Cheap Things that Weren't Supposed to Last (but did)

[shanendoah]

Back in 2006, I bought myself a beautiful (and not inexpensive) wide screen Dell laptop to use during my MBA program. I loved that laptop and it did everything I needed it to do, even running complicated supply chain software and Pareto charts. However, the laptop barely made it through my program. In the spring of 2008, it started having problems displaying on the laptop monitor. By the time I graduated, it wasn't good as anything except as a desktop, connected to external monitors. It lasted about one more year as our office computer before the hard drive failed.

When I stopped being able to use that computer as a laptop, I needed another laptop. Nothing fancy this time, just a basic machine I could use for writing. I bought a $300 e-Machine (in 2008), on the theory that laptops apparently had a 2-3 year lifespan.

It is now 5 years later. I changed out the OS from Vista to 7 and use google docs for my writing. The laptop works perfectly. It's been dropped, walked on by dogs, and still does everything I ask it to do. I can't play WoW on it, or any game that requires heavy graphics or high speeds, but for writing, checking FB and playing Bejeweled, Samurai Sudoku, and Princess Maker, it works just fine.

The problem is, I want it to break. Right now I have the laptop and a desktop. I would really like to get down to just a laptop. The dogs are much happier (and more settled) when I do my computing on the bed with my laptop than when I sit at my desk. However, because there is absolutely nothing wrong with either laptop or desktop, I can't bring myself to spend the money on a desktop replacement laptop.

At the same time, people I know who buy expensive laptops tend to have them last 2-3 years before they break and die. How is it that my laptop, that was $300 in 2008, is running better today than it was then (because of the OS change)? Why can't my cheap-o laptop fail and give me the excuse I need?

Have you ever bought something that you expected to fail within a set period of time that has lasted longer than you ever imagined?

[thyme4change]

When we bought our first house, we didn't have any money, nor did we have any furniture.  I bought a TV stand from a grocery store for $16 (it was a grocery store that carried a bunch of extra stuff, and failed - this was way before Super Wal-Mart.)  The TV stand was ugly as hell, screw together, press-board crap.  I told my husband that we would only need it for 6 months, a year tops, and by then we would be able to buy something nice.  We ended up having it for 10 years, and it was fine - totally stable, and not beat up at all, when we dumped it.  We laughed about it a lot.  I'm glad we couldn't afford anything 6 months later, because we would have bought an expensive amoir, and that trend died shortly after that.  We were in the first group that bought the flat screen TV and mounted it on the wall.  Much, much better than a huge piece of furniture that eats up a ton of room.  

Pretty good use of $16 if I can say so myself!

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

Someone gave me a 99c goldfish that lived for 6 years. I ended up having to take that silly fish with me on an interstate move, because it just. wouldn't. die.

[alabamagal]

I will not get rid of anything until it absolutely won't work. I had a cheapo washing machine for about 15 years that seemed to go on forever. We replaced the hot/cold water valves in the middle of it's life for about $38 in parts. The water hose assembly broke so we had the inlet hose tied with a piese of wire that was always in danger of dislodging and putting water all over our floor. It was also LOUD (even the water going in was loud) and it was in the middle of our house and you could hear it in the living room. It finally died just before Christmas, so I got a new washing macine for Christmas!

We have a TV in our bathroom that you can watch while in our 2-perosn jacuzzi tub. The TV has been there since we upgraded the bathroom. It is a 13" old style TV (not flat screen). I could probably get a small flat screen for under $200, but that old TV just won't break.

[Abby Normal]

We bought an electric lawnmower off our neighbor for $100.  That was 14 years ago.  I'm putting my foot down on replacing it this year because you can't buy the replacement part for the ON switch.  So using it involves duck tape and a screwdriver.

But we definitely got our money's worth out of it.

[Deleted]

I have a couple of cheap, ugly suitcases I bought the kids before we went to Romania... Last time, so 5-6 years ago, on the assumption if something happened to them, no big deal... Those things have been everywhere and won't break...

[wodehouse]

If you're using Google Docs for your "office" type work then give the $249 Samsung Chrome Book a look. It seems very elegant and light.

I'd use one for browsing, but I can't stand using Google docs (which I do for a number of shared documents) and prefer to use Excel & Word on my laptop.

[shanendoah]

wodehouse - I don't use google docs for anything spreadsheet related. And I do prefer word, but I don't want to pay for Office for my $300 laptop and open office was too big for it's processor. (I mean really, this was a $300 laptop 5 years ago.)
I am not looking to replace my cheap laptop with another cheap laptop. My goal is to replace both my cheap laptop and my desktop with the next laptop I buy. But until the laptop craps out, I can't justify the expense. (This is because if any one thing on my desktop crapped out, we would just replace that component, which, even when we're talking processors and motherboards, is cheaper than a desktop replacement laptop.)

[Deleted]

When I moved into this house back in 2006, we bought a $200 GE bottom-of-the-line dishwasher; my then-bf installed it.  Seven years later it still cleans well and runs great.

Of course, that could be because I basically wash (we call it "rinse") the dishes before putting them in there.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

My grandmother's dryer.  I don't know how old the thing is but I wish it would die so I could justify a new one.

[Cass]

I feel your pain.  I'm still using the laptop I bought in 2008 for around $350.  I look wistfully at the 'skinny' ones every time I'm in a store.  This one seems so big and clunky now, but not a damn thing wrong with it. 

[Phoenix84]

"I can't play WoW on it, or any game that requires heavy graphics or high speeds, but for writing, checking FB and playing Bejeweled, Samurai Sudoku, and Princess Maker, it works just fine."

World of Warcraft is not a heavy graphics heavy game, WOW is almost 10 years old. 

You might be thinking of Crysis 3 or Far Cry 3. 

Anyways, I don't think it's laptops in general that only last 2-3 years, it's dells.  Dell, along with HP have really sacrificed quality to cater to the bottem budget market.  Yeah, I wouldn't expect anything from Dell or HP to last more than a few years.  My Dell I got for college lasted about 6 years.  The computer still works, but the like your laptop the dell monitor it came with pretty much stopped working.  My sister also got a dell desktop and had pretty much the opposite problem.  Her monitor worked fine but the computer had some pretty severe memory problems after about 3 years. 

[shanendoah]

Phoenix84 - the original WoW is 10 years old. The expansions are not, and trust me, they are graphic heavy. I don't play many computer games- mostly WoW, and some Sid Meier. But I don't even try to run Steam from my laptop.

The thing is, lots of other people I know with laptops that aren't Dells or HP have had them quit on them or break in 2-3 years. Someone's cat laid on the laptop and broke the screen- my 35lb Beagle has stood on my laptop and it's fine. Other people drop their laptops once or twice and they're done. Not mine. I can't tell you how many times I've dropped it. Or how many Starbucks crumbs are in the keyboard, etc. And it's not like this was an expensive high quality machine. I mean, it's an e-Machine. It should have broken by now.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Mar 19, 2013 13:32:49 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

My grandmother's dryer.  I don't know how old the thing is but I wish it would die so I could justify a new one.

I've got one of those.....my grandmother's hand mixer.  That sucker is avocado green, has got to be at least 50 years old and IT WILL NOT DIE!

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Someone's cat laid on the laptop and broke the screen-

Mine did this.  There was a perfect paw print on the screen where he stood on the top and it transferred weight through to the plastic cover and broke the screen.  That was a $300 repair to an $1000, 3 month old laptop.

[Peace Of Mind]

My DH would probably say me.   

We purchased a patio set when we first bought this house (going on 9 years now) that was marked half price at Sears.  It seats 6 people and it was the only thing I found that I liked.  I think we got it for $350.00.  Sets were going for well over $1,000 at the time we bought it.  I figured I'd find something better in a year or two after purchasing it but I still have it. I just had to repaint the chairs (the set is black with a tempered glass top and Lazy Susan in the middle of it). Everybody asks were we got it because they like it too but they don't make it any more.  It's nothing fancy but it's really cute and fits everybody comfortably.   I changed out the cushions to red Sunbrella ones with a Sunbrella red Umbrella.  It came with beige ones that were "eh".  The red looks great with the set and our gas grill is also red and black.  It's still in good shape so we added more outdoor living room furniture for under the lanai and put throw pillows to bring the red in from that set.   

ETA:  My cat just poured Champagne in my laptop recently.  I was totally fine with that computer but now have a new one.   

[973beachbum]

When I graduated from HS in 83 my mom bought me a 19 inch color TV.  That thing is still in my befroom and working about as well as ever.  Man is that sucker heavy!

I am getting to the point in life when every day I look at something and realize that it has been twenty something years since I bought it.

[kittensaver]

My washer and dryer are 30+ years old and Will. Not. Die. The motor on the dryer recently went out to the tune of $400, and I sighed and paid it because that's still less than half of what a new machine would cost. And way less than what a new pair would cost.

[resolution]

I keep waiting for my tracfone to die.

[Bob Ross]

I have pairs of underwear that have lasted since high school.

[thyme4change]

We purchased a patio set when we first bought this house (going on 9 years now) that was marked half price at Sears.  

Oh - that is the other thing, we bought a patio set for $99 from K-Mart.  When we re-did the backyard, we talked about buying a new one, and could not justify it.  All the chairs are great, they still have a little bounce, and no cracks.  The very expensive lounge chairs we bought, one cracked and we had to get it replaced.  And the bar-stools we bought have all lost their paint, but that patio table and chairs from K-Mart is just trucking along.  We've had it 15 years.[/span]

[Phoenix84]

"Phoenix84 - the original WoW is 10 years old. The expansions are not, and trust me, they are graphic heavy. I don't play many computer games- mostly WoW, and some Sid Meier. But I don't even try to run Steam from my laptop."

Maybe, I haven't played WOW since 2009 when Wrath of the Lich king was out for a few months.  So things might have changed.  It's all relative too, I have a gaming PC that should be able to handle wow with no problems.  But as I said I haven't played it in several years. 

[telephus44]

When I went off to college I got a cheap set with a desk lamp and a fan that you can clip to a bedframe.  The plastic on the lamp eventually disintegrated from the heat of an incandescent bulb about 6 months after I bought it.  17 years later, DH still uses the fan clipped to his side of the bed for white noise when he sleeps.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I still have a $10 lamp I bought in college that we use as a nightlight.  DH calls it my "whorehouse lamp" since it has a red shade trimmed with fringe.  He HATES it but since it works he can't justify replacing it.

My spongebob alarm clock I bought seven years ago for $15 at Walgreen's is still going strong too. 

[cottoncandyclouds]

I've thought about this one since I read the OP's post. I would have to say it is (was) my first computer. When I was 15 years old my parents bought me a computer to do my homework on. He had a friend from work set  it up so that I had an email account,the internet(does anyone remember AOL), and a few games. I remember my dad's friend telling him that he did a good job on picking out a relatively cheap model because computers die out in a couple of years anyways. The next day my dad said if my computer died before I finished high school he'd buy me a new one.. We both were certain it would give up the ghost before I reached my 18th birthday. We were both wrong 13 years later I still have the original tower. 

[mmhmm]

Yep.  I had the same small chest freezer (Maytag, if I remember correctly) for over twenty years.  I finally decided I'd looked at that darned thing sitting in the garage for long enough and replaced it with a large upright freezer like the one I have in the house.  My daughter (the pack rat) decided she'd take the small chest freezer.  It's now ten years later.  The darned thing is still running and is in their garage to store stuff that won'tfit in the inside freezer.  Go figure.

[Deleted]

Yep, my famous relic of a GE hand mixer from my bridal shower from my exdh's uncle...33 yrs. ago, in 1980. My almost 28 y.o. dd rolls her eyes and reminds me I "MUST buy a new one Mom..." everytime she comes over for a family get together and mashes the potatoes. (I have a Kitchen Aid, but it's easier to whip out my hand held GE..) I tell her I've grown very attached to that little gold mixer, it has produced every mound of my famous mashed potatoes that she loves so much (that she insisted I teach her how to make..) and has enjoyed her ENTIRE LIFE, that I've had it LONGER than I have HER and if she didn't mind.......I'd just as well "get a new daughter, instead".....LOL.....

....Don't mess with Mama's Mixer!!

[Sam_2.0]

I got two 16-piece plain white dishes sets from Dollar General for $4 each on clearance. We were having people over for dinner and I thought it would be nice to have matching dishes sinceI only had my college collection of mis-matched things (functional, but definitely not pretty!!). I thought the dishes would probably break easily but it has been four years later and the things are damn near indestructible. We've lost one dinner plate when it fell to the tile floor. But the mugs and bowls have been dropped without even a chip or crack.

[taz157]

I got a pencil case for a $1 at one of the Dollar Stores when I was in college.  Even thought I graduated 10 years ago from college, I still use that thing at each job I've worked at (currently on my 2nd and will be looking for a new job shortly as we are moving).  I've thought about getting a new one, but that pencil case works great and has last me years! 

FWIW - I'm like a kid in a candy store at an office supply store.    Granted, I'm like a kid at a candy store at a candy store too. 

[shanendoah]

Glad to know I'm not the only one who wants something new and shiny but can't bring myself to buy it while what I have works (even if it should have given up the ghost by now).

I also still have the desk my father bought me for high school graduation- white veneered press board. Some of the "attachments" are gone, but the desk itself is still holding up just fine, even after almost 20 years. (When I finally get to buy a desktop replacement laptop, that desk will finally go too.)

Going back about 25 years, my mom bought me a vinyl covered foam chair and footstool for my 13th birthday. I think we finally threw out the chair last summer, but the footstool lives in our bedroom and serves as a stepping stool to our bed for our dogs, and also an extra dog bed- it lets Old Man Howie sleep where I can easily pet him, but without having to be on the bed where he might be jostled.