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The most sinister is an almost inescapable one, where companies intentionally build things (larger appliances are a huge offender) to fail within 3 to 5 years.
It's the "a poor man can't afford cheap shoes" thing.
They love to "sell" this concept that making items cheaper means consumers can more frequently replace as their styles change. Fuck you, give me a white fridge that never breaks, I don't care if I have to pay double up front.
I realized this was a significant part of my expenses about a decade ago now, and started researching and budgeting for higher-quality products that don't get as much advertisement as their cheaper counterparts. It's been great! What started as a larger expense on the front end has already broken about even on potential replacements that I didn't end up needing, plus I get high-quality items to use the whole way through as well!
It's definitely a good thing to pay attention to just how much you spend on replacing things that broke down unexpectedly quickly. The higher-quality items often exist, but a lot of times you need to seek out the niche communities that focus on those products to help find them and parse through the available options. I'm sure a lot of people just aren't able to front the charge to make the change, though.
Got any tips on researching these things? I'm always concerned that "buy-it-for-life" testimonials are only so trustworthy when the item was made years ago already, and the manufacturing process could have changed since.
Professional grade items are usually a great start. Not normally advertised, ugly as hell, but powerful, reliable and have a spare part/repair market. A professional vacuum will be expensive but you will be able to give it to your children.
One thing that you can look for is repair manuals, schematics, and spare parts. If those are easy to find, the product may have been made to be repairable.
I try to find as many forums as I can for people who are more likely to know about the product, like enthusiast forums for things like headphones, and professional forums for things like washing machines. I try to get a feel for what parts of a product fail most often, then try to find products where people have specifically reported those things holding strong. There's probably more I could do, but even just that has led me to finding products that have lasted far longer than buying the cheap stuff on amazon had gotten me.
Use survivorship bias in your favour. I've a fridge from 1953, wonderful 60s gas stove, a can opener from 1915, pickup from 1983, motorcycle from 1969 etc.
So, just need to swing by 1953, 1960s, 1915 and 1983 on the way home.
I've collected most of that except the bike in the last 5 years, grew tired of new stuff failing and being mostly disposable. The can opener is really neat, seems like 110 years ago they knew how to make something that actually worked and opened cans without leaving sharp edges, much better built than what you get at a store today. theyre 10 bucks on ebay. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/335171281718?hash=item4e09c3e336:g:7LIAAOSwPrFlZofk&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0Exx8HDDFCXcyRYMrVHWpfpb4KkPCs685zBXJr%2FZxP3vXqGhnb8Gz0hHopfDa%2BvUWB9Ul925P1z9C20IVf%2FMQyeN2cM75RwAQg4AMY8FoGc5XXor6AwQgO4mNJjIprA0RHqrSpsqQjSOkugWUJ5oAFiKYhwjMUJrROWGaksLXdLCuFHpVPzolYKOTB5dEPW7uTRpUULrD0YXtrKGZktbDCaKSCA%2F59wj2sh0FiXtT2OTNhFVaTllTptmBt57QcY9NSySvgwxX63NDsK9Xg47wEY%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4iR0YGwYw
Buying expensive things and imagining that they last longer just because of their price tag is also a good way to lose money faster.
Correct. That's why I talked about finding niche communities to help find and parse through options. For example, I didn't just buy an expensive vacuum, I found a few vacuum enthusiast forums and looked through several threads discussing the best products for my budget price.
I’ve spent the majority of my life connected in some way or another to the internet, starting as a kid on niche bbs in the 90s, and it never ceases to amaze me that there are vacuum enthusiast forums.
Everybody's got a thing, and they're usually happy to talk about it to someone who's genuinely interested. Definitely helpful if you're looking into that exact thing.
Yeah 100% and I’m glad that people have a place to talk enthusiastically about their thing!
It doesn't even have to be intentional. So much shit is plastic now so everything breaks faster.
Producing superfluous items uses energy which also has to be paid for. A cost we all pay.