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.
Buy well, buy once
121–130 of 392 posts
Re: Buy well, buy once
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
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?
It's funny this came up. I ended up writing a small webapp that runs locally and allows me to catalog my tools, parts and other important odds and ends in a SQLite database (and attach datasheets and other information I've picked up along the way). I'm almost certainly the opposite of a minimalist, but going through and actually documenting what I have, where I put it, and sometimes what it was intended for, has been incredibly useful, especially being able to use full text search to quickly look up things.
Re: Buy well, buy once
#123Maxi 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 stit…
"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.
Re: Buy well, buy once
#124I 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…
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 perf…
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.
Re: Buy well, buy once
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Replacing broken or worn items often feels like a nightmare of upheaval and system change It seems like if this is where someone's application of minimalism lands them, they have missed the point. On that note I went from owning one pair of shoes last year to three. It was a great non-minimalist decision. My shoes now take three times longer to wear out, and now I'm always wearing shoes that are more useful or more…
Whenever I try to do this, I inevitably settle on wearing one of the three 100% of the time. How do you manage it?
Buy identical shoes in different colours.
Re: Buy well, buy once
#126Wow. 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.
Re: Buy well, buy once
#127Things 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…
Mi Zojirushi/Micom rice cooker is good, but the battery is essentially not user-replacable. I just set the clock any time I'm going to use the timer; it's a real letdown in something that otherwise has lasted me over a decade.
If you own a screwdriver and a soldering iron, some solder braid and some solder, the battery becomes replaceable!
This is my objection to minimalism (not that you're advocating, but ObOnTopic): Tools and materials are capability, which seems senseless to minimize!
Re: Buy well, buy once
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
People need to learn that material possessions are way less important than emotional environment. For most of us, being better parents is about how we parent. Not what we can afford.
Re: Buy well, buy once
#129There 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.
Re: Buy well, buy once
#130In 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 basi…
To be honest it's not like the guy in a suburban home is self-reliant either; it's just easier to kid yourself. But I do agree that a picture-perfect minimalist lifestyle will face some challenge if you live with others, especially kids.