My Three Rules Of Stuff

A while back I wrote a post about my tendencies to pack rat and hold on to things. Those traits were no doubt inherited from my depression-era parents. But here’s the thing, there’s a massive upside to these behaviors too, when exercised in balance. Some of the comments from that post alluded to this.

Take my lawnmower, it was originally my grandmother’s, from 1984.  Still works like a charm.  

My toaster?  Also from my grandma, circa late 1970s.  It still makes perfect toast and no it’s not a fire hazard.  I was using the plastic laundry basket from my grandma as well until it broke last year.  It was probably from the early 1970s.

You see, as a comment on that post from Tonya at Budget And The Beach says, one of the good traits I received from depression era parents is that they passed on to me how to value useful things, and the desire to milk as much life as I can from them.

Case in point.  When mp3 players first came out, being a huge music fan and guitar player, I wanted one really bad.  Being a stoic, I delayed that gratification for a few years, but in 2005 was ready to relent. 

One of the main choices back then was between models that used standard AA or AAA batteries, or ones that used a rechargeable battery internal to the player.

I was smart enough to know that internal rechargeable batteries continue to degrade at every charge and discharge cycle until they become useless.  And back then that often didn’t take too long.  So I went with one of the traditional battery models.  I figured, I have to pay for the batteries with this one, but the player should last way way longer.

Well, here’s my Creative mp3 player from the year 2005. 

I still use this thing heavily today.  It still holds plenty of music, is way smaller than a smartphone, and it’s perfect for running and kayaking.  It barely weighs three ounces.  And it plays for hundreds of hours on a single tiny AAA battery. 

Oh, did I mention it also gets FM and AM radio?

Maybe you had a similar model back in 2005.  If it had a rechargeable battery though, I’m sure it died a long long time ago, and you had to purchase another.  And perhaps another after that, and another….

And this fits well with my strategy of owning mp3s vice streaming or paying to “lease” music.  With mp3s, you own your music and you can put it on any device that can play music.  Like a 13 year old mp3 player.  I still routinely load brand new music on my ancient player, and she keeps chugging along.

In no way am I claiming to be perfect in this practice. I’ve made my share of stupid purchases.  For a while in the late 2000s as digital camera technology kept advancing at light speed pace I kept buying the latest and greatest point and shoot camera.

I sold most of the old ones on Craigslist and recouped much of the costs, but it was a financially damaging habit just to get some extra megapixels and a few new features.  Lesson learned.

So in my journey to Financial Independence I’ve learned that for me there’s kind of three big rules about stuff.

 

Rule #1 – Try to buy as wisely as possible.  

There is a balance here in buying the cheapest versus getting quality.  This can be difficult.  You’re sometimes going on a hunch, but in today’s world with endless reviews on websites like Amazon it’s actually easier than ever.  My choice to get a AAA powered mp3 player is an example.  It was an informed choice and it turned out to be very wise indeed. 

More expensive things sometimes are higher quality, but very often they’re not.  I know many folks who brag about their $1200 MacBooks and how long they last, and I’m sure they do last long.  They are good products, I’m not denying that.

But I’m typing these very words from a $400 Toshiba laptop that I bought in 2011.  She’s seven years old, still works fine, and I paid one third of what others paid. (oh lord I’m going to start a windows vs apple holy war, and those are the deadliest of wars….)  

*I reserve the right to delete any windows vs apple bashing and trashing in the comments 🙂

 

Rule #2 – Take care of your stuff.

This goes without saying.  Fix things if you can before automatically throwing them out and replacing them.  But also try to prevent them from breaking in the first place.

My 34 year old electric lawn mower is an example.  I sharpen the blade every year even though it’s not fully necessary.  Why?  A very sharp blade puts less resistance on the motor when it’s cutting grass.

And I never cut the grass when it’s wet as water and electric motors do not mix all that well.  These simple things that require virtually no effort have extended the life of this mower, and I should still have it for many years to come. 

I have, ahem, a few bikes.  If you ride a lot like me there are certain things you need to do to prevent things from breaking.  The most basic is to replace your chain when it’s worn.  A chain measuring tool costs very little.  If you ride with a worn chain, you’ll then ruin your cassette, your rear derailleur, and possibly even your front chain rings.

A $10 tool and a $15 chain every 3000-4000 miles prevents bigger problems and costs.  Bikes are special things, and should be taken care of.

 

Rule #3 –  Resist new models and use what you have until it dies.

Does what you have still work?  Good.  Keep using it.  Do you really need the new model with the Bluetooth capability?  (need, not want)  Then don’t get it.  There’s enough waste in the world.

Years ago at an office potluck I remember a co-worker bringing in a really nice crock pot full of his homemade chili.  At the end of the event he asked if anyone would like to keep the crock pot.  I asked him if there was anything wrong with it.  Nope.  “We just want to get a better one.” 

Now you could say he was being very generous to offer a free crock pot to someone, and that part is true.  But knowing the person as I did, I know that he and his wife are habitual lifestyle inflators.  That’s the kind of behavior that will hinder your path to financial independence, plain and simple. 

And oh yeah, even if you think something just stopped working and died, remember to revisit Rule #2 first.  You might fix it and learn a cool skill.

That’s my philosophy on buying stuff.  It’s pretty plain and straightforward.  I know there are many in the personal finance community who roll their eyes at stuff like this and are critics of anything frugal.  One of the goals of my blog is to detail how I got to financial independence at a young age, and these “rules of stuff” were an important part of that strategy.  My results speak for themselves.

Buy sparingly and wisely, take care of things and fix them, and use things until they die. That’s how I “do stuff”.

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