children if they can't provide an environment that is at least as good as the one their parents provided to them.
• sagarkamat 3y ago
  My relationship to stuff is at a weird point. I've watched a bit too many documentaries about impact of overproduction on our world to a level where I tend to over analyze and over scrutinize every purchase, probably to unhealthy levels. I tend to use objects i have to the point they become unusable, trying to get their full worth. But at the same time, I've realized that buying the best of everything every time is not the best way to go. Sometimes your taste changes but the object still is in a great condition with no other takers. So you're stuck with something you don't like anymore. A good compromise seems to be buying the cheap version of everything the first time around. That way if you don't use it as much, you haven't spent a lot of money on it. And if you do it use it, the cheap stuff will wear out sooner and you can replace it with better made stuff.
  • nicbou 3y ago
    Buy used. You pay less and nothing gets produced. I have the same obsession as you and this is how I reconcile with it. If I'm not ready to meet someone across town I probably don't need it.
    • Gigachad 3y ago
      Buying used has become a huge pain. The platforms are absolutely full of scammers and time wasters, the items are either overpriced or immediately purchased by flippers, and they often aren’t very accessible without owning a car. I prefer to just buy new, where I can have stuff delivered, and then use it until it’s completely worn out or obsolete.
      • v-erne 3y ago
        Depnends on the item I suppose - half of my small board game collection (100+ titles) is used games bought from local eBay equivalent. And almost all of them were in perfect condition but half the price.
        • nicbou 3y ago
          Same! I paid 5-10€ each and slowly acquired most of the Spiel des Jahres winners. You can often find near-new Apple products and great tools at a steep discount too.
• paradite 3y ago
  Quite similar to this post which appears on HN often: https://dcurt.is/the-best https://dcurt.is/the-best
• emodendroket 3y ago
  I vacillate on this a lot. On one hand, yes, it's nice to have well-designed items that last decades or a lifetime. And obviously we're awash in disposable goods at great environmental cost. On the other, who hasn't been burned by buying a garment "for life" that no longer fits, no longer appeals to us, or otherwise gets rendered unusable? Or buying a beautiful, premium tool that only sees one or two uses? Or having an item that by all rights should have been disposable last for years of regular use?
  • aardvarkr 3y ago
    For the tool conundrum, I’ve found that the best course of action is to buy the cheapest option (within reason) to start with. If you don’t use it, no sweat, it was cheap. On the other hand, if you use it soo much that it breaks it you outgrow it then you get to buy the best version of that tool. At that point you know what you like and don’t like, as well as what’s worth paying extra for, so you end up with the perfect tool for you.
    • emodendroket 3y ago
      Yes, this is a commonly recommended strategy. But you do run the risk of being stuck with an unsatisfying but functional tool you feel guilty getting rid of, and even in the best case, who feels good about having bought a lousy tool that breaks? I tend to go with a bit of a sliding scale based on factors like "how often do I expect to use it?" and "how afraid am I of it injuring me?"
    • nbernard 3y ago
      On the other hand, you risk considering a whole tool class as not very useful, when actually it is just that the one you own is crap...
    • oh_sigh 3y ago
      A better idea might just be to ask a neighbor to borrow their tool. Or subscribe to a tool library which may be near you.
    • peteradio 3y ago
• edgarvaldes 3y ago
  Unrelated, but anyone know a good desktop program for home inventory? No webapp, no mobile app.
• leipert 3y ago
  My grandma always says: “We are too poor to buy twice”.
• pygar 3y ago
  personally I "buy mid-range, and replace when it breaks". Not obsessing over your possessions is freeing.
• xyzzy123 3y ago
  Maxi checking in. I have racks of labelled drawers full of bearings, screws, glues, specialty tapes, oodles of hand tools, power tools, ad infinitum. I'm honestly not super competent or anything (I barely know what I'm doing, in any domain) but I do learn new things all the time and it brings me joy. I miss the clarity of minimalism, but I can also have a different view on wallets - they're just leather and some stitching and such, and I can change them to be what I need. Of course it's a very particular type of programmer disease to fixate on having equipment that can compile any possible wallet to solve the problem of having a wallet. I get a kick out of dumb stuff like fixing the dishwasher latch by bending a new spring rather than getting the $70 replacement part (... probably spending $100 of my labour, good thing my free time is worthless!). I spend a lot on storage systems and need a lot of discipline around stuff like deciding a place for things before acquiring them. It's a tradeoff I'm OK with.
  • 0xr0kk3r 3y ago
    "rather than getting the $70 replacement part" Appliance repair usually starts at a $100 house-call fee and goes up from there. It is cheaper to buy a new dishwasher than get it repaired.
    • Blackthorn 3y ago
      The person is talking about buying the part and installing it themselves, not paying someone to come repair it for them.
    • Thorrez 3y ago
      When I moved into my apartment, the racks in the dishwasher were badly rusted. I told the management. They replaced the entire dishwasher. They said they couldn't get a replacement rack.
      • throw0101b 3y ago
        > They replaced the entire dishwasher. They said they couldn't get a replacement rack. What are the margins on replacement racks? Someone would have to pay for warehousing, stock tracking, employees for packing/shipping, then add shipping costs. Why would anyone offer them?
• kccqzy 3y ago
  I find that wallets are easy to buy once. The last wallet I bought was from 2016, made from leather, able to holding quite a few bit of cash and cards while maintaining slimness. I can't foresee needing another wallet until it broke, but it still hasn't broken from daily use since 2016.
  • seydor 3y ago
    phone flip cases are great wallets. + less things to worry about
• stormdennis 3y ago
  Sometimes buying well means buying cheap. I buy cheap DIY tools. They're good enough for me as a hobbyist. But if I were a professional they be a bad buy. For one, with constant use, they'd wear out too quickly. Secondly while I can do accurate cuts on my £100 tablesaw, for example, each cut requires more setting up time, than on a quality saw with an accurate fence.
• 0xr0kk3r 3y ago
  Wow. Cohelo quotes on a page about hand made wallets and how to be a savvy capitalist. So many generations' movements colliding here I can't even.
  • Sugimot0 3y ago
    Yeah the only reason "buy well, buy once" needs to be said is because production has been consumed by corner-cutting and planned obsolescence to serve capitalists and keep us on the hamster wheel spending our measly cut on the latest disposable.
• Havoc 3y ago
  There is a balance there too though. e.g. I was looking at multimeters. Much googling later I determined that the Fluke brand ones are the best and "last for life" type buy. Nearly spent 200+ on one 2nd hand via ebay auction. After a while sanity prevailed and I got an amazon brand one for a 1/4. Does the job too and I use it so seldomly (soldering DIY sht) that I'm glad I didn't spend more.
  • pahae 3y ago
    Yeah, I think many "buy it for life" items are generally only sensible if you depend on them either for work, a somewhat regular hobby, or for everyday use. Sometimes it almost hurts me to buy cheap junk. But then I also realize that this is perfectly adequate for my use cases and even $10 more for another product would not be worth it. (And who says that the other product would really be better?).
• Panushkin 3y ago
  Yeah i still drive my 86 plymouth horizon. Gets me to work on 60 bucks for the month.Bloody thing will outlast me if i have anything to say about it.Plus it has a good radio 8)
• pwpw 3y ago
  An observation I have made of my grandparents, who certainly had a bit of money, is everything they own is high quality and has lasted them years. My grandfather still has his Hickey Freeman suits and sports coats tailored and repaired by a local menswear shop. Their Dualit toaster still works while I have personally gone through many Cuisinart toasters. Their technics AV components still work with their high quality speakers. Their Sony Trinitron TVs still work. Their pots and pans from their wedding are still in active use. Their Pyrex continues to store leftovers decades on. I am currently using the Minolta film camera and lens that my grandfather bought in the 80s for traveling around the world with. When I go to their home, I am always in awe of the high quality objects that still function perfectly fine and can all be passed down. When I look at many of the things my parents own and most of the things I own, I see less and less of that. Our clothes are cheaper. Our pans less resilient. Our technology is less repairable. Buying well certainly leads to a longer lifespan for objects. However, I find that’s becoming tougher and tougher to find these days.
  • csunbird 3y ago
    As my father said: We are too poor to buy cheap stuff.
    • antongribok 3y ago
      My father said: We're not rich enough to by cheap things. I wonder if the original saying has been translated multiple times before getting to English.
    • ConroyBumpus 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
      • UncleMeat 3y ago
        A nice theory, but ultimately from a novel about something completely different than poverty. It feels today like expensive things are also garbage and that paying more for something does little to ensure its longevity.
• irrational 3y ago
  > I struggle to understand how or why there are 300,000 items in the average American home It would be interesting to count everything in our home. The author says they don’t count clothing, but I wonder if the article includes clothing. I probably have 10,000 screws/bolts/nuts/washers/nails/etc. in the bins in my garage. Do I count all those separately? We have thousands of books. The kitchen has lots of dishes, silverware, pots, pans, trays, etc. Do we count all the food items separately? I have a 5 gallon bucket of all purpose flour, a 5 gallon bucket of wheat flour, bags of bread flour, a separate canister of flour on the countertop… do I count all of those separately? I start to think of all the things in the shed, in the garage, in closets, and bedrooms. 300,000 probably isn’t far off.
• jasonkester 3y ago
  I'm a bit of a recovering minimalist, though it was never really a choice to become one. I spent the better part of 15 years living out of a small backpack, travelling ~9 months a year then flying home to work short software contracts and save up for the next trip. As a consequence, I got used to not having very many things. One pair of pants, one pair of shorts, that sort of thing. I think my policy was something like "If I haven't used this thing in the last 3 days, I don't really need it along". At one point, I revisited my storage locker, filled to the roof with everything I had owned in my 20s, and couldn't really find anything that I wanted to take out of it. "This isn't the shirt I wear", and "I already have enough socks" (meaning four socks: 2 on my feet and another pair for when I wash these.) I ended up just letting the storage company auction it all off. It was really weird buying a house and starting to fill it with things. I bought a couch and a TV. I got my old guitar back from the friend I'd lent it to 20 years earlier, then eventually bought a second one and a bass to go with it. It's actually kinda nice to have a few possessions. The attitude is still there though. At one point I had to buy five iPhones in a single day as test machines for a job, and it was all I could do to physically force myself to click the buy button. It was like fighting every natural impulse in my body to overcome my aversion to consumerism. I guess it has left me in a healthy spot in regard to "stuff ownership."
  • icoder 3y ago
    I find the thought of minimalism interesting, and we don't buy endless crap and try to get rid of things every now and then, but then again, if it's Christmas we've got a few boxes with decorations, if I go camping we've got our tent/mats/fridge/etc, when I go snowboarding I have clothes and my own board. Also I have hobbies that require stuff. And so on. I don't want to give up on these activities and I don't want to make them into a nightmare collecting/arranging everything each time. And on top of that, now we have a kid ;)
• t0bia_s 3y ago
  This is the way. I love repairing stuffs and feel little bit nervous if using something that I know is not repairable or dont understand, how it works. Of course quality over quantity is more sustainable. Corporations needs to understand this. Trying to be more green or diverse wont help with overproduction of cheap, non quality stuffs. If market offers new stuff cheaper that fixing existing one, something is realy wrong. And I guess we can feel it right now.
• Tade0 3y ago
  I'm afraid I'm not the target audience, so I can't say anything about this piece. But I've seen actual minimalists and they're nothing like an urbanite living in an all-white studio apartment. They're tightly-knit circles of friends livig in small towns who go way back and therefore can trust each other with their property and, of course, save money in the process because none of them does it just for minimalism's sake. Bottom line is if you want both minimalism and individualism, you're gonna spend a lot of money on services rendered by strangers.
• martyvis 3y ago
  I have bought a number of pairs of pliers over the years. Some are quite serviceable but the worst were the adjustable multigrips (also sometimes called water pump pliers). They pinch as they slipped out of the grooves - just horrible. And then I was watching a youtuber describing 10 tools to throw out. One was cheap multigrips, but he showed a wonderful replacement - Knipex Cobras. I bought two of them in different sizes.They are just wonderfully engineered - German of course - they literally can't slip , properly adjustable to maintain parallel jaws, they even demonstrate you standing on the handles under load. I ended up buying their electrical pliers and side cutters as well. All heirloom quality.
  • morsch 3y ago
    I bought a pair of Knipex pliers after reading a similar comment. Turns out I don't need pliers.
• asimpletune 3y ago
  Part of this too is the cultural infrastructure available to you. I have moved from the USA to Europe, and one thing I found surprising that’s normal here was access to artisans at reasonable prices, sometimes even lower than the mass-consumer price in the USA. As an example, I needed to take some basketball shoes down a size. If you look up insoles on Amazon, they’re about $20 (which is insane). On the other hand where I live there was a cobbler that did the work for less.
• fuzztester 3y ago
  There's a Hindi proverb I heard as a kid from adult friends and relatives: Mehngaa roye ek baar, sastaa roye sattar baar Meaning, literally: Expensive, cry once; cheap, cry seventy times.
• hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  I'm not a fan of buying it once. I prefer buying on feedback. Here's my daily wardrobe: - an oversized plain black T shirt, - a pair of jeans, - a belt, - black socks, - and a pair of boxer briefs. I wear these almost every day. Every single one of these items is cheap enough to buy in bulk whenever I want them. So: If I ever walk into my closet and find myself missing any one of these items due to them all being in the laundry, I immediately 1. Take out my phone and 2. Order another pack of them on Amazon. The beauty of this feedback loop is that I very quickly converge on the point where my buffer matches my flow, where my natural cadence of laundry-doing never leaves me without one of these five essentials. It works regardless of whether I do laundry once a week or once a month, so long as I make sure to do all of it. Worst case scenario, I have a few shirts/pants/boxers/socks/belts that mostly lie around unused, until of course I eventually have to throw out old shirts/pants/boxers/socks/belts because they were used heavily enough to wear down.
  • KronisLV 3y ago
    > Every single one of these items is cheap enough to buy in bulk whenever I want them. I apply something like this to most of my purchases. If I am buying a new phone or some computer hardware, I want to be able to fit another replacement for what I'm about to buy into whatever my budget is. The same goes for clothes, tools for the garden like a tiller or a chainsaw or whatever. And you know what? It's a decent approach: I have a used Ryzen 5 1600 in my computer now (upgraded from Ryzen 3 1200), as well as an RX 570 (and a spare RX 580 for similar price, bought recently as new old stock), because under that reasoning that's all I can afford, yet it's all that I realistically need. Some spare HDDs (those die more than most other hardware) and a mobo and everything in the shelf next to it. If any one of those parts die like they have in the past, I don't have to cry about how expensive replacing everything will be, nor wait for shipping, just spend 30 minutes swapping out parts. As for longevity of various items: I don't quite buy it. Sure, there are also people with Stihl chainsaws that have lasted them decades, but why would I spend 5-10x more money, when I can get a new Chinese chainsaw for about 100 EUR that will be enough for all of my casual usage needs around the farm? And once it inevitably stops being useful, I can get a completely new one without a worn engine, while still having some spare parts for repairs. I can think of very few items where I'd want the latest or greatest, even my daily driver phone isn't top of the line and only stands out because of IP 68 and being shock proof (up to a degree, dropped it out of my pocket and on concrete while doing pull ups, didn't even crack the screen). Perhaps the only exception to this is something like services: dental care and other healthcare procedures, no reason to go cheap on either of those, but then again, I live in Europe so that's not a very contested subject for me due to the overall affordability. Still pondering these thoughts in regards to food, but store brand food is generally both affordable and reasonably healthy over here.
• EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
  Unfortunately, plastic cards are out these days, replaced by NFC, except in some technologically backward countries like US of America. These wallets also can't carry cash and are too thick and heavy. I use tyvec wallets for cash, they last ~two years but are really thin and weightless.
• fabiofumarola 3y ago
  A dear friend of mine always said “if you buy quality you cry only one time!”
• kwhitefoot 3y ago
  From reading the comments it seems that a lot of people are more interested in organizing their stuff than in enjoying their stuff whether they are minimalist or not.
• tajd 3y ago
  Sometimes I buy something cheap and then if I use it enough to break it I end up investing in a decent one. Another perspective on incremental delivery.
• Kiro 3y ago
  > You are either in your bed or in your shoes, so it pays to invest in both. Do you wear shoes inside?
• csiegert 3y ago
  You’d think if you pay more you get quality. I paid 280€ for the Microsoft Surface Headset 2 when they came out. After a year and a half, the plastic head band cracked in half. The part of the device that is stressed whenever I put the headset on or take it off was cheap plastic and just broke with regular use. 280€ down the drain because some MBA or stupid designer said hey let’s use cheap plastic.
• markus_zhang 3y ago
  Although the idea sounds intriguing, it doesn't really make a lot of sense in modern world. To "buy well", one has to understand every merchandise he is to make a purchase, but who has the capacity to do the research? And how do you do the research? For example, how do you know that two fridges, one $800 and one $2000, which one will last longer? Modern capitalism distorts price-quality equation so you cannot simply pick the more expensive ones. It really makes sense to just pick a brand you heard of, take a middle priced model, or what ever fits your need and go with it. And never places too much hope on it. Expect that home appliance will break in 5-7 years. Our fathers and grandfathers had the luxury of living in a different world. We don't. I guess the only saying that makes sense is: don't buy screwdrivers from dollar shops.
  • cookie_monsta 3y ago
    I don't think there are any universal roles. I would use a screwdriver maybe once or twice a year. Dollar shop ones seem fine for that
• olddustytrail 3y ago
  There's a UK company called "Buy Me Once" https://uk.buymeonce.com/ https://uk.buymeonce.com/ specialises in this. I've bought some stuff from them and it was always good.
• seydor 3y ago
  Nice, now please do the same thing about your phone. Oh you can't? Right because tech is actively trying to make you ditch your old phone. My last phone was great but can't fix the screen and the new model is worse, because they now want you to buy their earphones, and their watch, and soon their goggles.
  • weregiraffe 3y ago
    I used my last smartphone for 6 years, was completely satisfied and would have been using it still if I hadn't finally dropped it fatally into a stream.
• nerdchum 3y ago
  I think a lot of times this philosophy is just rich people justifying paying a lot for high status items. a pair of Crocs is 50 bucks and that's one of the highest quality pairs of shoes you'll buy for the price. you could buy 10 pairs of Crocs for a $500 pair of Alden's so even if the crocs only lasted a year, it would take a decade to recoup the investment on the Alden's. but the crocs don't have the same status that Alan Edmonds or Alden or Fiorentini does. Same thing with the G-Shock watch versus a Rolex. If you really want quality look at what middle class people are doing. Crocs, Kirkland, G-Shock, Corolla etc. All this stuff is top quality but rich people wouldn't be caught dead in them. Another thing rich people like to do is repurposing something completely trivial. This dude probably paid as much or close to shipping the shoes than a new wallet would have cost. This guy gets a feeling of satisfaction that they're making the world a better place by repurposing their shoes. Then they go to their job where they earn a lot of money defending companies who gave a small town cancer or a massive oil spill or wholesale invasion of privacy.
  • CPLX 3y ago
    Pretty on the nose. I think even more accurate is that quality/longevity and price are almost completely decoupled. Spending more doesn’t guarantee higher quality it mostly gets you exceptional graphic design and deftly nested packaging that makes you feel good when you open it. But it’s not like all the cheap stuff is better. A Rolex is an incredible engineering marvel and is in fact very high quality and durable. So are Festool tools, and so on. But like so is G-shock and a random and difficult to pin down subset of Harbor Freight. The broader point is that none of this really makes a fucking difference most of the discussion is just people preening about their choices instead of admitting it’s mostly a roll of the dice. And the old stuff wasn’t “better” it was just different. When I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s garages were full of shoddy junk from the 50’s and 60’s. That stuff is just all gone right now.
    • nerdchum 3y ago
      Yeah completely agree that price is decoupled from quality nowadays and it's pretty random. Price seems to be based a lot more on marketing and brand saturation than quality. And quality brands get bought up all the time and the new company will coast on the brand while outsourcing manufacturing to the lowest bidder. And you can't trust reviews with affiliate marketing around. So pretty much the only thing to do to identify quality is to experiment or share info with people you trust. I've wasted a ton of money on shitty products on the way to identifying quality products. I'm not even railing against status. I bought a pair of Alan Edmonds specifically for job interviews to signal status but I wear LL Bean shoes and Crocs the rest of the time. Also, there's other factors besides just durability and status. There's aesthetics, variable utility, ease of replacement, warranty availability, price, etc. I hate shopping so I think alot about this haha
• JansjoFromIkea 3y ago
  As someone who rents the main thing I’ve gained from this philosophy is that it’s way better to buy high quality used and resell for close to the same price than to pay cheaper and struggle to get rid of for free. Not sure how well the durability arguments with new products will hold up over decades like a 60s Braun product may have
• ajnin 3y ago
  Strange article. It is about an unrepairable pair of shoes that need to be recycled but its title is "Buy well, buy once". Not really the case, then ? Then he mentions that he has only 192 "worldly possessions". I'd like to see the actual list, because if it is accurate he mustn't have many forks or boxes of food in his cupboards. So he probably lives in a big city, eats out very often, takes public transportation, and basically relies on external services for things he does not have. Which is a kind of lifestyle that has a lot of externalities and does not really have a minimalist impact on society as a whole, so it feels less appealing to me. I'm rather in the opposite camp, if I have some fixing to do in my house, rather than call a plumber for example I'll buy the tools, learn by watching youtube videos of experts, and do it myself. Not because of a philosophical view of the world but because I like to learn skills and be self-reliant. My possessions also last a long time because I'm often able to repair them.
  • mailund 3y ago
    > So he probably lives in a big city, eats out very often, takes public transportation, and basically relies on external services for things he does not have. Which is a kind of lifestyle that has a lot of externalities and does not really have a minimalist impact on society as a whole, Not sure how living in a big city and taking public transit has more negative externalities than the alternatives, care to expand?
    • abnry 3y ago
      He didn't say they are negative, he said they are externalities. I've come to the same conclusion that minimalism is only supportable by other people not being minimalists. That's not necessarily a judgment on whether it is good or bad, but a statement of fact.
      • mailund 3y ago
        Maybe I can clarify, I felt there was an argument that living in a big city and using shared services (e.g. public transit) had a bigger impact than other alternatives. I was wondering what those alternatives that would be. I also feel it was implied that this impact was negative - or else it wouldn't be an argument against the post - but that's besides the point.
• ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  This is the Sam Vimes Boots Theory[0]. I think it's a good idea, but not always feasible. Also, the absolute top-of-the-line may not be reasonable, when a "near-the-top" product would be just as useful. I own a lot of stuff that doesn't really catch anyone's attention, but cost a fair bit. Examples are Junghans and Oceanus watches (I prefer the Oceanus, which cost half as much as the Junghans, but I now wear neither, as I have an Apple Watch, which costs less than either of them). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory#:~:text=The%20Sam%20Vimes%20%22Boots%22%20theory,run%20than%20more%20expensive%20items https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory#:~:text=The%20Sam....
• TrevorFSmith 3y ago
  My tiny workshop contains a greater number of hand tools than the number of items this guy owns. I suspect that the person who made the fancy shoes worked in a larger workshop. Not everyone types for a living.
• tgtweak 3y ago
  Spoken as someone living alone
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• justnotworthit 3y ago
  I don't think "buy well" is the proper response to "the things you own own you". The warning is about fetishization, not directly about "amount".
• fiznool 3y ago
  Try having kids. The amount of crap you will end up with, like it or not, will make you rethink your position in the world, and your house’s storage capabilities.
• robertsdionne 3y ago
  fcuk crocs
• fuzzfactor 3y ago
  In many ways you can't really be a consumer and a producer at the same time, you're mostly more of one than the other. It's so difficult to toe the line without leaning more one way than the other. For me I had the biggest abundance and greatest variety of elecronic components to perform repairs and hobbyist work when I had stockpiled kilos of discared circuit boards back when they were almost all still through-hole design. One man gathers what another man spills.
• hxii 3y ago
  I try and live according to a similar principle, albeit less "pretentious", as other people have labeled it. "Buy once, cry once" only works every so often, but I do stand by one thing: don't cheapen out on things that MATTER (for example safety or comfort). Generally speaking, the cheaper you go, the less a thing will last. In the end, everything is built/manufactured to meet a price target with the exception of things that are overpriced because brands, and it's important to learn to identify this.
• Pete-Codes 3y ago
  A great read! Awesome that James can turn a beloved pair of shoes into a wallet you can keep forever