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Jeff Miller's avatar

Nice piece. Buying in bulk and buying early is clearly the right response to inflation. Buying quality is right in principle, but requires care in practice. I just reluctantly replaced my 30 year old Merrill hiking boots that I traveled all over the world in. They were cheap but served their purpose for a long time. Last winter, my sister sent me a photo of her shoveling snow in Buffalo wearing the same cheap, old, brown, one piece snowsuit that our parents bought for her in the 1970s from Kmart. The snowsuit is an aesthetic horror but it serves its purpose well enough. Her husband still rides the same heavy, steel Schwinn road bike that he rode in high school 40 years ago. My brother’s kids still use same cheap indestructible snow sleds we used as kids. And so on. Sometimes things are cheap not because they won’t last (and of course cheap things often don’t last), but because they are unfashionable (bought by the poor). But if you’re ok with being unfashionable, cheap things can sometimes work.

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