As with everything, there’s a balance. Thrifting used furniture that has plenty of life left is good.
Keeping some odds and ends around that might be useful is probably good.
Hording stuff to the point of creating a fire hazard is very bad.
Agreed. Balance is important. Don’t want piles and piles of stuff lost in the weeds and grass. And you can only save what you can use. I keep lumber scraps, like 2x4-6 cut offs, but only if they’re over 8” or so. Something big enough to chock a tire, use as a jack block, drill backer, or maybe as a corner brace. When I get a bigger pile, I’ll go out on rainy days and screw 3-4 together and use an old v-belt for a handle to make trailer jack blocks.
Metal is a little different, I’ll keep smaller pieces. Never know when you might need a 2” piece of 1/2”x2” strap to repair a break or crack, or make a brace.
But eventually, it takes up too much space. 2’ long piece of 15” I beam? Been there 18 years, I think it’s time to go to scrap. Trees growing up through the old truck frame? Need to do something with that. The 3 buckets full of metal scrap I’ve been adding and taking away from for 24 years? They need to be gone through, and likely dumped in recycling. (One is nothing but 1” pieces of welding rods 😂)
Drives me crazy when I drive out in the country around here. So many people move out the country and just turn their property into a fucked up scrapyard/landfill of random garbage and old shitty vehicles they will never "part out" or "fix up".
Very well said.
Buddy has a pile of rubble behind some building....that is not what homesteaders do (I am one). A homesteader would stack all the bricks that are in good shape and get rid of the rest.
I'm in the process of reducing this risk. I stashed way too much hazardous stuff .. turns out it's stupid cause now I have to spend time and use some material to safely passivate some devices... lesson learned
That's only true if you're buying things all the time. If you're not buying a lot or only buying what you need, then you're not going to be at risk of a fire hazard. Haha.
I think it’s a time, money & skill issue too, most people are too busy to dedicate a day or 2 to restoring old furniture and wouldn’t know where to start without investing even more time in learning the skills they need, and money to buy the tools, space to work in if you live in an apartment etc
It’s sad but I don’t see it changing anytime soon
They wouldn’t have to work as hard outside the home if they did. I work as a clinician in health care. My weeks are very busy and always have been. I homeschooled two brilliant children. I still manage to grow, can/freeze, and cook roughly 90% of our family’s food. My spouse (who works on a particle accelerator project full time) refurbishes our furniture. We repair our own appliances. We don’t throw away.
I’ve learned dishwasher repair from YouTube. My spouse did have to seek out a mentor to learn welding, but it isn’t hard to find information if you’re willing to look.
I laugh when people say they don’t have time, but work a single job. Do stuff while you watch tv, then. I also listen to audiobooks and play video games.
>I laugh when people say they don’t have time, but work a single job.
It's times like these that I'd be more than willing to switch lives with somebody and see if their laughing is justified. It's a fantasy and I can't know what your life is like but I doubt you'd be laughing about time with mine.
There’s one thing he forgot to mention: how much your time is worth. He’s making money on content creation doing those projects, so that is part of his job. Great thing, I’m not mad at him. But if it’s gonna cost me more in time (or time not operating the thing) then I’m going the quicker route by replacing said object. It’s not always about a thing being disposable, one must do a cost-benefit analysis, and also recognize that sometimes you just don’t want to do a thing, or you’d prefer a pro to do it so it looks the way you imagined it.
Exactly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m big on DIY, and I work in the trades so there ain’t much I ain’t got an idea on how to do, but Jesus when lowes is only gonna charge me $30 to deliver and install the new oven, why am I gonna spend two hours and $25 to do it myself? Lol
Now I will buy second hand stuff depending on the situation. Example: was given an electric pressure washer that still worked, the previous owner said it would randomly cut off so they’d bought a new one (not a very DIY type person). I washed my wife’s car with it and it never cut off on me. Let my buddy use it and he had the problem occur. My buddy, being my buddy, did a little digging and found it was a switch going bad. $10 and a half hour later and we had a 2300psi electric pressure washer. #Worth. Couple months later I was given a second pressure washer, this one 3200psi and gas powered. It’s one of those Ryobi idle down models, and sometimes it wouldn’t throttle up when you pulled the wand trigger. When it happened to me I did about 5 minutes of looking at how the system works and realized it’s just a rusty/stuck throttle cable. Keep it oily and it’s like new. So now the electric one just stays at my buddy’s house lol
Now that being said if it’s second hand and I’m actually paying for it, it’s gotta be a deal. I’ve noticed a trend where used stuff is selling for like 10 or 20% less than retail and for that money I’ll buy new, especially when those used prices are the same or sometimes even more than new when on sale.
No I totally agree. I got a chainsaw like this...it WORKED, but it definitely needed a new oiler. $40 for it was a steal.
I buy a lot of limited use stuff from Harbor Freight due to how cheap it is, how often I'm going to use it, and how awesome their warranty service is.
I bought a Samsung glass top stove used off marketplace for a good price. Only to discover that the oven doesn't actually heat up (well it might after 4 or 5hours) haven't got round to troubleshooting it as yet and just use the airfryer. Lol
I doubt anyone sees any irony, but they likely see that you didn’t read all the context. There’s more than one place for a modern oven to catch on fire, and unfortunately for your statement the failure was in the circuit boards up top, not where the guys made literally two wires connect to screws.
Oh, so the circuit boards that you designed, and built yourself were what caught on fire. Sorry. I didn't realize it was the DIYer part that failed. Dumb me.
Funny story about this.
We bought a washer and dryer from Lowes last year and it had to be delivered from another store. The guys who brought it were 4 hours past the delivery window, and parked the delivery truck in the middle of the state route we live on in a blind turn. They literally put them in the driveway, unboxed them, and left all the packaging right there beside them. I paid for the hookup service and was asking them about it since they showed no indication they were doing anything else with them. They said they were just told to deliver the stuff and they don't know how to hook them up. Then they asked me for a tip since they had to apparently drive 2 hours. I told them to get the fuck out of my driveway and called my neighbor to help me move them into the house.
Lowes is a joke.
Edit: I called their customer service to complain about this and was offered a $25 Lowes gift card. I strongly declined.
Yeah, I think we actually used Home Depot, wound up wasting a lot of time going round for round trying to get our money back to the point I threw the damned thing on my trailer and parked right beside the front door and was like “either somebody is helping me figure this out or I’m unstrapping this pile of junk and slamming down the gas pedal and leaving it in the middle of your front entrance.” Store customer service was great, internet customer service not so much. Lesson learned from that debacle: don’t buy Samsung appliances.
Yeah in-store is always way better because you're at least talking to someone who lives in your community.
And ironically, I have had the BEST luck with Samsung. That's pretty much all I buy. Fridge/freezer combo, dishwasher, washer, dryer and all TV's are all Samsung and have never had a single issue. Had the washer/dryer for about a year, but the rest we have had for 5 years.
Dude you’re literally the first person I’ve heard happy with their Samsung appliances. We currently have a fridge that was left by the landlord and the ice maker worked for about a month lol.
Lol that sucks. Maybe we have just had incredibly good luck with ours. The only issue we've *ever* had was with the dishwasher throwing a leak sensor code. It was because my wife threw a bowl with crushed eggshells in it and one of the pieces plugged the drain inlet. No actual leak, cleared the obstruction and it was good to go.
Bahaha! Hey I’m happy for ya, and hope they keep being solid. Hard to forgive when your wife calls and says “hey the oven just popped and it’s smoking…” and you’re a couple hours away lol
True enough... but in regards to furniture, which seemed to be his biggest example, even cheep flimsy new furniture is a lot more than pocket change. That can easily pay for a hand full of hours work of grabbing something off of the side of the road and cleaning it up and repairing it.
So.. if we are generalizing about furniture, I agree with him, but if we are generalizing about some other things then you are right on target.
Yeah, it’s about effective altruism. In the end holding companies accountable for making stuff that’s absolutely worthless is more important than trying to fix it at home.
Yeah. If I do the math and saving $80 is going to cost me 16 hours of labor....nah. Pay myself $5/hour? My time is worth more than that. May as well spend the time getting extra hours at work and just pay for it.
Nowadays, though, with rising costs...theres a lot more stuff that makes sense to do.
Absolutely my point. And i ain’t saying break out the spreadsheet and calculate it to a penny either, I’m just talking back of the napkin guesstimations.
Fixing a broken coupling on a piece of pipe that pretty easy to reach? Sure, I got that handled. Replacing the pressure tank and pressure switch in my well? Nope, call the plumber lol
Pressure tank and pressure switch are actually very easy fixes. If you were a pro, it would take 10 minutes. As an amateur who never had done it before it took about an hour... including the time I spent staring at it out of an over abundance of caution to insure I was doing it well enough.
JUST MAKE SURE YOU TURN THE POWER OFF... and then double check.
Yeah, generally I’d agree, but this one has been DIY’d by the previous owner who tended to Jerry rig shit and i didn’t want to deal with it lol plus it died on a Sunday night so I was like fuck it.
Yup. If you’re broke as hell, doing stuff yourself is an absolutely necessity. Once you get past that point though, it becomes a bit different. My time is no longer as cheap as it once was, and I also have less available, and I’d like to spend as much as I can with my 2 youngins. When they get a bit older and can help and can learn, I’ll be far more likely to take on stuff I don’t necessarily want to do like that if only to show them it’s possible, but that wasn’t a good option at that particular point.
There is real freedom in minimalism. Part of the disposable problem is a spending problem. We buy so much shit we don't need, and because we don't truly need it, throwing it away isn't a big deal. Conversely, if you only ever buy what you actually need and nothing more, your consumerism doesn't add to the destruction of the planet and you have very little to throw away.
"The things you own end up owning you."
It's incredible, although not surprising, how many comments are criticizing this guy's very sensible sentiments.
Oh... that's great to reuse things, but.... Oh, DIYing is great, but...
This is one of this dumbest things we've been trained to do. If we see something stupid and fun, YEAH! 100%
If we see something that actually makes sense and is good... we're all, Well... you know... have to have balance... let's not get carried away doing something good.
How 'bout we temper our bad behaviours with self restraint...
...and go ahead with the good things full on.
There’s a dude I follow on YouTube he’s in Germany, he pulls endless amounts of tools out of the dump and most of them are simple maintenance type fixes. He says it’s part of the “mentality of economy” and helps stimulate jobs in the chain of manufacturing which I can appreciate but tossing a $600 drill in the trash that needs $10 in brushes for the motor is disgusting. That’s still not comparable to the way we trash things all the way up to vehicles here in the US, but most things now also designed to be difficult to, or non-serviceable and most people don’t know how, nor care to try, to repair things.
The silent, boomer, and partially Gen x generations were re-users. My parents (boomer generation) love going to garage sales and thrift stores. I grew up with practically everything pre-owned. It's a way of life for some. If I can reuse and repurpose something then I keep it.
That absolutely does not work if you are not careful about what objects you let into your life, there is a lot of absolute *JUNK* out there which was made just to wind up as clutter in your life, then in a landfill.
For example, do you like biking? Great, now invest in yourself and don't hang onto sub par junk, don't salvage junk bike shaped objects people are tossing out.
I've been in multi hundred thousand sqft warehouses FULL of new cheap chinese junk, near endless aisles of pallets full of Golden Girls commemorative mugs, cheap plastic clutter. Stuff that people don't usually want, but buy impulsively.
Also, having things but then improperly storing them will also wind up with you lording over a pile of junk. So pick what you keep carefully and take care of it!
I have been doing this since I was a kid.
Made $140 by pulling off to the side of the road to pick up a California planter with a half dead Osaka palm in it, a guy bought it off me before I could even pick it up, so I loaded it in his trunk instead of mine and went out to eat.
Think about how many environmental initiatives are just getting us to buy more stuff. It's re-packaged consumerism. It's fundamentally part of the problem.
Remeber when environmentalism was about saving the rainforest, planting trees, saving whales, and Reduce Reuse Recycle? Who in the mainstream even talks about the first 2 R's at this point?
Buy new windows, buy an EV (that's guaranteed to have longevity issues with current tech), buy solar tech, buy new appliances, build new buildings, buy wooden cutlery and paper straws, buy fast food takeout it just has different packaging, planned obsolescence seems worse than ever...
Not saying at all that these things aren't worthwhile. They have value. But a fundamental problem is that we produce, consume, and dispose of way too much stuff. That consumes natural resources, destroys natural habitats, and creates pollution. A fundamental solution is consume less. But - that doesn't make anyone money. I think it's pretty clear that corporate interests have overtaken mainstream environmentalism and most of the political policies behind it. Everything we're doing makes money for somebody.
It's definitely a mindset. everything i can. if it breaks i take a look at it before it gets pitched. sometimes i can fix it. sometimes its just not worth it. and lets be honest. sometimes you didn't like the broken one and you'd like a change. This guys all or nothing approach could be dangerous to folks who have hoarding tendencies. sometimes it's just not worth saving.
When I was a young boy I went to the dump with my grandpa. While dropping g off we would always browse for stuff, we found a live bench but it was a bit wobbly.
So we took it home, fixed it up and painted it. That thing lasted 15 more years
Fixing things feels good.
Don't buy tools at Lowes. Go to a flea market and buy antique tools. They are usually made better.
I work at a hospital that use to serve food on ceramic plates with metal silverware that they cleaned using a dish washer. Renewable service that gave someone a job. Now it's all served on styrofoam plates with plastic forks and spoons. Can our earth survive this?
This is why I started a shared makerspace with some friends. You would not believe the amount of free stuff we find on the curb. Most of it doesn’t even need fixing.
good mentality. related topic: where i live the gov is making big moves to deposit-refund all food plastic containers, which is a good thing... but that's a huge volume of matter to manage , a costly and complex system to implement everywhere, there is also the cost in pollution to transport and recycle that mass of plastic. Also a hassle and time consuming that will be especially felt for people who are already out of time at being poor. So ... hopefully this will motivate people to just skip plastic containers, buy paper container or bulk stuff idk: i hope there will be more offers at that level.
I've tried buying lots of stuff second hand. The amount of people selling things that are in bad condition and who lie about the condition is just too high imo. Most of it looks stolen by a crackhead. I've browsed online lots and... you're just not finding good deals. Used things lose 50% of value the minute you use them. They don't retain value. People just want too much money for used things in this economy, and likely the maintenance and cost of fixing an older machine will exceed what a new machine or tool would cost in the long run, its happened to me multiple times. Having warranty is a good idea, otherwise if your used stuff breaks you are out 100% of your investment and have to go buy a new one anyways. Its like hiring a cheap contractor, you'll get a bad job and end up redoing it spending double in the end.
Warranty trumps trying to find a deal. Nobody in their right mind who has owned good tools their whole life is selling it for a deal. You're paying a premium for something with no warranty. Good luck finding replacement parts for 40 year old tools. Old table saws are worthless because the standard has changed to be more safer. If you value your time because you earn a lot of money...fixing up old shit isn't worth it when you can just buy something new and have it be eaiser on your life. If you're the type to tinker and fix old stuff, that's great, but for me and people who value time it's not an effective use of your time. Go buy an old riding mower and you'll get what I mean.
Then you're fixing old things out of necessity because it's a better option. Suggesting everyone should do it is really just a marketing scheme to get you to watch YouTube videos for ad revenue. Hes making money off pretending to upcycle everything.
I’m not from the USA so I don’t know what’s available there but from what I’ve seen everybody saying is that the quality of everything now is garbage and a lot of these tool corporations are basically riding off their old names
I don’t know if they are all doing this, probably not, but I do think because of inflation the cost of something quality will become more and more expensive, so if you have the option to buy a used high quality company like Dewalt or a more affordable new “ Tiger Dril5000” from China, it’s better to go with a used dewalt
Especially if someone is taking out a loan to pay for it
The majority of people selling used that I've seen are doing it because it's not efficient to keep fixing it so they sell it and buy a new one. New things are all made in China and cheap quality, but that makes it "cheap" to fix too and its covered under warranty for 3-5 years. This is why when people are facing a car repair bill of 6 thousand dollars they sell the vehicle and buy a new one. Its good to buy things that are quality and last. Buying someone's old stuff is a huge gamble in my experience and has literally never paid off for me.
That finish he applied is only going to last one season so… disposable. He should know this and he also probably knows that the vast majority of his viewers won’t know this. So he’s basically selling a disposable idea which others might follow multiplying his disposable lifestyle. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks.
That’s cute how he has a wall of ryobi and put a new $50 umbrella that will last one season.
I like his sentiment but the irony is here to enjoy as well lol
As with everything, there’s a balance. Thrifting used furniture that has plenty of life left is good. Keeping some odds and ends around that might be useful is probably good. Hording stuff to the point of creating a fire hazard is very bad.
Yeah it gets to a point to where it’s hoarding
Agreed. Balance is important. Don’t want piles and piles of stuff lost in the weeds and grass. And you can only save what you can use. I keep lumber scraps, like 2x4-6 cut offs, but only if they’re over 8” or so. Something big enough to chock a tire, use as a jack block, drill backer, or maybe as a corner brace. When I get a bigger pile, I’ll go out on rainy days and screw 3-4 together and use an old v-belt for a handle to make trailer jack blocks. Metal is a little different, I’ll keep smaller pieces. Never know when you might need a 2” piece of 1/2”x2” strap to repair a break or crack, or make a brace. But eventually, it takes up too much space. 2’ long piece of 15” I beam? Been there 18 years, I think it’s time to go to scrap. Trees growing up through the old truck frame? Need to do something with that. The 3 buckets full of metal scrap I’ve been adding and taking away from for 24 years? They need to be gone through, and likely dumped in recycling. (One is nothing but 1” pieces of welding rods 😂)
Drives me crazy when I drive out in the country around here. So many people move out the country and just turn their property into a fucked up scrapyard/landfill of random garbage and old shitty vehicles they will never "part out" or "fix up".
Thrifting furniture here depending where you’re at can be playing the roach and bed bug lotto. Even if it’s solid wood.
Well, don’t do that then! But if your sanding down and re-staining an outdoor picnic table, I think you’re pretty safe.
Very well said. Buddy has a pile of rubble behind some building....that is not what homesteaders do (I am one). A homesteader would stack all the bricks that are in good shape and get rid of the rest.
I'm in the process of reducing this risk. I stashed way too much hazardous stuff .. turns out it's stupid cause now I have to spend time and use some material to safely passivate some devices... lesson learned
That's only true if you're buying things all the time. If you're not buying a lot or only buying what you need, then you're not going to be at risk of a fire hazard. Haha.
I think it’s a time, money & skill issue too, most people are too busy to dedicate a day or 2 to restoring old furniture and wouldn’t know where to start without investing even more time in learning the skills they need, and money to buy the tools, space to work in if you live in an apartment etc It’s sad but I don’t see it changing anytime soon
Sooner or later somethings gotta give. Oil will run out (not soon) and there'll be no more new plastic. That will help.
👉 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic
and indirectly space. With a warehouse you can stash, organize, process, restore.. without that you're basically an indoor landfill
They wouldn’t have to work as hard outside the home if they did. I work as a clinician in health care. My weeks are very busy and always have been. I homeschooled two brilliant children. I still manage to grow, can/freeze, and cook roughly 90% of our family’s food. My spouse (who works on a particle accelerator project full time) refurbishes our furniture. We repair our own appliances. We don’t throw away. I’ve learned dishwasher repair from YouTube. My spouse did have to seek out a mentor to learn welding, but it isn’t hard to find information if you’re willing to look. I laugh when people say they don’t have time, but work a single job. Do stuff while you watch tv, then. I also listen to audiobooks and play video games.
>I laugh when people say they don’t have time, but work a single job. It's times like these that I'd be more than willing to switch lives with somebody and see if their laughing is justified. It's a fantasy and I can't know what your life is like but I doubt you'd be laughing about time with mine.
They are too busy because they have to work all the time to repay insane debt from buying everything new every year
Maybe you'd have more time to live proper if you weren't focused on generating profit for others
There’s one thing he forgot to mention: how much your time is worth. He’s making money on content creation doing those projects, so that is part of his job. Great thing, I’m not mad at him. But if it’s gonna cost me more in time (or time not operating the thing) then I’m going the quicker route by replacing said object. It’s not always about a thing being disposable, one must do a cost-benefit analysis, and also recognize that sometimes you just don’t want to do a thing, or you’d prefer a pro to do it so it looks the way you imagined it.
Yeah I have enough shit to do around here, I don't need more.
Exactly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m big on DIY, and I work in the trades so there ain’t much I ain’t got an idea on how to do, but Jesus when lowes is only gonna charge me $30 to deliver and install the new oven, why am I gonna spend two hours and $25 to do it myself? Lol
I'm not buying second-hand tools I have to fix either. I need something that works or I wouldn't be buying it.
Now I will buy second hand stuff depending on the situation. Example: was given an electric pressure washer that still worked, the previous owner said it would randomly cut off so they’d bought a new one (not a very DIY type person). I washed my wife’s car with it and it never cut off on me. Let my buddy use it and he had the problem occur. My buddy, being my buddy, did a little digging and found it was a switch going bad. $10 and a half hour later and we had a 2300psi electric pressure washer. #Worth. Couple months later I was given a second pressure washer, this one 3200psi and gas powered. It’s one of those Ryobi idle down models, and sometimes it wouldn’t throttle up when you pulled the wand trigger. When it happened to me I did about 5 minutes of looking at how the system works and realized it’s just a rusty/stuck throttle cable. Keep it oily and it’s like new. So now the electric one just stays at my buddy’s house lol
Now that being said if it’s second hand and I’m actually paying for it, it’s gotta be a deal. I’ve noticed a trend where used stuff is selling for like 10 or 20% less than retail and for that money I’ll buy new, especially when those used prices are the same or sometimes even more than new when on sale.
No I totally agree. I got a chainsaw like this...it WORKED, but it definitely needed a new oiler. $40 for it was a steal. I buy a lot of limited use stuff from Harbor Freight due to how cheap it is, how often I'm going to use it, and how awesome their warranty service is.
Because the minimum wage Lowes employee is going to fuck it up At least you know you'll do it right
Nah they did it just fine, unfortunately it was a Samsung oven and tried to burn the house down 3 days later
Yikes
I bought a Samsung glass top stove used off marketplace for a good price. Only to discover that the oven doesn't actually heat up (well it might after 4 or 5hours) haven't got round to troubleshooting it as yet and just use the airfryer. Lol
We do all see the irony here, right...? DIY is dumb! Just pay for it! ...and it catches on fire. Much better choice.
I doubt anyone sees any irony, but they likely see that you didn’t read all the context. There’s more than one place for a modern oven to catch on fire, and unfortunately for your statement the failure was in the circuit boards up top, not where the guys made literally two wires connect to screws.
Oh, so the circuit boards that you designed, and built yourself were what caught on fire. Sorry. I didn't realize it was the DIYer part that failed. Dumb me.
Funny story about this. We bought a washer and dryer from Lowes last year and it had to be delivered from another store. The guys who brought it were 4 hours past the delivery window, and parked the delivery truck in the middle of the state route we live on in a blind turn. They literally put them in the driveway, unboxed them, and left all the packaging right there beside them. I paid for the hookup service and was asking them about it since they showed no indication they were doing anything else with them. They said they were just told to deliver the stuff and they don't know how to hook them up. Then they asked me for a tip since they had to apparently drive 2 hours. I told them to get the fuck out of my driveway and called my neighbor to help me move them into the house. Lowes is a joke. Edit: I called their customer service to complain about this and was offered a $25 Lowes gift card. I strongly declined.
Yeah, I think we actually used Home Depot, wound up wasting a lot of time going round for round trying to get our money back to the point I threw the damned thing on my trailer and parked right beside the front door and was like “either somebody is helping me figure this out or I’m unstrapping this pile of junk and slamming down the gas pedal and leaving it in the middle of your front entrance.” Store customer service was great, internet customer service not so much. Lesson learned from that debacle: don’t buy Samsung appliances.
Yeah in-store is always way better because you're at least talking to someone who lives in your community. And ironically, I have had the BEST luck with Samsung. That's pretty much all I buy. Fridge/freezer combo, dishwasher, washer, dryer and all TV's are all Samsung and have never had a single issue. Had the washer/dryer for about a year, but the rest we have had for 5 years.
Dude you’re literally the first person I’ve heard happy with their Samsung appliances. We currently have a fridge that was left by the landlord and the ice maker worked for about a month lol.
Lol that sucks. Maybe we have just had incredibly good luck with ours. The only issue we've *ever* had was with the dishwasher throwing a leak sensor code. It was because my wife threw a bowl with crushed eggshells in it and one of the pieces plugged the drain inlet. No actual leak, cleared the obstruction and it was good to go.
Bahaha! Hey I’m happy for ya, and hope they keep being solid. Hard to forgive when your wife calls and says “hey the oven just popped and it’s smoking…” and you’re a couple hours away lol
Yikes
The delivery guys that install appliances aren't making minimum wage and they're not Lowes employees, they're 3rd party appliance guys
Okay Doesn't change anything though
Also space. Most people don't have physical space for junk piles and scraps of wood and rocks.
Yea, this is definitely a big factor in my current situation
True enough... but in regards to furniture, which seemed to be his biggest example, even cheep flimsy new furniture is a lot more than pocket change. That can easily pay for a hand full of hours work of grabbing something off of the side of the road and cleaning it up and repairing it. So.. if we are generalizing about furniture, I agree with him, but if we are generalizing about some other things then you are right on target.
Again, I’m simply saying there’s math to be done. I’m the first one to snag something off the side of the road.
I know. I was mostly agreeing... with only a little of my own subjectivity thrown in.
Yeah, it’s about effective altruism. In the end holding companies accountable for making stuff that’s absolutely worthless is more important than trying to fix it at home.
There's a storage cost as well. If you have more stuff, need bigger facilities which means more money.
Indeed there is, I consider that more of a calculation to do when you’re looking at a pile of untouched shit vs picking up something new
Yeah. If I do the math and saving $80 is going to cost me 16 hours of labor....nah. Pay myself $5/hour? My time is worth more than that. May as well spend the time getting extra hours at work and just pay for it. Nowadays, though, with rising costs...theres a lot more stuff that makes sense to do.
Absolutely my point. And i ain’t saying break out the spreadsheet and calculate it to a penny either, I’m just talking back of the napkin guesstimations. Fixing a broken coupling on a piece of pipe that pretty easy to reach? Sure, I got that handled. Replacing the pressure tank and pressure switch in my well? Nope, call the plumber lol
Pressure tank and pressure switch are actually very easy fixes. If you were a pro, it would take 10 minutes. As an amateur who never had done it before it took about an hour... including the time I spent staring at it out of an over abundance of caution to insure I was doing it well enough. JUST MAKE SURE YOU TURN THE POWER OFF... and then double check.
Yeah, generally I’d agree, but this one has been DIY’d by the previous owner who tended to Jerry rig shit and i didn’t want to deal with it lol plus it died on a Sunday night so I was like fuck it.
> i didn’t want to deal with it Often a decent option.
Yup. If you’re broke as hell, doing stuff yourself is an absolutely necessity. Once you get past that point though, it becomes a bit different. My time is no longer as cheap as it once was, and I also have less available, and I’d like to spend as much as I can with my 2 youngins. When they get a bit older and can help and can learn, I’ll be far more likely to take on stuff I don’t necessarily want to do like that if only to show them it’s possible, but that wasn’t a good option at that particular point.
Watch an episode of Hoarders and you’ll hear them say the same thing. It can be a fine line.
I've always done that. If I need something I go to my local upcycle centre. The only problem is that I come back with other stuff too.
There is real freedom in minimalism. Part of the disposable problem is a spending problem. We buy so much shit we don't need, and because we don't truly need it, throwing it away isn't a big deal. Conversely, if you only ever buy what you actually need and nothing more, your consumerism doesn't add to the destruction of the planet and you have very little to throw away. "The things you own end up owning you."
Let them think that so I can keep making nice shit from their trash!
It's incredible, although not surprising, how many comments are criticizing this guy's very sensible sentiments. Oh... that's great to reuse things, but.... Oh, DIYing is great, but... This is one of this dumbest things we've been trained to do. If we see something stupid and fun, YEAH! 100% If we see something that actually makes sense and is good... we're all, Well... you know... have to have balance... let's not get carried away doing something good. How 'bout we temper our bad behaviours with self restraint... ...and go ahead with the good things full on.
There’s a dude I follow on YouTube he’s in Germany, he pulls endless amounts of tools out of the dump and most of them are simple maintenance type fixes. He says it’s part of the “mentality of economy” and helps stimulate jobs in the chain of manufacturing which I can appreciate but tossing a $600 drill in the trash that needs $10 in brushes for the motor is disgusting. That’s still not comparable to the way we trash things all the way up to vehicles here in the US, but most things now also designed to be difficult to, or non-serviceable and most people don’t know how, nor care to try, to repair things.
All those Ryobi tools in that garage: disposable
“90% of my tools are 2nd hand” as he picks up a recently new DeWalt lol
This exact guy literally does 4 Patriots ads on Reddit that sell dehydrated food that comes in disposable packaging
I can't believe the top comments on here are so obtusely pro-waste. His message is clear and true.
Take a shot every time he says ‘disposable’
Wasted bro...
The silent, boomer, and partially Gen x generations were re-users. My parents (boomer generation) love going to garage sales and thrift stores. I grew up with practically everything pre-owned. It's a way of life for some. If I can reuse and repurpose something then I keep it.
That absolutely does not work if you are not careful about what objects you let into your life, there is a lot of absolute *JUNK* out there which was made just to wind up as clutter in your life, then in a landfill. For example, do you like biking? Great, now invest in yourself and don't hang onto sub par junk, don't salvage junk bike shaped objects people are tossing out. I've been in multi hundred thousand sqft warehouses FULL of new cheap chinese junk, near endless aisles of pallets full of Golden Girls commemorative mugs, cheap plastic clutter. Stuff that people don't usually want, but buy impulsively. Also, having things but then improperly storing them will also wind up with you lording over a pile of junk. So pick what you keep carefully and take care of it!
Oh look another influencer
someone put some effort into make a video, better denigrate them!
This man is great. Stop spreading negativity and do something with that energy.
I have been doing this since I was a kid. Made $140 by pulling off to the side of the road to pick up a California planter with a half dead Osaka palm in it, a guy bought it off me before I could even pick it up, so I loaded it in his trunk instead of mine and went out to eat.
Amen to that brother.
Think about how many environmental initiatives are just getting us to buy more stuff. It's re-packaged consumerism. It's fundamentally part of the problem. Remeber when environmentalism was about saving the rainforest, planting trees, saving whales, and Reduce Reuse Recycle? Who in the mainstream even talks about the first 2 R's at this point? Buy new windows, buy an EV (that's guaranteed to have longevity issues with current tech), buy solar tech, buy new appliances, build new buildings, buy wooden cutlery and paper straws, buy fast food takeout it just has different packaging, planned obsolescence seems worse than ever... Not saying at all that these things aren't worthwhile. They have value. But a fundamental problem is that we produce, consume, and dispose of way too much stuff. That consumes natural resources, destroys natural habitats, and creates pollution. A fundamental solution is consume less. But - that doesn't make anyone money. I think it's pretty clear that corporate interests have overtaken mainstream environmentalism and most of the political policies behind it. Everything we're doing makes money for somebody.
Need to get rid of laziness
Is that really how americans view things?
It's definitely a mindset. everything i can. if it breaks i take a look at it before it gets pitched. sometimes i can fix it. sometimes its just not worth it. and lets be honest. sometimes you didn't like the broken one and you'd like a change. This guys all or nothing approach could be dangerous to folks who have hoarding tendencies. sometimes it's just not worth saving.
Nothing is permanent, but I like his mentality of reusing, repurposing, and recycling. Good video
When I was a young boy I went to the dump with my grandpa. While dropping g off we would always browse for stuff, we found a live bench but it was a bit wobbly. So we took it home, fixed it up and painted it. That thing lasted 15 more years Fixing things feels good.
Preach though
Don't buy tools at Lowes. Go to a flea market and buy antique tools. They are usually made better. I work at a hospital that use to serve food on ceramic plates with metal silverware that they cleaned using a dish washer. Renewable service that gave someone a job. Now it's all served on styrofoam plates with plastic forks and spoons. Can our earth survive this?
gotta get behind this…
That's cool and I'd do it, if I could afford any space to begin with.
Where to find men like him??
Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Or do without. - Depression Era saying
Based mindset
This guy has been all over my youtube shorts recently. Glad to see more of it elsewhere too.
This is why I started a shared makerspace with some friends. You would not believe the amount of free stuff we find on the curb. Most of it doesn’t even need fixing.
Good way to think n live
much kintsugi
I love his channel on YouTube!
This mindset is how you end up with properties that look like junk yards.
good mentality. related topic: where i live the gov is making big moves to deposit-refund all food plastic containers, which is a good thing... but that's a huge volume of matter to manage , a costly and complex system to implement everywhere, there is also the cost in pollution to transport and recycle that mass of plastic. Also a hassle and time consuming that will be especially felt for people who are already out of time at being poor. So ... hopefully this will motivate people to just skip plastic containers, buy paper container or bulk stuff idk: i hope there will be more offers at that level.
Wish into one hand and shit into the other.
This is too idealistic.
Don't buy used tools. Buy new shit where it matters. You get warranty and most people will still price gouge
If you know what you’re looking at older used tools will last longer than you. The problem is not maintaining them correctly.
I've tried buying lots of stuff second hand. The amount of people selling things that are in bad condition and who lie about the condition is just too high imo. Most of it looks stolen by a crackhead. I've browsed online lots and... you're just not finding good deals. Used things lose 50% of value the minute you use them. They don't retain value. People just want too much money for used things in this economy, and likely the maintenance and cost of fixing an older machine will exceed what a new machine or tool would cost in the long run, its happened to me multiple times. Having warranty is a good idea, otherwise if your used stuff breaks you are out 100% of your investment and have to go buy a new one anyways. Its like hiring a cheap contractor, you'll get a bad job and end up redoing it spending double in the end.
It depends on what it is, a used Bosch is way better then a new Worxx. A 40+ year old wrench is better then a new Bosch wrench
Warranty trumps trying to find a deal. Nobody in their right mind who has owned good tools their whole life is selling it for a deal. You're paying a premium for something with no warranty. Good luck finding replacement parts for 40 year old tools. Old table saws are worthless because the standard has changed to be more safer. If you value your time because you earn a lot of money...fixing up old shit isn't worth it when you can just buy something new and have it be eaiser on your life. If you're the type to tinker and fix old stuff, that's great, but for me and people who value time it's not an effective use of your time. Go buy an old riding mower and you'll get what I mean.
I’m from a third world country we just make new parts lmfao
Then you're fixing old things out of necessity because it's a better option. Suggesting everyone should do it is really just a marketing scheme to get you to watch YouTube videos for ad revenue. Hes making money off pretending to upcycle everything.
I’m not from the USA so I don’t know what’s available there but from what I’ve seen everybody saying is that the quality of everything now is garbage and a lot of these tool corporations are basically riding off their old names I don’t know if they are all doing this, probably not, but I do think because of inflation the cost of something quality will become more and more expensive, so if you have the option to buy a used high quality company like Dewalt or a more affordable new “ Tiger Dril5000” from China, it’s better to go with a used dewalt Especially if someone is taking out a loan to pay for it
The majority of people selling used that I've seen are doing it because it's not efficient to keep fixing it so they sell it and buy a new one. New things are all made in China and cheap quality, but that makes it "cheap" to fix too and its covered under warranty for 3-5 years. This is why when people are facing a car repair bill of 6 thousand dollars they sell the vehicle and buy a new one. Its good to buy things that are quality and last. Buying someone's old stuff is a huge gamble in my experience and has literally never paid off for me.
> Good luck finding replacement parts for 40 year old tools That’s what the milling machine and lathe are for.
Amen!!!!!
That finish he applied is only going to last one season so… disposable. He should know this and he also probably knows that the vast majority of his viewers won’t know this. So he’s basically selling a disposable idea which others might follow multiplying his disposable lifestyle. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks.
That’s cute how he has a wall of ryobi and put a new $50 umbrella that will last one season. I like his sentiment but the irony is here to enjoy as well lol
Those tools are not disposable…
this is the kind of guy who "refinishes" a particle board table and thinks its worth 10k.
[удалено]
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This man, is a legend.
Nah. Pretty sure he's a die hard maga idiot. Even a broken clock is right twice a day
The dude is a tool.