Mine… My Xbox 360 slim only costed 129 euro back in 2012 and to this day still work like brand new, you would think that the disc drive would stop working but no. Never had the need of open it or clean it’s insides. Still great, I just don’t use it anymore since I feel it’s outdated and loading speeds are better nowadays.
My father got a toaster at a garage sale back in the 1970’s. That was the toaster I grew up with. When I was moving out, my parents happen to be replacing it, so I asked for it. I did some research and it is a GE toaster from the mid 1950’s. I have used it for the past ten years and it’s still going strong. It’s maybe a bit small for some slices, but it’s hard to argue with 70 years of near continuous service.
This reminds me that every night I set the alarm on the alarm clock next to my bed. I bought this alarm clock in 1991 in a Caldor store for less than $10. It has a little light bulb in it that I’ve changed 3 times.
33 years. Not bad.
Rei tent I got for 50$ at their parking lot sale. I’ve used it 4 or 5 times a year for 7 or 8 years now and still in great shape.
I got a kite from REI’s returns sale. The people before me didn’t like the color. I have enjoyed that kite for almost 20 years.
Stackable prep bowls for the kitchen. They’re about $6 a piece and I have eight of them. I got sick of constantly running out of bowls when I was doing things like chopping lots of veggies for a soup or marinating tofu. I expect to reach the end of my “usefulness” before they do.
Similarly, I have a set of 12 rounded stacking mixing bowls. I use them a lot for tossed salads, but they are also useful for dough.
I don’t know why, but I read “stackable” and my brain went to “collapsible”. Was flabbergasted anyone was trying to mix dough in a rubber flimsy container lol. +1 for the stainless steel. All of the non-stick coating pans and pots are a complete scam of wasted money. If anyone out there hasn’t purchased stainless steel, just buy one pot or pan when you need a replacement. You’ll quickly realize you now have that item for life and it’s safe to use any cooking utensil you want.
I have really fallen in love with my carbon steel skillet for general purpose cooking, including more delicate food like eggs. It took some time to get the hang of cooking with it and I still haven’t quite gotten the seasoning right, but it’s a sturdy piece. I also have a cast iron skillet, but it’s much heavier and I’ve never been able to get it to cook eggs. Since I started using the carbon steel for eggs, I have basically stopped using our non-stick pan.
I actively use a couple of appliances with a nonstick interior, an air fryer and a rice cooker. I just try to treat them very nicely but I know they won’t last forever. At least the parts are trays or liners that can be replaced separately from the appliance.
I also have a very nice 3 ply stainless steel pan, but I find that I don’t pull that out as much. Maybe because I’m usually not making the sorts of recipes that it excels with, like ones that use the fond to make a pan sauce.
When I first moved into my own place I needed a few pots and pans to cook. I bought 2 cheap aluminum pots with a non-stick coating and the coating is starting to disintegrate after like 3 years and light usage.
I should have just spent the extra 10 bucks to get cheap stainless stuff.
If the coating is starting to flake you need to stop using them. You’re really not supposed to eat that coating.
My Logitech G203 is still alive after 8 years of constant use. Never tried to fix, but it autorepaired itself of double click (both buttons) , miss click and bad contact. At this point I am afraid of opening it to clean inside and it just cease to exist, I still clean outside tho.
Interesting that your double click fixed itself. Maybe it was just a bad case of lint or some dust inside your mouse?
I think all the double clicks i had to fix involved resoldering
I grew up in a third world country and one of the first gift my immigrant relatives got for my parents was a microwave oven. That was way back in the early 90s when almost nobody in my country knew what a microwave oven was. The same microwave had been going strong for more than 30 years before the buttons finally broke last year. All for around $200 back in the day.
deleted by creator
shoes
they lasted 3 years, which is about 12x longer than i would have guessed.
Condom
This is the best money saver
I bought a fancy US made spatula for my grill. They make a smaller cheaper one that I added on impulse. That little guy is a champ and gets 5x the use of the big fancy one.
Ski goggles, and they’re still good. I got them like 10ish years ago after having to walk put in some serious sub-zero harsh January wind that was making my eyes hurt. $40, now my eyes are fine and my glasses stay nice and snow-free.
I’ve lived in Chicagoland all my life and sometimes the winters can get almost Minnesotan, so it pays to have some quality eye protection.
Your question is a little too narrow for my tastes. Some of the best cheap purchases that I’ve made are things that I still have now. They haven’t worn out or broken or become useless.
In 2001 I bought a new cast iron fry pan for $20 that I use on regular basis and it’s marvelous. Around the same time, I bought some used silverware from a thrift store and I still use that everyday.
Two other purchases that go back more than 20 years are my pocket knife and my 1/4 inch hex driver, both of which I bought new but were not particularly expensive and they are working wonderfully to this very day.
FWIW, we cleaned out one of the out buildings on my family’s rural property which was built in 1903. I found some rusty cast iron pans. Reconditioned them and use them all the time. They are at least 115 years old.
being born probably.
Idk, seems hard to argue, i didn’t pay for shit, and now im just here, causing problems.
You didn’t pay for shit? Lucky you. I’ve been oayibg through the nose ever since I became an adult and i still got shit to show for it
well, for my birth at least, and most of my childhood. What a weird fucking world.
Being born is “free” but being alive is not
yeah, idk if i would considering the whole being alive thing worthwhile. But it’s definitely a cost tradeoff, that’s for sure.
Is what it is at the end of the day i suppose.
Walked into the store on boxing week and saw a roku stick on clearance for $10. Used it for years until the remote died. Used the phone app with it for a while until i found another roku kit on sale for less than a replacement remote.
Dumb question, what is a roku, I thought it was a tv brand. I don’t own a tv.
Roku started off selling a series of little boxes with HDMI ports (or little sticks that plug into an HDMI port on a TV) to to make any HDMI monitor a “smart TV.” Hardware-wise it’s not dissimilar to a Raspberry Pi, it’s a little ARM chip made by Broadcom running Linux with a smart TV GUI running on it. Nowadays TV manufacturers build in a little ARM computer into the television itself and partner with Roku, or Google, or maybe one or two others, to do the UI and such.
It’s a standalone “smart”.
If your old TV or computer monitor lacks a “smart”, a Roku stick is one of the cheaper ways to acquire it.
A Roku stick is something you plug in a TV that has an OS you can use to connect to your wifi. You can then download different apps to launch different streaming services. This includes a Roku app/channel and also Netflix, max, Disney, Hulu, zues, prime, etc…
I bought a RoboGrip, self adjusting wrench, maybe 35 years ago a a Sears iirc. One of the best tools I ever brought and still going strong.
My old roommate got a window air conditioner for $20. I got about 15 years of use out of it until I had the windows replaced on the house and it didnt fit anymore. I sold it for $50.
Old AC’s and Fridges work forever. Probably horrible for the environment, but they work.
Only when they leak or get thrown out. If they’re still working they’re not leaking, but maybe drawing more power than needed.
deleted by creator
The power draw of old refrigerators is like 5-10 times higher than a modern one.
Oh yeah that’ll do it.
The best appliance for the environment is still the one you already have.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no
Unless you have to refill their ozone-killing stuff for them to work properly.
I sometimes wonder how much of the “power efficiency” modern appliance manufacturers trumpet is completely annulled by the fact that they have 30% the useful lifetime of their less efficient ancestors.
30%? You’re overestimating the lifetime of modern appliances.
The refrigerator my grandfather bought in the 1940s has outlived 7 others purchased later, and the old man himself. It’s still chugging along in the basement of their house, 80-some years after it was built.
And thousands of refrigerators bought in the 1940s have been in landfills since the 1950s.
Thousands of refrigerators bought in 2022 are already in landfills.
So you’re trying to say here that frisges don’t last longer than a year now?
Bullshit
I’ve warrantied two fridges in their first year for failed VFDs. So, yes, I’ll say that quite a few don’t last a year. And I’d wager most of those 1940’s fridges were still working when they were discarded, just obsolete in 1950’s kitchens.
Yeah, people also say how old cars were better than modern ones, but that’s only driven by the fact that all the broken ones are scrapped for a long time now. In fact, modern cars have much longer lifespans than the old rust buckets.
See “survivorship bias”
The biggest change when we got new window AC units was how much more quiet they are.
