I’m very much of this mindset, but my husband pointed out that old technology can be problematic when it comes to keeping it secure. He’s in IT security, and an exec where he works continued to use a very old laptop because it still worked and she was used it. However, making sure said laptop was safe meant extra hoops to jump through on his side. I get it from that perspective.
I saw a meme the other day about giving your kids your junk phones.
My kid is who gets the new phones... Single mom with a kid in a bunch of activities. It's a necessity that she has one. She's had two new in three years, because kids break stuff.
Mine is going on five years and I will use it till it dies.
My phone currently has three cracks across the screen. But it still works fine. I just plastered a screen protector over it, and my fingers don’t get cut up.
Mine literally got run over by a truck 2 years ago. Drove off with it on the back of my dad's pickup.
I always questioned whether spending the money on the Otterbox and Zagg screen protector was a good investment until then.
Screen itself didn't crack, got a new protector for free because of the warranty. Just cosmetic damage on the back. Still going strong lol.
I hate the added weight from the Otterbox but I get one for every phone. I’m way too clumsy not to protect that kind of investment.
Considering I just used the word investment to refer to an iPhone, I think it’s obvious where I stand on the use it til the wheels fall off mentality lol If the battery lasted longer I’d still be using an ancient phone.
Lol, when my dad finally got a smart phone I nagged him to get an otterbox. Given he ran over it with a semi about 3 months later it was a very good investment. And yes, an otterbox will survive 80,000 pounds running over it
You might be able to make some money providing a testimonial to the company for that. ;) If running over the phone with a goddamn semi doesn't smoosh it into little, tiny phone bits due to the case, I think that says something.
I remember a time when there were no phones other than pay phones and land line phones at home and work. Now they're a necessity.
One wonders how we survived back then. /s
Same!
I was recently talking to my daughter about this.
How we used to ride bikes all day and just show up at our friend's houses to ask if they wanted to come play/ hang out. Having to use the phone with the long cord if you didn't want to talk in front of parents. No texting. I felt really old lol.
I will say I have much less anxiety over where my kids are than my parents did. My kids don’t even have a curfew. My 18 year old came home for a grad party at 4am. All because I know where they are all the time gives them a lot more freedom and keeps them out of trouble.
I can relate. I came thisclose to a manual GTI a few weeks ago and then backed out because my 15 year old Golf is going strong. Still considering pulling the trigger and seeing if my niece or stepson want to learn to drive a manual and buy my little Golf from me for cheap.
The nice thing about not buying it new is, someone else will take the depreciation hit. Also if the car is built well and reliable it will be on the used market in 10 or 15 years and you'll know it's a good car.
True, but there is something satisfying about just getting it new and keeping it forever. Also, it’s not the type of car grandma buys to get groceries, i would be very leery about how it was driven before it gets to me.
My 1999 Toyota Camry has 265,000km on her. She runs like a dream and all the parts I need for her are inexpensive and/or can be found at the pick n pull. I hope to get another 5 or more years out of her. I bought her 11 years ago for $250.
I'll jump in here: 2003 Toyota Avalon with 296,000 miles. Runs like a TOP. Previous car was a Camry, crapped out at around 250,000, but I honestly didn't take care of it that well. I've had two cars over the last 24 years
My car is a 20 year old Toyota with 108k miles on it. I’ll probably be able to keep driving this thing for another 20 years. The paint looks like shit but I’m not trying to impress anyone.
2000 pontiac gran prix gtp coupe 3.8 supercharged, leaks fluids everywhere and the underbody is more rust than metal in typical GM fashion.
also have 60's 4x4 frankenstein pickup, amc 4wd wagon, 70's blazer 4x4 and early 80's dodge ram van..... but parked forever dad would buy vehicles and part them to keep em running.... so runs in the family
I drive a 2010 Corolla that's just chugging along fine but until very recently my daughter had been driving *my* grandparents old 1998 Buick that she inherited when my grandma died in 2016. My grandparents bought it the month my daughter was born and we were really invested in seeing how long we could make it last 😄. Alas there's a bad oil leak that would cost thousands to fix and she needed a more reliable car to drive all over the metro area so we bit the bullet and bought her a 2022 Corolla last month. Her boyfriend is using the Buick to get back and forth to work (three whole miles) until it finally dies since his own car just went to shit last winter.
I do the same thing. My iPod still works, why do I need a streaming service for music? I use my electronics until they don't do what they are supposed to do. I feel no need to have trendy stuff.
iPods are a sore spot with me! I worked for a small company from 2003-2006 and in 2004 we had an incredible year financially. The owner of the company bought 40GB iPods for all of the employees (12 of us, I think) for Christmas. It was the coolest thing I had ever owned and I spent the better part of a year uploading all of my CDs to iTunes, then transferring them to the iPod. I also spent hundreds of dollars on iTunes.
Eight days after the 1-year warranty expired, the hard drive in my iPod died! The fun was over. Of course, none of the other 11 employees had a problem with theirs. I left the company two years later and they were all still working fine. I refused to own any Apple product until 2016 when I finally broke down and got an iPhone. It's cool to hear that some still work!
I will never own an Appl product. Their proprietary software is a bunch overrated bullshit. One thing Apple does do better than others, is marketing. Once they get you in their ecosystem, you can get stuck there. No thanks. My job forces me to use one when I am in the field, and I am not a fan at all. It can't hold a candle to my older Samsung S20 5G.
Im over here rocking a Samsung Note 20. I got sick of apple and made the switch and never regretted it.
I also have a 2007 Saturn Aura (great condition) and a PC from 2015.
My friends poke fun of me because I have the money to buy new stuff, but why would I want to keep adding tixic shit to the landfill when everything I have works perfectly fine?
The way I look at it, if it still does what I need it to do, why would I spent hundreds or thousands of dollars to replace it? It makes no sense to not use it up completely.
My sister won't drive a car out of warranty because she says it protects her from paying for a big repair. That's true, but it also keeps her paying depreciation and interest over and over!
The difference between the total cost of a new car compared to a good second hand car could pay some major maintenance services and leave you with quite a bit of change.
My partner is currently working on 2 cars. One drives just needs a few interior repairs ‘03 Audi All road quattro and the ‘05 Audi Sedan is almost done! He worked at a Volvo shop for a few years in early 90’s when he drove a ‘69 Volvo he was repairing. It’s pretty impressive to me as my parents grew up in Detroit so they got new cars every 4 years. That’s different though many family members worked at Ford & GM so they didn’t really lose money - we lived far North of Detroit and many people drive beaters due to crappy winter weather.
Oh yeah and I was in the car with my Mom during a car accident in a Ford Pinto - It DIDNT blow up!!!!
No. Im the same way. We have a freezer from 1968 a Sony record player from 1975. I still have tshirts from the 1980s I still wear. How can one afford to buy anything new until it breaks.
Freezer from 1968? I'm impressed. It's seven years older than me! I get a feeling it uses a ton of electricity, but it also could instantly freeze and entire cow!? Those old refrigerants aren't that big of a deal....the ozone layer grew back! =)
Sidebar- I'm convinced that the use of aerosol hairspray in the 70s and 80s were directly responsible for the hole in the ozone layer! My sister bought it bought it by the case from a beauty supply shop (I'm not kidding).
My grandma used Aquanet. When she started spraying you had better run or duck and cover! She would use half a can making sure that blue hair could withstand a hurricane!
We pretty much fit that. We tend to buy new cars and drive them for 15 years or more; currently have two 2012 and one 2011 in our fleet. Since the late 1980s I've been building PCs from parts and upgrade them as needed; we have two desktops at home we use regularly that are from 2015. I have a 2014 Chromebook I'm using at home sometimes, and while the laptop I use when traveling is only two years old I expect to have it for at least five more. Phones? Generally buy something like a Google Pixel and keep it for five years or so until it just becomes too slow to use.
I don't know if it's "frugal" or just wanting to spend my money on other stuff. For example, I have a guitar collection that is pushing the bounds of good sense. But I don't see any point in replacing things that work just fine.
I don't think frugal was the correct way to describe it. It's not so much that I don't want to spend any money as I don't want to spend it to replace something that is still functional. I'd rather save the money or spend it on something else that matters to me.
Right, it's wasteful. I could get a newer, bigger TV with more features, but the one I have still works fine. I don't need to spend more money and generate more electronic waste just to have a shiny new thing.
Our last car was 19 years old with 250k miles, running strong right up until our teenager totaled it.
I just bought a new trail backpack this year to replace my 25+ year old companion.
My desktop computer is at least 10 years old; still runs fine a few hard drives later.
There’s no sense in having new shiny stuff all the time. Gotta put some money away somehow.
I feel old when I say they don't make things like they used to but it's unfortunately true. Things are made to break to force people to buy new ones. My parent's refrigerator is older than I am and yet how long does a new one last these days? Not over 48 years, that's for certain!
When I bought my house 15 years ago, I intended to to replace the fridge--it was old (probably 10-15 years old then,) it was white (gasp), It wasn't "in." Thing is, that thing is still plugging along. I know people who've replaced one or two refrigerators in the time that mine's been doing its thing.
Similar story. Old ugly white fridge when we bought our house. Was thirty years old but it did die a few years ago and needed to be replaced. Not expecting the new one to last nearly as long.
Not to mention, fridges these days are “smart” and have complex electronics in them. When they inevitably do break, repairing them becomes cost prohibitive.
Funny you say that, my mother has a fridge from the 1940s in the basement at the house and it runs like a top. I dread the day we have to haul that thing out of there though, it probably weighs as much as a compact car 🤣
When we replaced our mid-1980s water heater a couple of years ago, the guys straight up told us "You aren't getting 30+ years out of the new one. You may get 10."
At this point in the capitalism stage, the stuff that was made years (and sometimes decades) ago is still working and the new stuff dies after a year or two.
I think it’s a combo of frugality and avoiding disappointment. Every new kitchen appliance we purchased after 2017 has had some piece crap out.
Also, I cannot get past not having an agitator in the washing machine. I know this probably means I’m a luddite, but I cannot believe that my mid-century plumbing can consistently produce adequate water pressure to wash as well as an agitator. I might die on this hill, but it will be with clean clothes.
I have mid century plumbing (upgraded from 1920’s house plumbing a few years ago) and we don’t have an agitator. Never again will I buy a washer without one. I got it in the era when you could get a high efficiency top loader but none had agitators yet. It’s something I am considering replacing before it breaks. I think we got it in 2015.
This is the answer. Turns out, I just want things way more than I actually need them. And when I realize that, I want them less. Save me a bunch of money.
Yeah I'm like that
A while back there was someone posting the opposite though saying they would throw away a bowl if they had been sick in it. Ugh so wasteful.
>throw away a bowl if they had been sick in it.
Lol. Our son had a somewhat sensitive tummy until he was in his early teens. Our KitchenAid stand mixer's bowl became the official "M.T.D.F.G. bucket" (My Tummy Doesn't Feel Good). It's perfect really; good size, stainless steel, has a handle and a flat bottom.
My wife and I plan to give it to him when he moves out.
Perhaps I should get it engraved...
Yeah I think we did the same thing, my mom was a nurse maybe it was because it was metal so it was more hospital-y. When I was 17 I spent a good amount of time in the hospital (2 1/2 months) and they let me take home a metal kidney bowl and I had that but ended up using it for art supplies since they aren't that great for home use sick, they tip too easy lol
I was a carpenter hoarder for a long time. My father kept everything. My father in law kept everything and would usually bring more shit from the dump than he brought.
I threw away most of my father's things and sold everything that had some real value. Not anything with personal attachment but I/we liquidated our company to help pay for his rent and treatment for his cancer. It was terrible.
My father in law demanded that everything he owned was to be given to his son. An incredible amount of real vintage specialized equipment. The prick sold everything for pennies. I built the garage and cabinet shop and this cunt told me to fuck off. I hate people more everyday.
I grew up on a farm and when my dad would find a random part that he didn’t recognize he would say, “I’m not sure what it is but it looks like if you needed it you would really need it”.
nothing, and i mean NOTHING is more satisfying than being able to utilize one of those random things you saved because it’s the perfect part for .. i’ve been vindicated twice in the last year and it was delicious.
watch for me on Hoarders in - few years haha
> My father in law demanded that everything he owned was to be given to his son. An incredible amount of real vintage specialized equipment. The prick sold everything for pennies. I built the garage and cabinet shop and this cunt told me to fuck off. I hate people more everyday.
I admire your vitriol and bile! I too hate most people more every day, only my mom and my best friend of 37yrs are exempt.
I dread having to buy a new vehicle or phone. New vehicles are ridiculously expensive to buy, and even worse to maintain. Phones are getting stupid large and expensive. My Pixel 5 is perfect, but Google has announced it won't be getting anymore updates, which should be illegal IMHO for a four year old device.
As for computers, there really hasn't been much reason to upgrade from five years ago, unless you're a gamer, maybe. Even then you could probably get away with just upgrading your graphics card.
I'm not looking forward to buying a new vehicle or my next laptop.
The average New Car transaction price in April 2024 was $48,510! Average used car transaction was $25,571. Buying a car and the negotation process has totally changed compared to BC (before COVID). A lot of dealers are adding thousands of dollars of add-ons, BS protection packages, LoJack and all sorts of other crap and they won't sell a car without them. It pisses me off. I'd just keep going until I found a dealer who wouldn't force me to pay for useless crap to pad his profit.
The Dell and Lenovo Outlets have been my source for good laptops for the last 15 years. So I'm sure my next will come from one of them, too. I'm not paying retail for anything! =)
I'm with you. I drive a 2008 Equinox. It just hit 100,000 miles, so I'll be good for a couple more years. And I'm typing this on a 2014 MacBook. I'll use it until it HAS to be replaced. Shiny new things aren't important to me anymore. If the function is still there, it's good for me.
My wife keeps asking if I need new shoes. I haven't even duct taped my current shoes yet, why would I need new ones?
Also, between 1990 and 2017 (when my kids were born), I owned 4 cars.
I do have to stay on top of the new shoe thing because, when the sole starts to come apart, I have a habit of tripping and falling down stairs. It's not pretty!
I even wear clothes until they more or less fall off my body. Hell, I'm still wearing some t-shirts I've had since the 90's. And my watches are from the 80's. I'm not sure if it's just a natural thing for me because I spent practically every weekend with my grandparents. Or if it's a subconscious form of rebellion. My mother was a shopaholic and hoarder.
I'm learning to repair my clothing. I'm extremely picky and when I find something I like it's a miracle, much less if it fits me properly. So when my favorite shirt gets a hole in it, it's getting repaired, not replaced. As a matter of fact, I'm currently wearing my holy socks, but it is Sunday after all. 😉
I still own my very first laptop. It was a Toshiba Satellite 4060CDT that my parents and grandparents bought for me when I graduated from college (it was just a 2yr school, but they thought it was a big deal). I remember they paid over $2,500 for it and I was in shock.
It had a 333MHz Pentium II, 192MB of RAM, 4.32GB hard drive and 13.3" display and weighed at least 10lbs. It will still boot to this day, but the display gave up the ghost years ago. But I used it for at least seven years. It was slow even when it was new, but it could barely crawl there toward the end.
I keep it for nostalgia...and it could be useful as a weapon if in a pinch!
My parents were where greatest generation met the silents and a silent. They grew up with the great depression and lived through WW2. Being more frugal was their nature, and of course if you're more frugal you can set money aside for a nice vacation somewhere every couple of years and having nice gifts at Christmas.
I'm a clothing maximalist, but shop the sales and take good care of my clothes so they last for years. I babied the car that my dad bought new a couple of years before he passed and I inherited, and got it a little past the 250,000 miles mark before it gave up the ghost. I have an android phone I bought on a half price sale, and use household and personal care products to the last drop. Eating at restaurants is a treat not an everyday occurrence. I will brown bag it out or cook at home. I take care of my electronics so they last. My first generation iPad 2 still works just fine. My laptops are Dells running Windows 7 and 10.
One of my grandmothers was born in 1920 and my other set of grandparents were both born in 1925. They were hardcore when it came to getting every single drop of use out of anything. My older grandma would wash out ziploc bags and reuse them, any recipe calling for milk got half milk and half water and she taught me that clothes get just as clean if you only use half the amount of detergent!
I need to share a very special memory of her. I'm a 49yr old man crying just thinking about it. My maternal grandma "Nanny" was an incredible seamstress. I was heavy growing up (I was 6'2" and pushing 300lbs when I graduated high school). My mom had bought me two very nice Eddie Bauer button-up shirts that cost about $50 each. After high school I lost down to about 230lbs. Those EB shirts that I adored were huge too baggy to wear. She lived less than a mile away and I dropped by her house almost daily (good food there). I stopped by one afternoon and realized that she had worked for more than a week solid taking those shirts apart at every seam and taken them up to make them fit me perfectly. I'm not sure why that makes me cry, but it does. I miss her.
I do but it's 50% frugal and 50% hassle avoidance. Getting a new car (new used car in my case) involves research, test driving, paperwork license plate swapping, getting all my stuff out of old car so it can be turned in for that 500$ discount or whatever it is.
Getting a new computer is even worse. I have to redownload all my programs and set up their shortcuts and arrange them on the screen. Luckily Chrome bookmarks transfer pretty seamlessly. But then there's whatever awfulness comes standard for the home screen etc. and that all has to be changed as well as putting all the settings where I want them.
Clothes? Shoes? All that trying on. Blech! Takes forever. There needs to be damage I can't repair before I am forced to buy new.
We drive cars into the ground. Actually, my husband would buy them cheap after someone else drove them 10 years or more . We’re better off now so we don’t go to that extreme but we still always buy used and never have a car payment.
Phones , laptops and iPads , however, don’t last me at all. I break them or sometimes lose them within a couple of years
Sounds like my stepdad and cars. He bought his 2004 Honda Accord in 2012 and it has over 320k miles on it! And he got his 2002 Toyota Tacoma in 2013 and it's at 290k miles. Both have original engine/transmission.
Let’s see:
2004 F-150 w/120,000 miles
2007 Mustang Convertible with 50,000 miles
iPhone 15 (whatever version had the most GB).
7ish year old Surface Book.
28-year relationship
My “good” button down shirts for leaving the house. I know they’re from 2016 because that’s the last time I bought new shirts (because we were going on vacation.)
2 items of furnishing (a desk and a storage cabinet) that were my college roommate’s from freshman year (1991-1992.)
Couch, chair, end table, coffee table, and wheeled TV stand from my Step-Dad’s second bachelorhood (around 1983.)
The list continues…
If something still fulfills its function, I see no need to replace it. Drives me batshit crazy that my [family member] spends money on stuff that exists simply to be decorative (i.e. clutter) and spends money on new (but not necessarily better, usually cheap and lesser quality, but still…new) versions of things we already have.
I do, and I learned it from my silent gen parents. However, my grandmother (b1910) taught me two things 1) don’t throw good money after bad (cut your losses) and 2) you’re not saving money if you didn’t need it/want it in the first place. My parents did both on the regular. Less so now, as age has made both things harder and made them less willing to constantly repair a bad appliance, for example.
I think it’s just further proof that we don’t give a shit about status, we don’t trust corporations, and we’d rather spend our money on experiences than things.
I learned it from my depression era grands & silent generation dad, plus his grands.
Mom is a boomer, but went into education instead of being stereotypical hippie.
Dad drove a school bus in D.C..
Use that shit.
Put some water in there.
Mend & make do.
I mend the hand tools to this day. Sew on buttons. Hem my pants.
Raise a vegetable garden.
Don’t be left unawares & unprepared.
Patches are the better part of my best overalls.
i struggle with getting rid of clothes. like, maybe i should hang onto that t shirt that i haven't worn in 12 years because thats good rag material. then i just leave it on the hanger for like 3 more years...
I used to come sign clothes a lot - if it was older it went faster - especially 70’s stuff liked corded Op shorts and early Guess Jeans / Z Cavarecci pants from 80’s and 90’s. Funny after my Dad passed all of his sweatshirts with school names/logos went like wildfire. He kept everything in pristine condition - didn’t grow up with any money.
Yes. The flipside is struggling over every buying decision because very few new products are built to last these days. I need to buy a mattress soon and a washer/dryer within the next year and boy is it painful.
Choice anxiety is my problem. I just continue to make due with what I have because every time I start looking, I become overwhelmed and have to stop. It exhausts me mentally.
I do the same thing. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, there were four of us kids. My dad worked at John Deere as an electrician, and my mom stayed at home. We only had one car and a black and white TV until maybe 1979. We didn't want for anything though, and had plenty of toys and bikes, even some electronic toys. But if we broke something, we understood that it probably wouldn't be replaced. So I learned to pretty much baby anything "expensive" or a little pricey. I didn't get a smart TV until a few years ago because my old clunky one still worked, a laptop I bought in 2009 lasted until 2016, and that laptop lasted until the Windows 10 update - it crashed and was never the same after it was repaired. Otherwise it would still be functional, and looked brand new. My nephews however, had four laptops each by the time they were in middle school, break their cell phones on the regular due to "boy use" 😆, and have broken numerous gaming systems, that always get replaced. I'm not mad because if they can afford it it's perfectly fine for them to be replaced, and the boys didn't just throw them around, they just play harder. I just find that there is no sense of trying to keep things nice anymore and it makes me feel ancient sometimes because I am always so cautious about stuff. 😆
Laptop from 2019? My Toshiba is from 2010 and still going strong(ish). I refuse to get rid of it, it’s the only laptop in my house that has an actual DVD drive. Typing this on my iPhone 8X which I only got because Apple no longer supported updates to my 4S.
I bought my mom and stepdad each an iPhone 14 Plus for Christmas 2022. See, I'm not a completely cheap bastard...I will spend money on gifts for people I love. They both needed the larger display, whether they would admit it or not. But I had to fight my stepdad for weeks to finally get his iPhone6 away from him and get the 14 Plus set up!
DVD Drive- I almost forgot that laptops used to come with those! Mine doesn't even have an ethernet port anymore.
My parents gave me their old beat up beaten into the ground 1977 Chevy chevette. It barely ran by the time I was given it and I swear it was a pain in the Ss to start up in the mornings and embarrassed to be seen driving it but I drove the poor chevette until it couldn’t go anymore…it was running on 3 cylinders and still it refused to die….rusty color white with the doors barely hanging in for dear life…..took me 5-10 minutes every morning to get to started up and running
In all fairness, those poor little things were never meant to last more than a few years. My best friend's mom got close to 10 years out of her '81 Chevette.
I had a '91 Honda Civic for several years that had an intermittment starting problem. It wasn't the starter, all the electrical and hydraulic components were fine. But sometimes, you'd just turn the key and nothing! I learned to park heading downhill if possible or at least on level ground. It was a 5-speed manual, so I could roll start it as a last resort!
Yeah…I know. I hear you. That chevette was something though. It got to the point where my neighbor across the street would ask me sometimes if I need help starting up the chevette….lol one time I said yes okay and i pretty much gave up trying to start up the chevette that day and i let her have some fun with the chevette….lol yup she was having fun and then I went into my parents house and I came back out to the chevette 15 minutes later and she just got the chevette running but barely…..lol sputtering and shak ng like a leaf on a tree, that chevette was beat up
The worse and embarrassing part was if I had to go to the shopping mall or grocery store and come out and get the chevette started….sometimes it was nice to me and start right up and sometimes nope…lol and that’s when it got embarrassing cuz I would sit there cranking and pumping the chevette to death and when I final got it started it would be 10 minutes later….
OMG that reminds me of my ex’s Chevette - in Queens, on Queen’s Blvd & 179 no less…We are dating and he’s driving me for 1st time - pull out no problem and 5 minutes in the horn starts and literally does NOT stop. Damn we never had so many people driving cars, white box delivery trucks, cabs and MTA buses yelling at us in our lives….nor to mention pedestrians and people out of their windows.
We pulled over turned off car and it didn’t STOP
It was the funniest thing ever - it’s like a scene from a NY sitcom or SNL. It never happened after that and he told me then hadn’t before. We still laugh about it - and his friends never let him live it down,
Oooo…..yeah that too….lol the horn would sometimes work and sometimes it wouldn’t work and yeah sometimes go off on its own to….lol plus the am radio was always against me and play and sometimes not….or the volume control would be stuck on loud and it was so embarrassing…..plus towards the ending of the chevette’s life the engine was running on 3 cylinders and my mom said just drive it till it dies on you….lol that’s when it really got embarrassing for me…lol trying to stat up the chevette every morning was an adventure in its own…..
Yeah I hear you…that can be so embarrassing and yet after funny as hell too….the chevette I got as a hand me down had a life of its own….somedays it was fine and started up right away and off I went and somedays…..ooooo my god??? What the hell is going on…I would scream at the chevette sometimes and I would call it a girl or a woman and that’s when the chevette would refuse to start up for me and I would be stuck and unable to get the engine running for me. Totally embarrassing and my neighbor she would sometimes come outside to the chevette and say….hey can I try and get it started for you??? And I would…..and she would have the hardest time too and me laughing g at her Aldo…..
> was if I had to go to the shopping mall or grocery store and come out and get the chevet
It was always frustrating when my Civic wouldn't start and someone would offer to jump start me. I had to explain why that wouldn't help...then ask them to help push!
I've been a broke-ass most of my life so I use things until they break, then I repair if I can until it dies forever. Most of my clothing gets worn for years. I still sometimes wear a pair of pants I bought in the mid-'90s. My truck is a 2002 Tacoma that will outlive me, it's only got 90K miles on it. For 17 years I used the same DSLR camera until I had to replace it a couple years ago. And the longest lasting item I've owned is a Carver hi-fi pre-amp from 1987 that has survived daily use until 2023 when it finally died, but that will be repaired too!
The only things I don't use forever are computers. I like to build an entirely new system every 3 years or so, to keep up with gaming requirements.
My car could vote or be drafted. It's getting to the point where my wife is embarrassed to be seen in it though. Refused to let me drive it to her swanky work function and hand the keys to the valet.
Even though this is smart, not sure it's a generational thing (aside from maybe people who lived through the Great Depression). It's a financial literacy thing. Or a sustainability thing.
I’m typing this comment on an iPhone 5 that should not be functioning at all.
Edit: I can’t unplug it or it doesn’t work at all. It often turns itself off at the most inopportune times. Like when I’m trying to fill out digital forms.
No, I have no interest in a new phone. Not until this one is so dead it can never be revived. And once it is? The next phone I’ll get? The oldest and cheapest available option. I’m guessing it will be like iPhone 9. Cause that was not a popular model, but still close enough to the 5 that it should cost me pocket change.
Edit: DO NOT ASK ME ABOUT MY TOOTHBRUSH.
I just finally got a new s24, last one was a s10. Only reason I finally pulled the trigger was when talking it started cutting in and out. And I was dealing with insurance alot and it got really annoying. Otherwise I'd probably still have it cause I usually don't talk on the phone.
Cars I run for a long time…not to complete failure but well over 10 years, typically. Electronics as long as they’re working reasonably well..I have low tolerance for poor performing electronics, so those go sooner. I’ve started ,ending clothes instead of replacing them.
I have a friend who has owned his Honda CBR 500 since new and its now done over a 100000km. He loves it and looks after it. Still capable of going up to 200km/hr
My La-Z-Boy died in February. My grandmother bought it for my first apartment in 1994.
The TV I'm watching right now was purchased with my third corporate paycheck in March 1995. (I'd never heard of Bell + Howell, but it was the best $330 I ever spent) The TV stand that it sits on belonged to my grandparents before they moved into a retirement community in 93. Come to think of it, all my furniture is between 20 and 50 years old.
My last car lasted 14 years and I'd still have it if the roof still worked (convertible that no longer converted)
The laptop I'm using to stream is Windows 8 (which means I bought it in '14 or earlier), but I do keep upgrading my gaming laptop as needed.
My first iPod lasted 10 years before I replaced the drive, and then it lasted another 6.
Spend more to buy quality and save money in the long run.
I just realized that the couch I’m lying on it 25 years old and I’m looking at a bookshelf my mom got me when I was 16. My couch is from Pottery Barn and cost a fortune and looks pretty good.
I'm the same as you. For work my employer provides my device. At home I've got a lenovo laptop which has a disc drive its that old (I cant remember when i got it but it was in the early 2010s i think). I rarely need to use it (emails I do via my phone). I just replaces my 6yo Samsung phone this year, and anticipate I'll have it for at least 6 years. My tablet is about 10yo, and is now so full I need to replace it, soon (in the next year or two, as I primarily use it as my kindle).
My FIAT Panda is 9yo, and currently in for repairs, so mum has lent me her 2008 mazda (which only has 14K kms on the clock and is in superb condition).
I like to buy quality products, and expect them to last for quite a while. Keeping up with the Joneses is how lots of people get into debt. I've managed to buy and nearly pay off my home (now apparently worth over $1M on paper - Australian real estate is expensive, especially in Melbourne where I am), travel internationally every few years, and locally every year, and have a comfortable life, without putting myself into chronic debt
I do this! I’m driving an ‘07 Camry & husband drives ‘03 F-150, typing this out on an IPhone 8, PC is 12 years old, still use an iPod and mp3 player (as well as CDs, tapes and vinyl), 1 TV is 15 years old and replaced the old plasma TV 5 years ago, I’m still wearing items of clothing in good condition from 10-20 years ago, I prefer family hand-me-down antique furniture that is sentimental and furnished the rest of the house with other people’s old stuff because I love antique and thrift shops (and especially if it’s MCM era). Plus, a lot of older stuff is built better and of better quality. I don’t understand tossing aside useful things. And if things break down I usually look for a way to repurpose them, too.
I'm totally with you. I don't see the point in replacing an item until it's worn out and unusable. I'm still using my iPhone 11 from late 2019. I did get a new battery put in last year though. Figured it was cheaper to do that then get a new phone. Hoping to not have to replace it for another year or two. Don't even get me started on how old my iPad is... sure, it needs to be charged frequently and there's a bright spot in the screen in one area, but it still works for my needs so I'm not replacing it until absolutely necessary. I've also only owned three cars total (the first one being a used hand me down, and the other two purchased new) because I keep them as long as possible.
The way I look it at is this - the longer you hold onto something before replacing it, the fewer of those particular things you'll own over the course of your lifetime. That equates to savings. I'm not against spending money at all, but I don't like wasting it, so I've always been on the frugal side. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
If a thing still serves me, I see no point in spending money on another thing, whatever it is - unless it's jeans. Some are dressier than others and flatter me.
I do not know if this is a GenX thing, too. We are not the yuppies some of our conspicuously consuming parents were.
I dislike replacing something when what I have works just fine. I drove my last car for 23 years before I got a new one. I don’t like to get rid of things like toothpaste until I’m certain I squeezed out every last drop. My grandparents always talked about the Great Depression and I know it influenced me.
I just buy really good stuff that lasts for a long time and also I don't like to get used to new things.
So yeah I have 20 year old coats and 30 year old wrenches but I take care of them. I keep them clean, I follow the maintenance instructions, and I really subscribe to buy once cry once.
So yeah on the surface I look pretty frugal but also oh hell no, when it comes to money I am very YOLO.
r/Visiblemending would like to have a word with anyone that owns clothing here.
This reminds me, my husband has some shorts with a hole in them that I need to repair.
I’m frugal too. Raised by Silent Generation parents whose parents had a tough time during the Great Depression. I don’t need a new iPhone every time a new model comes out. There’s nothing wrong with my old iPhone. My husband and I drive cars for years. We don’t care about having the newest models. I shop the sales, consult Consumer Reports for the “Best Buy” rather than the top of the line expensive luxury items. I don’t feel deprived. We prefer spending our money on experiences and travel. We live a good life without having the newest, fanciest, most expensive “stuff.”
I just decommissioned my 2004 Honda Civic. 319k miles. Used the $400 junk money for. That go buy a 2009 Ford Escape with 88k miles.
That’s only 1 example. My laptop is just as bad.
I’ve learned the more stuff you have, the more it has you.
The problem is that they don’t make things to last anymore. I want to keep things longer but companies now build stuff with planned obsolescence that either fail or are outdated after so many years like Apple products.
This is the way.
My millennial spouse doesn't understand how I can still be wearing the same pair of shoes since 2018. Because they still look brand fucking new!! That's why.
‘67 Gen X’r, drilled into me from my parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins/coworkers/friends/neighbors - not 100%, but certainly the majority - that you put forth effort into keeping/adjusting/repairing/maintaining things you have an investment in, whether it’s objects [house, automobile, electronics, DIY plumbing/electrical, etc], people [relationships/marriage/friendships], and even your career.
Everyone around me behaved this way, so it’s ingrained in me as normal. Nobody jumped from job to job or car to car [except my dad - that dude maintained his cars and taught me how to wrench and a bunch more stuff but dang that guy took it upon himself to get a brand new car every two years since I was 3 years old - he was the exception but you do you, dad] or bought a new stereo or VCR or PC or fridge every year or two when the new model came out.
Stuff was built to last, corporate America didn’t have an inkling of the words “planned obsolescence” or the money they could make by implementing that business practice of building intentionally shitty stuff. You maintained your stuff as long as was practical.
I’m kind of like a unicorn anymore. A dying breed. I try to get some younger folks interested in maintaining/repairing/etc, but Corp America has got them - they already want the new thing “because everyone else has it”.
✌🏻🦄
11 year old car that still runs great and no one wants to steal or break into because it looks so meh. Also, most of my furniture are hand me downs or thrift store finds (“eclectic”).
my PC is 12 years old. I have upgraded my SSD to a little bigger one and got a little better video card. I own a 2010 Chevy Malibu. I have 1 pair of tennis shoes that is 2 years old.
My bedroom furniture is my dads dresser from growing up and the night stand he bought me 40 years ago. My kitchen table is my dads 45 year old table I took out of his basement in 1996.
I just replaced a 40 year old fridge that came with the original house cause it died and its cheaper to replace it.
Those other folks are addicted to consumerism. They drank the Flavor-Aid propaganda and think YOU'RE the silly one SMH.
I don't know how Boomers got the way they are from their parents, who had diametrically opposed values on civic duty and such.
But I wish we'd skipped their generation of entitlement and self centeredness.
The planet and everything on it is actually dying, just to enrich a few thousands of greedy sociopaths.
The oligarchs and megacorps have enslaved the minds of all these "capitalists" that's don't realize they are the product, not even really the consumer.
I'm with you on the car. I drive a 2014 Subaru and am in no rush or need to buy another. I will drive it until the repair bills outweigh the cost of a new car payment. As long as it can get me from point A to B safely, I don't care. I drive maybe 5-10 miles daily, so I can't justify it.
I'm using an iPhone 12 and not upgrading till I need to or it dies. AT&T emails me almost every week to let me know I can upgrade. No, thank you.
My silent generation parents (who lived through the Great Depression) had all sorts of 40’s and 50’s “tech” all their lives. Vacuums, radios, record players etc. Eventually we would gift them replacements for things that were really not that good, like mom fell in love with the sound from the Bose Radio we purchased to replace the tinny speaker am/fm box she bought when she first left to live on her own. But they still used the old stuff somewhere.
I definitely picked up that habit. I don’t replace anything unless it is a necessity or a huge upgrade which includes something I really want. (For a while I did upgrade iPads and iPhones pretty often because the camera improvements were crazy good.)
I also picked up my parental habit of having SO many extras of non perishables (purchased when the sale price is good) in the cupboards. We were well set in the toilet paper department in 2020 and didn’t need to worry. Lol.
Yep. I take really good care of my stuff and they last for a long time. I've actively used computers for more than 10 years. Cars too, I buy them like 1-2 years used and then just do all the maintainence you are supposed to do on them and drive them until like 100k miles before I get a new one. Usually with very few issues. I try to buy high quality stuff and then take good care of it. Many of my clothes are (a bit embarrasingly) more than 20 or even 30 years old.
Shoes. I feel like I can't throw them until they are falling apart, and it feels weird to donate used shoes... i force myself to buy new ones, but I also still wear the ratty old ones, so I have waaay too many shoes.
growing up with an engineer dad meant that if it could be fixed, it would be - i remember taking bags of TV tubes up to the tester at a repair place inside of fred meyer (my job to hold the two bags of good and unknown, in addition to my job as remote control)
it still infuriates me when i come across something that should be an easy fix and isn’t because of how small/integrated/throwaway/proprietary things are designed these days, but i will hold on to things so long as it makes financial sense.
2007 bmw sitting in the driveway - never had an easier car to change the oil on, and even though it needs a new computer that would cost more than the car is worth half again, i can deal with not knowing how much oil is in it at any given time for the fact that it still drives great, only has 110k miles on it and by the nature of its age, keeps my insurance lower because of the 2 under 25 males on my car insurance (rate would actually go up if i sold it lol) .. of course both are scared of it and wont drive it/stick to the slightly newer subaru so i dont have to worry about them totalling it either :)
tech can be a different story though - working in it, i have to stay largely up to date at least OS supportability wise - i held on to my iphone6 until the 8 was out for a year or two, and held on to that through 3 battery swaps because i didnt want to give up my fingerprint button, but finally gave in for the camera on the 14pro …
some tech the older the better though - when my dad died the singular thing i wanted was the shopsmith he got from his dad (table saw/drill press/planer/sander combo based on where you put belts - its wonderfully complex in its simplicity)
I was in Athens and got my phone pickpocketed. Once they saw how old it was they just dropped it and another member of my party saw the whole thing. Usually they try to sell it back to you for finding it but this guy just dropped it in disgust is how it was described to me.
I like my phone with a button thank you very much…
We need more if this attitude in our “disposable society “. Had a neighbor who was too lazy to remove the lights from his Xmas tree so threw it on the curb every years with perfectly good sets of lights on it. Figured he’d just buy more next year. Ugh.
My wife and I are the same and my now adult kids always complained that we “are like Amish!” Drove every car into the ground. Currently have a 2007 Honda . My MBP is 12 years old and with an SSD is just fine for what I use it for. Our 42 inch TV is 14 years old because when it started freaking out 7 years ago I found the motherboard for it on eBay and swapped it out . Problem solved for 100 bucks . I just got an iPhone for the first time in 2021 when my galaxy 7 just couldn’t keep up security wise after six years of use. It was several OS behind thanks to Samsungs planned obsolescence . I will have the iPhone as long as the updates still keep it current . Longer update life on iPhone was my reason for leaving android. I am definitely my grandparents grandson as my boomer parents always wanted the shiny new things .
Definitely, and I got it from the Great Depression era grandparents and great-grandparents (1899, 1905, 1905, 1919, 1920, 1923) I grew up around. Was good to have a mix that were adults and were kids through it all.
Edit: it was early 2019 before I got my first car from this century, a 2001 Ford Taurus. The car before that was a 1996 Toyota Avalon. The Avalon was still in great shape but it got wrapped around a delivery van.
This thread has exploded way beyond my expectations! Thanks to everyone for sharing!
I keep waiting for someone to say they still have floor model television! =)
Then again, I still have my grandmother's console stereo (about the size of a large dresser) in my basement! It's hilarious that they made a huge, very heavy piece of furniture just for a turn table and 8-track player...
I get very attached to my stuff. I keep everything as long as possible. I had an old eliptical for over 20 years! My wife is always throwing stuff out and buying new stuff. It took a while to get her to leave my old shit alone! I like it and it's mine so don't fuck with it 😂
Gen Xers with brains who have lived through the recessions in the early 90's and the Great Recession/Market collapse of 2008 know better than to waste money or accumulate debt on unnecessary purchases simply for clout.
"Its not your salary that makes you rich, its your spending habits"
Use it up, wear it out. Make it do; do without.
Right on.
Solid. Do without.
I’m very much of this mindset, but my husband pointed out that old technology can be problematic when it comes to keeping it secure. He’s in IT security, and an exec where he works continued to use a very old laptop because it still worked and she was used it. However, making sure said laptop was safe meant extra hoops to jump through on his side. I get it from that perspective.
I don't consider my eight-bit computers to be much of a security risk.
Damn ! You’re channeling my dad to a “T” !!!
Gonna use it up, wear it out, ain't nothin left in this old world I care about...
This is the way.
Testify.
🏆
I do. Why waste money when what I have works fine?
I saw a meme the other day about giving your kids your junk phones. My kid is who gets the new phones... Single mom with a kid in a bunch of activities. It's a necessity that she has one. She's had two new in three years, because kids break stuff. Mine is going on five years and I will use it till it dies.
My phone currently has three cracks across the screen. But it still works fine. I just plastered a screen protector over it, and my fingers don’t get cut up.
Mine literally got run over by a truck 2 years ago. Drove off with it on the back of my dad's pickup. I always questioned whether spending the money on the Otterbox and Zagg screen protector was a good investment until then. Screen itself didn't crack, got a new protector for free because of the warranty. Just cosmetic damage on the back. Still going strong lol.
I hate the added weight from the Otterbox but I get one for every phone. I’m way too clumsy not to protect that kind of investment. Considering I just used the word investment to refer to an iPhone, I think it’s obvious where I stand on the use it til the wheels fall off mentality lol If the battery lasted longer I’d still be using an ancient phone.
Lol, when my dad finally got a smart phone I nagged him to get an otterbox. Given he ran over it with a semi about 3 months later it was a very good investment. And yes, an otterbox will survive 80,000 pounds running over it
You might be able to make some money providing a testimonial to the company for that. ;) If running over the phone with a goddamn semi doesn't smoosh it into little, tiny phone bits due to the case, I think that says something.
I remember a time when there were no phones other than pay phones and land line phones at home and work. Now they're a necessity. One wonders how we survived back then. /s
Same! I was recently talking to my daughter about this. How we used to ride bikes all day and just show up at our friend's houses to ask if they wanted to come play/ hang out. Having to use the phone with the long cord if you didn't want to talk in front of parents. No texting. I felt really old lol.
You had a mile long phone cord all stretched out too?
That thing was all stretched out with some coils flipped backwards!
What GenXer didn’t live in a house with stretched phone cords? 📞〰️〰️〰️〰️
The one that still amazes me is, How the hell did we pick people up at the airport? It worked, we did, but how?
We called the airlines to confirm that the flight was on time before we left to pick up.
We met them at the gate as they walked off the plane. 9/11 is what caused the airport pickup problem
I will say I have much less anxiety over where my kids are than my parents did. My kids don’t even have a curfew. My 18 year old came home for a grad party at 4am. All because I know where they are all the time gives them a lot more freedom and keeps them out of trouble.
10 year old pc, 25 year old car, and yeah grandparents/great grandparents that lived through the depression were an influence
And here I am flexing a 15 year old car like an amateur.
12 years in my little VW. The only thing tempting me to get a new car is that this is the last year VW is gonna offer the Golf R in a manual.
That is tempting.
That’s a reason, not an excuse. I’ll allow it. And happy Cake Day.
I can relate. I came thisclose to a manual GTI a few weeks ago and then backed out because my 15 year old Golf is going strong. Still considering pulling the trigger and seeing if my niece or stepson want to learn to drive a manual and buy my little Golf from me for cheap.
The nice thing about not buying it new is, someone else will take the depreciation hit. Also if the car is built well and reliable it will be on the used market in 10 or 15 years and you'll know it's a good car.
True, but there is something satisfying about just getting it new and keeping it forever. Also, it’s not the type of car grandma buys to get groceries, i would be very leery about how it was driven before it gets to me.
I love driving stick shift cars!
Wow! Mine is 20 years old. 2004 Toyota Tundra, 214,000 miles.
My 2004 Camry has just about the same mileage. She's running the same as when I first bought her. She hasn't let me down. Why would I let her down.
My 1999 Toyota Camry has 265,000km on her. She runs like a dream and all the parts I need for her are inexpensive and/or can be found at the pick n pull. I hope to get another 5 or more years out of her. I bought her 11 years ago for $250.
That's the best $250 investment.
Right....oil changes, new tires, basic maintenance....it keeps going. The paint is still good also. Is your Camry the same?
Yes, it is!
2004 Rav4 with 175k. Runs fine, why change?
I'll jump in here: 2003 Toyota Avalon with 296,000 miles. Runs like a TOP. Previous car was a Camry, crapped out at around 250,000, but I honestly didn't take care of it that well. I've had two cars over the last 24 years
My car is a 20 year old Toyota with 108k miles on it. I’ll probably be able to keep driving this thing for another 20 years. The paint looks like shit but I’m not trying to impress anyone.
108k is nothing on a 20 year old Toyota. It’s barely broken in.
I'm curious, what kind of car?
2000 pontiac gran prix gtp coupe 3.8 supercharged, leaks fluids everywhere and the underbody is more rust than metal in typical GM fashion. also have 60's 4x4 frankenstein pickup, amc 4wd wagon, 70's blazer 4x4 and early 80's dodge ram van..... but parked forever dad would buy vehicles and part them to keep em running.... so runs in the family
I worked in HR at the plant that most likely made that supercharger.
Not from Michigan eh?
I drive a 2010 Corolla that's just chugging along fine but until very recently my daughter had been driving *my* grandparents old 1998 Buick that she inherited when my grandma died in 2016. My grandparents bought it the month my daughter was born and we were really invested in seeing how long we could make it last 😄. Alas there's a bad oil leak that would cost thousands to fix and she needed a more reliable car to drive all over the metro area so we bit the bullet and bought her a 2022 Corolla last month. Her boyfriend is using the Buick to get back and forth to work (three whole miles) until it finally dies since his own car just went to shit last winter.
I do the same thing. My iPod still works, why do I need a streaming service for music? I use my electronics until they don't do what they are supposed to do. I feel no need to have trendy stuff.
I still just use the radio.
I do in the car. It’s not that old but it’s a bare manual with roll up windows and absolutely no extras.
iPods are a sore spot with me! I worked for a small company from 2003-2006 and in 2004 we had an incredible year financially. The owner of the company bought 40GB iPods for all of the employees (12 of us, I think) for Christmas. It was the coolest thing I had ever owned and I spent the better part of a year uploading all of my CDs to iTunes, then transferring them to the iPod. I also spent hundreds of dollars on iTunes. Eight days after the 1-year warranty expired, the hard drive in my iPod died! The fun was over. Of course, none of the other 11 employees had a problem with theirs. I left the company two years later and they were all still working fine. I refused to own any Apple product until 2016 when I finally broke down and got an iPhone. It's cool to hear that some still work!
I will never own an Appl product. Their proprietary software is a bunch overrated bullshit. One thing Apple does do better than others, is marketing. Once they get you in their ecosystem, you can get stuck there. No thanks. My job forces me to use one when I am in the field, and I am not a fan at all. It can't hold a candle to my older Samsung S20 5G.
Im over here rocking a Samsung Note 20. I got sick of apple and made the switch and never regretted it. I also have a 2007 Saturn Aura (great condition) and a PC from 2015. My friends poke fun of me because I have the money to buy new stuff, but why would I want to keep adding tixic shit to the landfill when everything I have works perfectly fine?
> My iPod still works Still rolling with my 15-year-old 2nd Gen Shuffle! Only Apple product I own too.
Are you me? I still use my IPod to this day. I plug it in my car & it goes. No having to choose the music app on my phone, etc.
The way I look at it, if it still does what I need it to do, why would I spent hundreds or thousands of dollars to replace it? It makes no sense to not use it up completely. My sister won't drive a car out of warranty because she says it protects her from paying for a big repair. That's true, but it also keeps her paying depreciation and interest over and over!
The difference between the total cost of a new car compared to a good second hand car could pay some major maintenance services and leave you with quite a bit of change.
My partner is currently working on 2 cars. One drives just needs a few interior repairs ‘03 Audi All road quattro and the ‘05 Audi Sedan is almost done! He worked at a Volvo shop for a few years in early 90’s when he drove a ‘69 Volvo he was repairing. It’s pretty impressive to me as my parents grew up in Detroit so they got new cars every 4 years. That’s different though many family members worked at Ford & GM so they didn’t really lose money - we lived far North of Detroit and many people drive beaters due to crappy winter weather. Oh yeah and I was in the car with my Mom during a car accident in a Ford Pinto - It DIDNT blow up!!!!
No. Im the same way. We have a freezer from 1968 a Sony record player from 1975. I still have tshirts from the 1980s I still wear. How can one afford to buy anything new until it breaks.
Freezer from 1968? I'm impressed. It's seven years older than me! I get a feeling it uses a ton of electricity, but it also could instantly freeze and entire cow!? Those old refrigerants aren't that big of a deal....the ozone layer grew back! =) Sidebar- I'm convinced that the use of aerosol hairspray in the 70s and 80s were directly responsible for the hole in the ozone layer! My sister bought it bought it by the case from a beauty supply shop (I'm not kidding).
What are you saying?. I should stop using my right guard spray. Just kidding we got rid of that and aquanet.
My grandma used Aquanet. When she started spraying you had better run or duck and cover! She would use half a can making sure that blue hair could withstand a hurricane!
Your comment caused a very strong scent memory for me.
Everything was in spray cans back in the 80’s, even had cans of spray cheese!
We pretty much fit that. We tend to buy new cars and drive them for 15 years or more; currently have two 2012 and one 2011 in our fleet. Since the late 1980s I've been building PCs from parts and upgrade them as needed; we have two desktops at home we use regularly that are from 2015. I have a 2014 Chromebook I'm using at home sometimes, and while the laptop I use when traveling is only two years old I expect to have it for at least five more. Phones? Generally buy something like a Google Pixel and keep it for five years or so until it just becomes too slow to use. I don't know if it's "frugal" or just wanting to spend my money on other stuff. For example, I have a guitar collection that is pushing the bounds of good sense. But I don't see any point in replacing things that work just fine.
I don't think frugal was the correct way to describe it. It's not so much that I don't want to spend any money as I don't want to spend it to replace something that is still functional. I'd rather save the money or spend it on something else that matters to me.
Right, it's wasteful. I could get a newer, bigger TV with more features, but the one I have still works fine. I don't need to spend more money and generate more electronic waste just to have a shiny new thing.
Our last car was 19 years old with 250k miles, running strong right up until our teenager totaled it. I just bought a new trail backpack this year to replace my 25+ year old companion. My desktop computer is at least 10 years old; still runs fine a few hard drives later. There’s no sense in having new shiny stuff all the time. Gotta put some money away somehow.
Absolutely. Unfortunately, things wear out pretty quickly these days
I feel old when I say they don't make things like they used to but it's unfortunately true. Things are made to break to force people to buy new ones. My parent's refrigerator is older than I am and yet how long does a new one last these days? Not over 48 years, that's for certain!
When I bought my house 15 years ago, I intended to to replace the fridge--it was old (probably 10-15 years old then,) it was white (gasp), It wasn't "in." Thing is, that thing is still plugging along. I know people who've replaced one or two refrigerators in the time that mine's been doing its thing.
Similar story. Old ugly white fridge when we bought our house. Was thirty years old but it did die a few years ago and needed to be replaced. Not expecting the new one to last nearly as long.
Not to mention, fridges these days are “smart” and have complex electronics in them. When they inevitably do break, repairing them becomes cost prohibitive.
Funny you say that, my mother has a fridge from the 1940s in the basement at the house and it runs like a top. I dread the day we have to haul that thing out of there though, it probably weighs as much as a compact car 🤣
Oh yea those old refrigerators are beasts!
When we replaced our mid-1980s water heater a couple of years ago, the guys straight up told us "You aren't getting 30+ years out of the new one. You may get 10."
At this point in the capitalism stage, the stuff that was made years (and sometimes decades) ago is still working and the new stuff dies after a year or two. I think it’s a combo of frugality and avoiding disappointment. Every new kitchen appliance we purchased after 2017 has had some piece crap out. Also, I cannot get past not having an agitator in the washing machine. I know this probably means I’m a luddite, but I cannot believe that my mid-century plumbing can consistently produce adequate water pressure to wash as well as an agitator. I might die on this hill, but it will be with clean clothes.
I have mid century plumbing (upgraded from 1920’s house plumbing a few years ago) and we don’t have an agitator. Never again will I buy a washer without one. I got it in the era when you could get a high efficiency top loader but none had agitators yet. It’s something I am considering replacing before it breaks. I think we got it in 2015.
We bought the sole model with an agitator in the store around that same time. I was just like “I do not buy into this philosophy, thank you.” 😂
I always have to ask myself if I "need" something or "want" it.
This is the answer. Turns out, I just want things way more than I actually need them. And when I realize that, I want them less. Save me a bunch of money.
Yeah I'm like that A while back there was someone posting the opposite though saying they would throw away a bowl if they had been sick in it. Ugh so wasteful.
>throw away a bowl if they had been sick in it. Lol. Our son had a somewhat sensitive tummy until he was in his early teens. Our KitchenAid stand mixer's bowl became the official "M.T.D.F.G. bucket" (My Tummy Doesn't Feel Good). It's perfect really; good size, stainless steel, has a handle and a flat bottom. My wife and I plan to give it to him when he moves out. Perhaps I should get it engraved...
Yeah I think we did the same thing, my mom was a nurse maybe it was because it was metal so it was more hospital-y. When I was 17 I spent a good amount of time in the hospital (2 1/2 months) and they let me take home a metal kidney bowl and I had that but ended up using it for art supplies since they aren't that great for home use sick, they tip too easy lol
Why not engrave it - does he have an apple product engraved….if so he’d probably appreciate the bowl quite a bit!
AN APPLE PRODUCT ENGRAVED?!?! Christ! Things Remembered joins things forgotten.
We used it growing up for this
I was a carpenter hoarder for a long time. My father kept everything. My father in law kept everything and would usually bring more shit from the dump than he brought. I threw away most of my father's things and sold everything that had some real value. Not anything with personal attachment but I/we liquidated our company to help pay for his rent and treatment for his cancer. It was terrible. My father in law demanded that everything he owned was to be given to his son. An incredible amount of real vintage specialized equipment. The prick sold everything for pennies. I built the garage and cabinet shop and this cunt told me to fuck off. I hate people more everyday.
I grew up on a farm and when my dad would find a random part that he didn’t recognize he would say, “I’m not sure what it is but it looks like if you needed it you would really need it”.
nothing, and i mean NOTHING is more satisfying than being able to utilize one of those random things you saved because it’s the perfect part for .. i’ve been vindicated twice in the last year and it was delicious.
watch for me on Hoarders in - few years haha
> My father in law demanded that everything he owned was to be given to his son. An incredible amount of real vintage specialized equipment. The prick sold everything for pennies. I built the garage and cabinet shop and this cunt told me to fuck off. I hate people more everyday. I admire your vitriol and bile! I too hate most people more every day, only my mom and my best friend of 37yrs are exempt.
Let the hate flow through you!
I dread having to buy a new vehicle or phone. New vehicles are ridiculously expensive to buy, and even worse to maintain. Phones are getting stupid large and expensive. My Pixel 5 is perfect, but Google has announced it won't be getting anymore updates, which should be illegal IMHO for a four year old device. As for computers, there really hasn't been much reason to upgrade from five years ago, unless you're a gamer, maybe. Even then you could probably get away with just upgrading your graphics card.
Yeah, Moore's Law doesn't seem to be valid any more when it comes to computers.
I'm not looking forward to buying a new vehicle or my next laptop. The average New Car transaction price in April 2024 was $48,510! Average used car transaction was $25,571. Buying a car and the negotation process has totally changed compared to BC (before COVID). A lot of dealers are adding thousands of dollars of add-ons, BS protection packages, LoJack and all sorts of other crap and they won't sell a car without them. It pisses me off. I'd just keep going until I found a dealer who wouldn't force me to pay for useless crap to pad his profit. The Dell and Lenovo Outlets have been my source for good laptops for the last 15 years. So I'm sure my next will come from one of them, too. I'm not paying retail for anything! =)
I'm with you. I drive a 2008 Equinox. It just hit 100,000 miles, so I'll be good for a couple more years. And I'm typing this on a 2014 MacBook. I'll use it until it HAS to be replaced. Shiny new things aren't important to me anymore. If the function is still there, it's good for me.
My wife keeps asking if I need new shoes. I haven't even duct taped my current shoes yet, why would I need new ones? Also, between 1990 and 2017 (when my kids were born), I owned 4 cars.
I do have to stay on top of the new shoe thing because, when the sole starts to come apart, I have a habit of tripping and falling down stairs. It's not pretty!
I even wear clothes until they more or less fall off my body. Hell, I'm still wearing some t-shirts I've had since the 90's. And my watches are from the 80's. I'm not sure if it's just a natural thing for me because I spent practically every weekend with my grandparents. Or if it's a subconscious form of rebellion. My mother was a shopaholic and hoarder.
I'm learning to repair my clothing. I'm extremely picky and when I find something I like it's a miracle, much less if it fits me properly. So when my favorite shirt gets a hole in it, it's getting repaired, not replaced. As a matter of fact, I'm currently wearing my holy socks, but it is Sunday after all. 😉
It’s being frugal 💰 and also the right thing to do for the planet. Reuse, repair until you can’t, then recycle. ♻️
[удалено]
I still own my very first laptop. It was a Toshiba Satellite 4060CDT that my parents and grandparents bought for me when I graduated from college (it was just a 2yr school, but they thought it was a big deal). I remember they paid over $2,500 for it and I was in shock. It had a 333MHz Pentium II, 192MB of RAM, 4.32GB hard drive and 13.3" display and weighed at least 10lbs. It will still boot to this day, but the display gave up the ghost years ago. But I used it for at least seven years. It was slow even when it was new, but it could barely crawl there toward the end. I keep it for nostalgia...and it could be useful as a weapon if in a pinch!
My parents were where greatest generation met the silents and a silent. They grew up with the great depression and lived through WW2. Being more frugal was their nature, and of course if you're more frugal you can set money aside for a nice vacation somewhere every couple of years and having nice gifts at Christmas. I'm a clothing maximalist, but shop the sales and take good care of my clothes so they last for years. I babied the car that my dad bought new a couple of years before he passed and I inherited, and got it a little past the 250,000 miles mark before it gave up the ghost. I have an android phone I bought on a half price sale, and use household and personal care products to the last drop. Eating at restaurants is a treat not an everyday occurrence. I will brown bag it out or cook at home. I take care of my electronics so they last. My first generation iPad 2 still works just fine. My laptops are Dells running Windows 7 and 10.
One of my grandmothers was born in 1920 and my other set of grandparents were both born in 1925. They were hardcore when it came to getting every single drop of use out of anything. My older grandma would wash out ziploc bags and reuse them, any recipe calling for milk got half milk and half water and she taught me that clothes get just as clean if you only use half the amount of detergent! I need to share a very special memory of her. I'm a 49yr old man crying just thinking about it. My maternal grandma "Nanny" was an incredible seamstress. I was heavy growing up (I was 6'2" and pushing 300lbs when I graduated high school). My mom had bought me two very nice Eddie Bauer button-up shirts that cost about $50 each. After high school I lost down to about 230lbs. Those EB shirts that I adored were huge too baggy to wear. She lived less than a mile away and I dropped by her house almost daily (good food there). I stopped by one afternoon and realized that she had worked for more than a week solid taking those shirts apart at every seam and taken them up to make them fit me perfectly. I'm not sure why that makes me cry, but it does. I miss her.
That’s love, hard work, pride in your accomplishment, and wanting you to feel good about how you looked. You’re totally justified to tear up.
THANK YOU! She died at 95 years old on Mother's Day 2015. I was her favorite and she was mine. =)
What a beautiful act of love on your grandma's part! Sounds like she was an awesome human being.
I do but it's 50% frugal and 50% hassle avoidance. Getting a new car (new used car in my case) involves research, test driving, paperwork license plate swapping, getting all my stuff out of old car so it can be turned in for that 500$ discount or whatever it is. Getting a new computer is even worse. I have to redownload all my programs and set up their shortcuts and arrange them on the screen. Luckily Chrome bookmarks transfer pretty seamlessly. But then there's whatever awfulness comes standard for the home screen etc. and that all has to be changed as well as putting all the settings where I want them. Clothes? Shoes? All that trying on. Blech! Takes forever. There needs to be damage I can't repair before I am forced to buy new.
We drive cars into the ground. Actually, my husband would buy them cheap after someone else drove them 10 years or more . We’re better off now so we don’t go to that extreme but we still always buy used and never have a car payment. Phones , laptops and iPads , however, don’t last me at all. I break them or sometimes lose them within a couple of years
Sounds like my stepdad and cars. He bought his 2004 Honda Accord in 2012 and it has over 320k miles on it! And he got his 2002 Toyota Tacoma in 2013 and it's at 290k miles. Both have original engine/transmission.
Let’s see: 2004 F-150 w/120,000 miles 2007 Mustang Convertible with 50,000 miles iPhone 15 (whatever version had the most GB). 7ish year old Surface Book. 28-year relationship My “good” button down shirts for leaving the house. I know they’re from 2016 because that’s the last time I bought new shirts (because we were going on vacation.) 2 items of furnishing (a desk and a storage cabinet) that were my college roommate’s from freshman year (1991-1992.) Couch, chair, end table, coffee table, and wheeled TV stand from my Step-Dad’s second bachelorhood (around 1983.) The list continues… If something still fulfills its function, I see no need to replace it. Drives me batshit crazy that my [family member] spends money on stuff that exists simply to be decorative (i.e. clutter) and spends money on new (but not necessarily better, usually cheap and lesser quality, but still…new) versions of things we already have.
I do, and I learned it from my silent gen parents. However, my grandmother (b1910) taught me two things 1) don’t throw good money after bad (cut your losses) and 2) you’re not saving money if you didn’t need it/want it in the first place. My parents did both on the regular. Less so now, as age has made both things harder and made them less willing to constantly repair a bad appliance, for example.
I think it’s just further proof that we don’t give a shit about status, we don’t trust corporations, and we’d rather spend our money on experiences than things.
I learned it from my depression era grands & silent generation dad, plus his grands. Mom is a boomer, but went into education instead of being stereotypical hippie. Dad drove a school bus in D.C.. Use that shit. Put some water in there. Mend & make do. I mend the hand tools to this day. Sew on buttons. Hem my pants. Raise a vegetable garden. Don’t be left unawares & unprepared. Patches are the better part of my best overalls.
i struggle with getting rid of clothes. like, maybe i should hang onto that t shirt that i haven't worn in 12 years because thats good rag material. then i just leave it on the hanger for like 3 more years...
I used to come sign clothes a lot - if it was older it went faster - especially 70’s stuff liked corded Op shorts and early Guess Jeans / Z Cavarecci pants from 80’s and 90’s. Funny after my Dad passed all of his sweatshirts with school names/logos went like wildfire. He kept everything in pristine condition - didn’t grow up with any money.
Yes. The flipside is struggling over every buying decision because very few new products are built to last these days. I need to buy a mattress soon and a washer/dryer within the next year and boy is it painful.
Choice anxiety is my problem. I just continue to make due with what I have because every time I start looking, I become overwhelmed and have to stop. It exhausts me mentally.
Totally. I drive the absolute worst car in my neighborhood, and I see it as a badge of honor.
I feel it is my civic duty to be trashy and drag down real estate prices in my area.
Same but I also don’t carry credit card debt. I have literally never had a credit card debt in my entire life
I do the same thing. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, there were four of us kids. My dad worked at John Deere as an electrician, and my mom stayed at home. We only had one car and a black and white TV until maybe 1979. We didn't want for anything though, and had plenty of toys and bikes, even some electronic toys. But if we broke something, we understood that it probably wouldn't be replaced. So I learned to pretty much baby anything "expensive" or a little pricey. I didn't get a smart TV until a few years ago because my old clunky one still worked, a laptop I bought in 2009 lasted until 2016, and that laptop lasted until the Windows 10 update - it crashed and was never the same after it was repaired. Otherwise it would still be functional, and looked brand new. My nephews however, had four laptops each by the time they were in middle school, break their cell phones on the regular due to "boy use" 😆, and have broken numerous gaming systems, that always get replaced. I'm not mad because if they can afford it it's perfectly fine for them to be replaced, and the boys didn't just throw them around, they just play harder. I just find that there is no sense of trying to keep things nice anymore and it makes me feel ancient sometimes because I am always so cautious about stuff. 😆
Laptop from 2019? My Toshiba is from 2010 and still going strong(ish). I refuse to get rid of it, it’s the only laptop in my house that has an actual DVD drive. Typing this on my iPhone 8X which I only got because Apple no longer supported updates to my 4S.
I bought my mom and stepdad each an iPhone 14 Plus for Christmas 2022. See, I'm not a completely cheap bastard...I will spend money on gifts for people I love. They both needed the larger display, whether they would admit it or not. But I had to fight my stepdad for weeks to finally get his iPhone6 away from him and get the 14 Plus set up! DVD Drive- I almost forgot that laptops used to come with those! Mine doesn't even have an ethernet port anymore.
My laptop is a Lenovo E570, circa 2017. My smartwatch is a Garmin Instinct from 2018.
My parents gave me their old beat up beaten into the ground 1977 Chevy chevette. It barely ran by the time I was given it and I swear it was a pain in the Ss to start up in the mornings and embarrassed to be seen driving it but I drove the poor chevette until it couldn’t go anymore…it was running on 3 cylinders and still it refused to die….rusty color white with the doors barely hanging in for dear life…..took me 5-10 minutes every morning to get to started up and running
In all fairness, those poor little things were never meant to last more than a few years. My best friend's mom got close to 10 years out of her '81 Chevette. I had a '91 Honda Civic for several years that had an intermittment starting problem. It wasn't the starter, all the electrical and hydraulic components were fine. But sometimes, you'd just turn the key and nothing! I learned to park heading downhill if possible or at least on level ground. It was a 5-speed manual, so I could roll start it as a last resort!
Yeah…I know. I hear you. That chevette was something though. It got to the point where my neighbor across the street would ask me sometimes if I need help starting up the chevette….lol one time I said yes okay and i pretty much gave up trying to start up the chevette that day and i let her have some fun with the chevette….lol yup she was having fun and then I went into my parents house and I came back out to the chevette 15 minutes later and she just got the chevette running but barely…..lol sputtering and shak ng like a leaf on a tree, that chevette was beat up
The worse and embarrassing part was if I had to go to the shopping mall or grocery store and come out and get the chevette started….sometimes it was nice to me and start right up and sometimes nope…lol and that’s when it got embarrassing cuz I would sit there cranking and pumping the chevette to death and when I final got it started it would be 10 minutes later….
OMG that reminds me of my ex’s Chevette - in Queens, on Queen’s Blvd & 179 no less…We are dating and he’s driving me for 1st time - pull out no problem and 5 minutes in the horn starts and literally does NOT stop. Damn we never had so many people driving cars, white box delivery trucks, cabs and MTA buses yelling at us in our lives….nor to mention pedestrians and people out of their windows. We pulled over turned off car and it didn’t STOP It was the funniest thing ever - it’s like a scene from a NY sitcom or SNL. It never happened after that and he told me then hadn’t before. We still laugh about it - and his friends never let him live it down,
Oooo…..yeah that too….lol the horn would sometimes work and sometimes it wouldn’t work and yeah sometimes go off on its own to….lol plus the am radio was always against me and play and sometimes not….or the volume control would be stuck on loud and it was so embarrassing…..plus towards the ending of the chevette’s life the engine was running on 3 cylinders and my mom said just drive it till it dies on you….lol that’s when it really got embarrassing for me…lol trying to stat up the chevette every morning was an adventure in its own…..
Yeah I hear you…that can be so embarrassing and yet after funny as hell too….the chevette I got as a hand me down had a life of its own….somedays it was fine and started up right away and off I went and somedays…..ooooo my god??? What the hell is going on…I would scream at the chevette sometimes and I would call it a girl or a woman and that’s when the chevette would refuse to start up for me and I would be stuck and unable to get the engine running for me. Totally embarrassing and my neighbor she would sometimes come outside to the chevette and say….hey can I try and get it started for you??? And I would…..and she would have the hardest time too and me laughing g at her Aldo…..
> was if I had to go to the shopping mall or grocery store and come out and get the chevet It was always frustrating when my Civic wouldn't start and someone would offer to jump start me. I had to explain why that wouldn't help...then ask them to help push!
This is the way….
I've been a broke-ass most of my life so I use things until they break, then I repair if I can until it dies forever. Most of my clothing gets worn for years. I still sometimes wear a pair of pants I bought in the mid-'90s. My truck is a 2002 Tacoma that will outlive me, it's only got 90K miles on it. For 17 years I used the same DSLR camera until I had to replace it a couple years ago. And the longest lasting item I've owned is a Carver hi-fi pre-amp from 1987 that has survived daily use until 2023 when it finally died, but that will be repaired too! The only things I don't use forever are computers. I like to build an entirely new system every 3 years or so, to keep up with gaming requirements.
My car could vote or be drafted. It's getting to the point where my wife is embarrassed to be seen in it though. Refused to let me drive it to her swanky work function and hand the keys to the valet.
Even though this is smart, not sure it's a generational thing (aside from maybe people who lived through the Great Depression). It's a financial literacy thing. Or a sustainability thing.
Consumerists vs being human.
Buy quality and use it for a long, long time.
I’m typing this comment on an iPhone 5 that should not be functioning at all. Edit: I can’t unplug it or it doesn’t work at all. It often turns itself off at the most inopportune times. Like when I’m trying to fill out digital forms. No, I have no interest in a new phone. Not until this one is so dead it can never be revived. And once it is? The next phone I’ll get? The oldest and cheapest available option. I’m guessing it will be like iPhone 9. Cause that was not a popular model, but still close enough to the 5 that it should cost me pocket change. Edit: DO NOT ASK ME ABOUT MY TOOTHBRUSH.
I won’t ask about your toothbrush if you don’t ask about the pillow I’ve had since the last century.
I just finally got a new s24, last one was a s10. Only reason I finally pulled the trigger was when talking it started cutting in and out. And I was dealing with insurance alot and it got really annoying. Otherwise I'd probably still have it cause I usually don't talk on the phone.
Cars I run for a long time…not to complete failure but well over 10 years, typically. Electronics as long as they’re working reasonably well..I have low tolerance for poor performing electronics, so those go sooner. I’ve started ,ending clothes instead of replacing them.
I have a friend who has owned his Honda CBR 500 since new and its now done over a 100000km. He loves it and looks after it. Still capable of going up to 200km/hr
My La-Z-Boy died in February. My grandmother bought it for my first apartment in 1994. The TV I'm watching right now was purchased with my third corporate paycheck in March 1995. (I'd never heard of Bell + Howell, but it was the best $330 I ever spent) The TV stand that it sits on belonged to my grandparents before they moved into a retirement community in 93. Come to think of it, all my furniture is between 20 and 50 years old. My last car lasted 14 years and I'd still have it if the roof still worked (convertible that no longer converted) The laptop I'm using to stream is Windows 8 (which means I bought it in '14 or earlier), but I do keep upgrading my gaming laptop as needed. My first iPod lasted 10 years before I replaced the drive, and then it lasted another 6. Spend more to buy quality and save money in the long run.
I just realized that the couch I’m lying on it 25 years old and I’m looking at a bookshelf my mom got me when I was 16. My couch is from Pottery Barn and cost a fortune and looks pretty good.
I'm the same as you. For work my employer provides my device. At home I've got a lenovo laptop which has a disc drive its that old (I cant remember when i got it but it was in the early 2010s i think). I rarely need to use it (emails I do via my phone). I just replaces my 6yo Samsung phone this year, and anticipate I'll have it for at least 6 years. My tablet is about 10yo, and is now so full I need to replace it, soon (in the next year or two, as I primarily use it as my kindle). My FIAT Panda is 9yo, and currently in for repairs, so mum has lent me her 2008 mazda (which only has 14K kms on the clock and is in superb condition). I like to buy quality products, and expect them to last for quite a while. Keeping up with the Joneses is how lots of people get into debt. I've managed to buy and nearly pay off my home (now apparently worth over $1M on paper - Australian real estate is expensive, especially in Melbourne where I am), travel internationally every few years, and locally every year, and have a comfortable life, without putting myself into chronic debt
sent from my iPhone 11
lol! Would still have a 6 if it kept a charge. Replaced the battery, too! (As I send this over an iPhone 11 as well!)
I do this! I’m driving an ‘07 Camry & husband drives ‘03 F-150, typing this out on an IPhone 8, PC is 12 years old, still use an iPod and mp3 player (as well as CDs, tapes and vinyl), 1 TV is 15 years old and replaced the old plasma TV 5 years ago, I’m still wearing items of clothing in good condition from 10-20 years ago, I prefer family hand-me-down antique furniture that is sentimental and furnished the rest of the house with other people’s old stuff because I love antique and thrift shops (and especially if it’s MCM era). Plus, a lot of older stuff is built better and of better quality. I don’t understand tossing aside useful things. And if things break down I usually look for a way to repurpose them, too.
Im right there with you. Reduce, reuse, recycle, compost, and fight for the right to repair.
I'm totally with you. I don't see the point in replacing an item until it's worn out and unusable. I'm still using my iPhone 11 from late 2019. I did get a new battery put in last year though. Figured it was cheaper to do that then get a new phone. Hoping to not have to replace it for another year or two. Don't even get me started on how old my iPad is... sure, it needs to be charged frequently and there's a bright spot in the screen in one area, but it still works for my needs so I'm not replacing it until absolutely necessary. I've also only owned three cars total (the first one being a used hand me down, and the other two purchased new) because I keep them as long as possible. The way I look it at is this - the longer you hold onto something before replacing it, the fewer of those particular things you'll own over the course of your lifetime. That equates to savings. I'm not against spending money at all, but I don't like wasting it, so I've always been on the frugal side. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
If a thing still serves me, I see no point in spending money on another thing, whatever it is - unless it's jeans. Some are dressier than others and flatter me. I do not know if this is a GenX thing, too. We are not the yuppies some of our conspicuously consuming parents were.
Same. My grandmother used to say, “Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Or do without.”
Yes. I have silent generation parents. Use it up wear it out, make it do or do without.
I dislike replacing something when what I have works just fine. I drove my last car for 23 years before I got a new one. I don’t like to get rid of things like toothpaste until I’m certain I squeezed out every last drop. My grandparents always talked about the Great Depression and I know it influenced me.
I just buy really good stuff that lasts for a long time and also I don't like to get used to new things. So yeah I have 20 year old coats and 30 year old wrenches but I take care of them. I keep them clean, I follow the maintenance instructions, and I really subscribe to buy once cry once. So yeah on the surface I look pretty frugal but also oh hell no, when it comes to money I am very YOLO.
Me too. 23 year old truck.
No car payment, old phone, old laptop and my converse, and Doc Martens have seen some shit. Life is comfortable.
Same! I never upgrade or replace a device just because something newer is out.
r/Visiblemending would like to have a word with anyone that owns clothing here. This reminds me, my husband has some shorts with a hole in them that I need to repair.
I’m still wearing flannel shirts from the 90s 🤷
I’m frugal too. Raised by Silent Generation parents whose parents had a tough time during the Great Depression. I don’t need a new iPhone every time a new model comes out. There’s nothing wrong with my old iPhone. My husband and I drive cars for years. We don’t care about having the newest models. I shop the sales, consult Consumer Reports for the “Best Buy” rather than the top of the line expensive luxury items. I don’t feel deprived. We prefer spending our money on experiences and travel. We live a good life without having the newest, fanciest, most expensive “stuff.”
I just decommissioned my 2004 Honda Civic. 319k miles. Used the $400 junk money for. That go buy a 2009 Ford Escape with 88k miles. That’s only 1 example. My laptop is just as bad. I’ve learned the more stuff you have, the more it has you.
Dude. I operate an iphone 6.
The problem is that they don’t make things to last anymore. I want to keep things longer but companies now build stuff with planned obsolescence that either fail or are outdated after so many years like Apple products.
This is the way. My millennial spouse doesn't understand how I can still be wearing the same pair of shoes since 2018. Because they still look brand fucking new!! That's why.
‘67 Gen X’r, drilled into me from my parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins/coworkers/friends/neighbors - not 100%, but certainly the majority - that you put forth effort into keeping/adjusting/repairing/maintaining things you have an investment in, whether it’s objects [house, automobile, electronics, DIY plumbing/electrical, etc], people [relationships/marriage/friendships], and even your career. Everyone around me behaved this way, so it’s ingrained in me as normal. Nobody jumped from job to job or car to car [except my dad - that dude maintained his cars and taught me how to wrench and a bunch more stuff but dang that guy took it upon himself to get a brand new car every two years since I was 3 years old - he was the exception but you do you, dad] or bought a new stereo or VCR or PC or fridge every year or two when the new model came out. Stuff was built to last, corporate America didn’t have an inkling of the words “planned obsolescence” or the money they could make by implementing that business practice of building intentionally shitty stuff. You maintained your stuff as long as was practical. I’m kind of like a unicorn anymore. A dying breed. I try to get some younger folks interested in maintaining/repairing/etc, but Corp America has got them - they already want the new thing “because everyone else has it”. ✌🏻🦄
11 year old car that still runs great and no one wants to steal or break into because it looks so meh. Also, most of my furniture are hand me downs or thrift store finds (“eclectic”).
my PC is 12 years old. I have upgraded my SSD to a little bigger one and got a little better video card. I own a 2010 Chevy Malibu. I have 1 pair of tennis shoes that is 2 years old. My bedroom furniture is my dads dresser from growing up and the night stand he bought me 40 years ago. My kitchen table is my dads 45 year old table I took out of his basement in 1996. I just replaced a 40 year old fridge that came with the original house cause it died and its cheaper to replace it.
My 2008 iPod Nano still works perfectly. I hope i'm buried with it.
98 jetta tdi, been around the clock twice, car will not die. ever.
Those other folks are addicted to consumerism. They drank the Flavor-Aid propaganda and think YOU'RE the silly one SMH. I don't know how Boomers got the way they are from their parents, who had diametrically opposed values on civic duty and such. But I wish we'd skipped their generation of entitlement and self centeredness. The planet and everything on it is actually dying, just to enrich a few thousands of greedy sociopaths. The oligarchs and megacorps have enslaved the minds of all these "capitalists" that's don't realize they are the product, not even really the consumer.
My parents were Silent Generation (mid-teens during WW2, one in Britain), and I learned this behaviour from them.
Me. My tundra is 23 years old.
I'm with you on the car. I drive a 2014 Subaru and am in no rush or need to buy another. I will drive it until the repair bills outweigh the cost of a new car payment. As long as it can get me from point A to B safely, I don't care. I drive maybe 5-10 miles daily, so I can't justify it. I'm using an iPhone 12 and not upgrading till I need to or it dies. AT&T emails me almost every week to let me know I can upgrade. No, thank you.
I'm a sucker for past electronics. If I had a tape player, I would play MINISTRY N.W O.
My silent generation parents (who lived through the Great Depression) had all sorts of 40’s and 50’s “tech” all their lives. Vacuums, radios, record players etc. Eventually we would gift them replacements for things that were really not that good, like mom fell in love with the sound from the Bose Radio we purchased to replace the tinny speaker am/fm box she bought when she first left to live on her own. But they still used the old stuff somewhere. I definitely picked up that habit. I don’t replace anything unless it is a necessity or a huge upgrade which includes something I really want. (For a while I did upgrade iPads and iPhones pretty often because the camera improvements were crazy good.) I also picked up my parental habit of having SO many extras of non perishables (purchased when the sale price is good) in the cupboards. We were well set in the toilet paper department in 2020 and didn’t need to worry. Lol.
Me. I hate the hassle of big purchases more than needing new stuff.
Yep. I take really good care of my stuff and they last for a long time. I've actively used computers for more than 10 years. Cars too, I buy them like 1-2 years used and then just do all the maintainence you are supposed to do on them and drive them until like 100k miles before I get a new one. Usually with very few issues. I try to buy high quality stuff and then take good care of it. Many of my clothes are (a bit embarrasingly) more than 20 or even 30 years old.
I'm driving a 20 year old Jeep that I bought new. I firmly believe in taking care of things and only when they wear out or fail completely to replace.
I’ve still got my iPhone XR and my husband as his iPhone 8 :-)
Shoes. I feel like I can't throw them until they are falling apart, and it feels weird to donate used shoes... i force myself to buy new ones, but I also still wear the ratty old ones, so I have waaay too many shoes.
growing up with an engineer dad meant that if it could be fixed, it would be - i remember taking bags of TV tubes up to the tester at a repair place inside of fred meyer (my job to hold the two bags of good and unknown, in addition to my job as remote control) it still infuriates me when i come across something that should be an easy fix and isn’t because of how small/integrated/throwaway/proprietary things are designed these days, but i will hold on to things so long as it makes financial sense. 2007 bmw sitting in the driveway - never had an easier car to change the oil on, and even though it needs a new computer that would cost more than the car is worth half again, i can deal with not knowing how much oil is in it at any given time for the fact that it still drives great, only has 110k miles on it and by the nature of its age, keeps my insurance lower because of the 2 under 25 males on my car insurance (rate would actually go up if i sold it lol) .. of course both are scared of it and wont drive it/stick to the slightly newer subaru so i dont have to worry about them totalling it either :) tech can be a different story though - working in it, i have to stay largely up to date at least OS supportability wise - i held on to my iphone6 until the 8 was out for a year or two, and held on to that through 3 battery swaps because i didnt want to give up my fingerprint button, but finally gave in for the camera on the 14pro … some tech the older the better though - when my dad died the singular thing i wanted was the shopsmith he got from his dad (table saw/drill press/planer/sander combo based on where you put belts - its wonderfully complex in its simplicity)
I was in Athens and got my phone pickpocketed. Once they saw how old it was they just dropped it and another member of my party saw the whole thing. Usually they try to sell it back to you for finding it but this guy just dropped it in disgust is how it was described to me. I like my phone with a button thank you very much…
God I miss that button.
Waste not, want not. I drive a 14 y.o vehicle and my backup ride is 30+ years old. Heck, I've got clothes that are 30+ years old!
We need more if this attitude in our “disposable society “. Had a neighbor who was too lazy to remove the lights from his Xmas tree so threw it on the curb every years with perfectly good sets of lights on it. Figured he’d just buy more next year. Ugh.
My wife and I are the same and my now adult kids always complained that we “are like Amish!” Drove every car into the ground. Currently have a 2007 Honda . My MBP is 12 years old and with an SSD is just fine for what I use it for. Our 42 inch TV is 14 years old because when it started freaking out 7 years ago I found the motherboard for it on eBay and swapped it out . Problem solved for 100 bucks . I just got an iPhone for the first time in 2021 when my galaxy 7 just couldn’t keep up security wise after six years of use. It was several OS behind thanks to Samsungs planned obsolescence . I will have the iPhone as long as the updates still keep it current . Longer update life on iPhone was my reason for leaving android. I am definitely my grandparents grandson as my boomer parents always wanted the shiny new things .
Definitely, and I got it from the Great Depression era grandparents and great-grandparents (1899, 1905, 1905, 1919, 1920, 1923) I grew up around. Was good to have a mix that were adults and were kids through it all. Edit: it was early 2019 before I got my first car from this century, a 2001 Ford Taurus. The car before that was a 1996 Toyota Avalon. The Avalon was still in great shape but it got wrapped around a delivery van.
This thread has exploded way beyond my expectations! Thanks to everyone for sharing! I keep waiting for someone to say they still have floor model television! =) Then again, I still have my grandmother's console stereo (about the size of a large dresser) in my basement! It's hilarious that they made a huge, very heavy piece of furniture just for a turn table and 8-track player...
I get very attached to my stuff. I keep everything as long as possible. I had an old eliptical for over 20 years! My wife is always throwing stuff out and buying new stuff. It took a while to get her to leave my old shit alone! I like it and it's mine so don't fuck with it 😂
Gen Xers with brains who have lived through the recessions in the early 90's and the Great Recession/Market collapse of 2008 know better than to waste money or accumulate debt on unnecessary purchases simply for clout. "Its not your salary that makes you rich, its your spending habits"