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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, - bla

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.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  Ha, moved from the US to Finland 2 years ago myself, we could be twins down to the phone. The deciding factor for me picking up a ruggedized Nokia XR20 was because I said to myself "all I do on this think is Anki, Spotify and social media, so I might as well get an indestructible one if I have to get a new one at all."
- jet_32951 3y ago
  In the US the calculus for cheap tools is "cheap Chinese chainsaw, $120; ER (emergency room) visit, $3750."
  - ericpauley 3y ago
    Agreed. I often lean towards getting cheaper products if they’ll do, but that logic has a hard stop when something is safety-critical.
  - KronisLV 3y ago
    > In the US the calculus for cheap tools is "cheap Chinese chainsaw, $120; ER (emergency room) visit, $3750." The healthcare costs are indeed unfortunate, but personally I can't think of many things that would be so dangerous about chainsaws. Kickback will happen with every saw, the chain brake should be tested before every run anyways. A 50cc single cylinder engine doesn't feel like it'd be too dangerous to be around, especially with the rest of the chainsaw body around it. Maybe the chain wouldn't be too good and people would tension it too much, or perhaps it could come apart or something. Even then, PPE that you're wearing would generally make you safer. Realistically, at most it won't last you a decade and signs of wear will become apparent a bit earlier. Regardless, I get your point and thank you for making it!

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.

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
Ha, moved from the US to Finland 2 years ago myself, we could be twins down to the phone. The deciding factor for me picking up a ruggedized Nokia XR20 was because I said to myself "all I do on this think is Anki, Spotify and social media, so I might as well get an indestructible one if I have to get a new one at all."
jet_32951 3y ago
In the US the calculus for cheap tools is "cheap Chinese chainsaw, $120; ER (emergency room) visit, $3750."
- ericpauley 3y ago
  Agreed. I often lean towards getting cheaper products if they’ll do, but that logic has a hard stop when something is safety-critical.
- KronisLV 3y ago
  > In the US the calculus for cheap tools is "cheap Chinese chainsaw, $120; ER (emergency room) visit, $3750." The healthcare costs are indeed unfortunate, but personally I can't think of many things that would be so dangerous about chainsaws. Kickback will happen with every saw, the chain brake should be tested before every run anyways. A 50cc single cylinder engine doesn't feel like it'd be too dangerous to be around, especially with the rest of the chainsaw body around it. Maybe the chain wouldn't be too good and people would tension it too much, or perhaps it could come apart or something. Even then, PPE that you're wearing would generally make you safer. Realistically, at most it won't last you a decade and signs of wear will become apparent a bit earlier. Regardless, I get your point and thank you for making it!