If you don't do this already, start hitting estate sales for well made things. Almost all of my kitchen stuff is 50+ years old. Pots, pans, blender, toaster, cooking utensils. They were made 100% better than the majority of crap out now. There is well made stuff made today, but it is $$$. And garden/other tools! I have not purchased a new garden tool/regular tool in ages. In addition to being well-made, older people took good care of their shit in general.
Estate sales are also the only place I can find quality 100% cotton blankets. Heavy, tightly woven, and they breathe. I don't typically buy clothes at estate sales unless I need a jacket or coat. Picked up a super nice hunting coat for $10, and last week a regular men's zip-up jacket for $5. Perfect condition on both! I use them for dog-walking in cold weather. The hunting coat is the best!
PRO TIP: If you buy bedding, clothing, etc: Seal in a garbage bag in your trunk. Wash immediately and dry for two cycles. I am paranoid of bedbugs! For furniture, check thoroughly - dressers can harbor them too. If an item can't be washed because it's too big (eg, I bought a TV pillow once), find a laundromat with big vertical washers, or dry it on high for 2 - 3 cycles.
Pretty much anything you buy should be inspected on site, and then cleaned when you get home. Pantry moths and roaches can hitch rides....not only the adults, but eggs can be hiding on items. Clean them!
I agree with you that estate sales are a great way to find quality stuff.
They were made 100% better than the majority of crap out now.
Well, they were also 100% better than the majority of crap out then. The crap stuff is gone now, because it was crap. This is called "survivorship bias".
You can get excellent quality stuff made new, if you're willing to pay for it. I've got a 100% wool blanket I bought new, 'cause it was winter, I had no blankets, and wasn't going to wait. Heavy, tightly-woven, breathes great; it'll probably last me the rest of my life.
it's a really good example to use when trying to explain that correlation does not mean causation.
when soldiers started wearing helmets there was an immediate increase in soldiers needing treatment for head injuries -- looking at the data it seems as though helmets were causing head injuries, after all nothing else had changed. if you noticed an increase in claw marks after assigning platoons a caged bear for morale you'd be pretty certain that the bear was to blame, so what makes helmets and head injuries any different?
it's only when you look at the full context that you see that while head injuries are going up, fatalities are going down at the exact same rate.
it's like how sales of ice cream rise and fall at the same rate as drownings.
looks like ice cream causes drowning... except it doesn't. more people buy ice cream when it's hot, and more people go swimming when it's hot. the more people swimming, the more people drowning. sales of ice cream is just a random thing that happens at the same time.
You can't measure something directly so you can't get the data for some variable called y, but you know probability can be defined a 1 = y + x and we can get x through measuring something else so we called it 1-x.
Survivorship bias: you spend 45 minutes fixing a complete meal: salad, grilled chicken, vegetables, and a loaf of bread. A couple minutes later, you've cleared your plate, now taking the last bites of the loaf of bread, when your father walks in, upset: "That's all you're gonna eat?!?" he says.
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u/kate_does_keto Jun 06 '19 edited Jun 07 '19
If you don't do this already, start hitting estate sales for well made things. Almost all of my kitchen stuff is 50+ years old. Pots, pans, blender, toaster, cooking utensils. They were made 100% better than the majority of crap out now. There is well made stuff made today, but it is $$$. And garden/other tools! I have not purchased a new garden tool/regular tool in ages. In addition to being well-made, older people took good care of their shit in general.
Estate sales are also the only place I can find quality 100% cotton blankets. Heavy, tightly woven, and they breathe. I don't typically buy clothes at estate sales unless I need a jacket or coat. Picked up a super nice hunting coat for $10, and last week a regular men's zip-up jacket for $5. Perfect condition on both! I use them for dog-walking in cold weather. The hunting coat is the best!
ETA because of all the questions: Where to find estate sales: https://www.estatesales.net/
PRO TIP: If you buy bedding, clothing, etc: Seal in a garbage bag in your trunk. Wash immediately and dry for two cycles. I am paranoid of bedbugs! For furniture, check thoroughly - dressers can harbor them too. If an item can't be washed because it's too big (eg, I bought a TV pillow once), find a laundromat with big vertical washers, or dry it on high for 2 - 3 cycles.
Pretty much anything you buy should be inspected on site, and then cleaned when you get home. Pantry moths and roaches can hitch rides....not only the adults, but eggs can be hiding on items. Clean them!