Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
'So do you think now with cheap plastic and other materials, we are deliberately shorting our self on quality just to sell quantity?'
no.
deliberately after profit, yes.
tech changes so fast, paying for quality is a "bug".
i have a rotary-dial telephone that still works as good as new.
Haha, is there a place in the country now where a rotary phone would even work? My sister even got rid of hers when their phone company went to all digital. She was the last person I knew to still be using a rotary phone. We are nearly the only family I know that even still has a land line. We keep it if we have to give a phone number for any business where we don't want their calls.
I think everything follows the dollar now. I'm 61 and I have a lot of trouble with blue jeans. I can split a new pair just by squatting down. I get Wranglers at Wal-Mart for about $20. I wear them for work where I also might tear them on a nail any time, so I hesitate to spend $50 for better jeans that I still might tear on a nail. But I recall the jeans we had up through my teens. It took several months to break in a new pair. If you washed them and dried them on a clothesline (remember those), they were stiff enough to nearly stand up. I don't know if any are made that way now or if we could afford them.
Haha, is there a place in the country now where a rotary phone would even work? My sister even got rid of hers when their phone company went to all digital. She was the last person I knew to still be using a rotary phone. We are nearly the only family I know that even still has a land line. We keep it if we have to give a phone number for any business where we don't want their calls.
I think everything follows the dollar now. I'm 61 and I have a lot of trouble with blue jeans. I can split a new pair just by squatting down. I get Wranglers at Wal-Mart for about $20. I wear them for work where I also might tear them on a nail any time, so I hesitate to spend $50 for better jeans that I still might tear on a nail. But I recall the jeans we had up through my teens. It took several months to break in a new pair. If you washed them and dried them on a clothesline (remember those), they were stiff enough to nearly stand up. I don't know if any are made that way now or if we could afford them.
Sadly, it's what most of the market wants. I remember back in the 50s when you had a pair of dress shoes, a pair of sneakers and maybe another pair in between. Clothing was kept and handed down to the next same-sex kid. I have a dress winter coat bought at Brooks Brothers in 1983. It's a classic camel style, still looks great and has a Union label in it. It cost $450 but I haven't bought a winter dress coat since.
But go into Target or Wal-Mart and people are stuffing their carts with flimsy stuff made in China that won't be worth wearing next season because it will be falling apart but hey, it's cheap so you can go out and buy new stuff. The old stuff ends up in landfills. Same for shoes and sandals.
In the long run you spend less if you buy quality and aren't a slave to the latest looks. Some years I buy nothing because whatever colors "they" have declared to be in style just look ugly on me.
Sadly, it's what most of the market wants. I remember back in the 50s when you had a pair of dress shoes, a pair of sneakers and maybe another pair in between. Clothing was kept and handed down to the next same-sex kid. I have a dress winter coat bought at Brooks Brothers in 1983. It's a classic camel style, still looks great and has a Union label in it. It cost $450 but I haven't bought a winter dress coat since.
But go into Target or Wal-Mart and people are stuffing their carts with flimsy stuff made in China that won't be worth wearing next season because it will be falling apart but hey, it's cheap so you can go out and buy new stuff. The old stuff ends up in landfills. Same for shoes and sandals.
In the long run you spend less if you buy quality and aren't a slave to the latest looks. Some years I buy nothing because whatever colors "they" have declared to be in style just look ugly on me.
I just haven't seen the poor quality that some are talking about. My family has always done a lot of shopping at Target and other reasonably priced stores and haven't seen things fall apart. Being frugal doesn't mean foolish. We don't throw away clothes or shoes after one season and like you, some years I also don't buy anything because of the colors. But I could never spend $450 on a single piece of clothing, I'd rather buy a plane ticket to visit family with that amount of money. That's just me.
I think so many things have improved in the last 40 years and prices have gone down. Cars are better, long gone are the days when you had to buy Consumer Reports to see which car model had the least terrible ratings. TV's are ridiculously inexpensive with less troubles.
I don't know anyone who throws old clothes and shoes in the trash. There are so many ways to donate them to charities, super convenient to drop off or have them pick up at the house.
My family has always done a lot of shopping at Target and other reasonably priced stores...
I just haven't seen the poor quality that some are talking about.
You have to look elsewhere. Try an estate sale or a consignment shop
or even a charity shop that draws from the wealthy homes.
A constant source of amusement back in my working days was the comments made to me regarding the quality of production autos. I worked on cars for over twenty five years and then left that business to work in aviation. Throughout my aviation career I was always asked, as a supposed "professional" opinion source, what I thought about the "cheap plastic cars" of today. Those who were enlisting me to tell the stories were always surprised that I was thoroughly in the camp of modern automotive quality and had little positive comments about the supposed supremacy of the fifties and sixties cars.
Some things were undoubtedly better constructed in the fifties, but they were generally built from stronger and heavier materials. Mechanisms were big and often gear driven, made from cast iron and therefore a total loss when the cast parts broke. We all have some anecdotal evidence of the old days being a time when things were better built, but, the truth is closer to the fact that today's material technology is providing better strength while cutting the weight.
I was recently looking at homes being built in my neighborhood, I was somewhat surprised to see that the more expensive homes didn't have a higher level of framing quality, nor did they have any better materials than the less expensive homes, they were just larger and had more bling added. I'm guessing that a lot of our consumer goods are built this way, more bling equals more dollars, but not necessarily better quality. We can better assess relative quality by comparing quality standards from ten years ago to those of today.
I have my coat that was handed down from my grandfather has duck feathers in it.. like over 100 years old.. and still fits and nice and warm. Got a coat for my son last year and its already lost its thickness and zipper falling apart. Got it from a "coat factory". I guess its great to buy the high end stuff if your going to keep using it but not as ruff and cheap for the ruff use? I mean we still have farmers still using good ol iron tools from generations back and manage to keep up with the times.
You have to look elsewhere. Try an estate sale or a consignment shop
or even a charity shop that draws from the wealthy homes.
I'm wealthy. Just came back with a load of stuff from Target yesterday. One reason I'm wealthy today is that we lived under our means for many years. And that's a hard habit to give up!
lol
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
), they were stiff enough to nearly stand up. I don't know if any are made that way now or if we could afford them.
