The Simple Life – Or Is It Just Preferring The Old And Cheap?
Anyone who has been reading for awhile knows that your author is a fairly simple guy. It has recently occurred to me that my sense of simplicity may go beyond the normal range, because I seem to keep using familiar old things when I have better new things available.
A little over a year ago, we bought a new car, our first in more than a dozen years. It shares a garage with a cheap beater that I keep for driving to and from work. From May of last year, I have put only about 3,400 miles on the new car. But I have put over 12,000 miles on the rusting, dented 2007 model. Why is this?
It is not because I don’t like driving the new car – I actually love driving it. I have not had a moment of regret since I bought it. And it is not because of gas mileage – the new one gets nearly as many MPGs as the old one does, and for whatever advantage the old one has is more than compensated for by the new car’s extra power, quiet and smoothness.
My commute is about 30 miles a day, so that accounts for maybe 7,500 miles of the 12,000 I have put on the cheap beater. What about the rest? It seems that every time I go out during my off-time, I grab the keys for the old car. Part of it is because I don’t care about it at all. I don’t care if it gets a door dinged in a parking lot. I don’t care if it splashes around in salty puddles in winter and rusts more. But that is not the only reason I keep choosing it. The most surprising part is that I actually love driving it, for the intangible reasons that make a guy bond with a car. If something happens to it I am going to miss it a lot.
This life-habit is not restricted to the cars I drive. About a year ago we spent a not inconsiderable amount for a bathroom upgrade, which included a brand new walk-in shower. But something funny happened – I have discovered that I prefer taking my showers in the other bathroom – the one that is more-or-less a time capsule from my house’s original construction in 1958. The old shower is small (Marianne prefers the term cramped) but that just means that it is easier to keep clean. So the new shower is for Marianne while I have adopted the old one because I like it better.
Maybe this is just a variation on what I have called my “German Farmer” attitude – the idea that what you have is what you have, and that good enough is good enough. And when I splurge on something new and objectively better, something about the new and better thing does not satisfy like the older and simpler.
Sometimes I am dragged kicking and screaming away from my comfort zone, like when the washing machine stopped washing. In my mind that still thinks it is 1985, my initial reaction was to call the appliance repair guy to come out and fix it. But it is not 1985, and in these days good appliance repair guys are not so easily found. And there was no guarantee that if I spent good money on the washer that we bought nearly 20 years ago, that we still wouldn’t need to go buy a new one. So I wrestled the German Farmer part of my brain into submission and ordered a new washer as close as I could find to the one we had. And I hate it.
It is a sad fact that our laundry area is in the basement and that Marianne is not doing stairs these days, so that laundry has been added to my list of to-dos. Marianne says we could solve this problem by moving, but good grief – we just bought a new shower and a new washing machine, slow down a bit! Anyway, I am now pining for my old washer, with its simple electromechanical controls and no circuit board anywhere within 100 yards. I thought making things electronic was supposed to make them faster, but the people making washing machines evidently disagree. Also, my money says this one won’t last as long as the old one did. But I guess I am left with no choice but to wait and find out.
At least when it comes to washing myself (as opposed to clothes) and driving places, I have options.
J. P.'s Blog 
Now you’ve got me wondering how long our frig will last. It seems as good as new. But it’s 20 years old. And our clothes dryer is probably 30 or more years old, and . . .
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Yes, I failed to mention the dishwasher that died. The new one is objectively inferior at actually cleaning dishes.
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I do NOT, necessarily prefer old and run down to new, BUT, I do prefer simple to needlessly complicated. Buying a refrigerator that connects via blue tooth to the internet and tells me what is in it, is something I do NOT need, and will not pay for. I don’t even care for ice cube makers. When I was helping a buddy in his house painting business, every ‘fridge we rolled away from the wall to pain behind, that had a water connection for ice cubes, had leaked and had damaged and rotted the flooring under it!
Problem is, manufacturers are “feature loading” their offerings and eliminating the simple and affordable. My 2020 Kia does a ton of things I neither care about, nor want to take the time to figure out how to do. My 2005 Toyota Scion xB “box”, was as feature laden as I needed and no more. Electronic ignition, fuel injection, a few sensors, and that’s it! Where’s our $15k dependable car? It’s loaded with crap we don’t want and cost $24k. Auto off/on at stop lights and stop signs you have to turn off every time you start the car? That’s the “woke” version of the auto industry!
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On cars, I am afraid that modern regulations cause much of the added complexity. It seems that my 2023 Dodge Charger (a very old design that was finally euthanized at the end of the 2023 model year after a final flurry of production to last into mid 2024) is one of the few cars that lacks the start/stop feature. And I cannot tell you how much I love that it is not so equipped, but I also believe that increases in fuel mileage requirements were instrumental in its death.
I once worked with a guy who refused to own a refrigerator with an automatic ice maker. I am aware of what can happen when they start to leak, but I am not a total Luddite and am willing to watch out for leaks in exchange for a constant supply of ice at the ready. But my fridge lacks the external dispenser so that I must open the freezer door to get at the perpetually-full bin of ice cubes. Does this make me a half-Luddite?
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I was sad to find out that KIA was killing their Rio model, one I almost bought; as well as killing their Soul model (which I did buy), which I heard they killed because it was too close to the Seltos (I have a suspicion that they killed it because it was a theft target by the “Kia Boys”, so people quit buying it). I was happy to find out that they refused to put “stop/start” on their K4 and K5 models, which are now their inexpensive entry, but still too much for me. The car manufacturers negotiated the “stop/start” solution to get mileage credits which allowed them to sell those ridiculous $75K pick-up trucks, mostly not bought by construction people, but suburbanites. I feel that this is a stupid solution forced on us by people still wanting to buy vehicles that get 18 miles to the gallon. Once again, someone else’s idiocy turns into my problem…
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Those fuel mileage regs have been grinding my gears for decades. The other problem is that small cheap cars are not very profitable, and many went away after Covid when supplies were short and demand was high.
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I would never have used the term ‘simple guy’ to describe you. There are many nuances and facets in your world that you share with us.
Alas my appliance repair guy can do great work, but parts availability to do said repairs has become the major issue. As he observed last time out, my old washing machine did not survive past the 15 year old mark, but its companion dryer is still going, 20 years plus. The issue on the washer was one little $2 plastic piece that was not available, and brought the whole operation to its demise.
The other problem is that he has bad knees now, so will be retiring soon.
Don’t get me started on refrigerators. Get the extended warranty, and hope the stupid thing lasts past the 5 year warranty expiration. Brace yourself for the myriad service calls that get you on a first name basis with the repair guy – oops – person.
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Oof, I don’t want to think about replacing the fridge, but it’s getting pretty old, too. Parts availability was another fear that kept me from calling Mr. Fix-It.
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Great topic. I’m definitely with you so far as the German Farmer thing goes, even though I’m probably about as genetically far from being a German farmer as one might get. But actually, I suspect that there are many more “German Farmers” in the population than is genetically/ethnically possible. Most of us aren’t exactly happy with the world in which we exist; and that is one thing (out of many to choose from) that makes our society weird.
I believe that there are probably many more of us who would rather live simply, keep using stuff that works, and not upgrade devices simply for the sake of upgrading; but we carry these attitudes in the midst of an economic culture that is driven to require us to consume whether we want to or not. And when desires cannot be properly created (to support the economy), then things like planned obsolescence are applied so as to compel upgrades. Of course, most of us at any time could stand up, be good German Farmers, and just say “no” to wasteful consumption and an economy that prizes abundance over frugality, but we don’t. We don’t because we simultaneously prize the freedom afforded to economic forces that conspire to serve our base desires and demons. This seems to be the great American – if not more generally human – experiment. I guess our fate is to see how well that works out. So far, not so good…but there’s always hope I guess.
Meanwhile, I’m of the firm belief that appliances (e.g., washers, dryers, fridges, cars) kind of reached their golden point in the early years of the 21st century. Stuff made prior to about 2010 seems to have adequate technology and also is engineered to last a long time. Stuff made after that just adds bells and whistles and is generally designed to last about 5 year years prior to needing replacement. So says the guy with mostly 20 year old stuff that I just keep fixing as rarely needed.
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Jeff, I laugh because there was a used appliance store in the neighborhood my parents moved into in 1972. They had a dryer go out in about 1985, and the deal was that you bought a used and refurbished appliance from these people, as well as traded in your “not working” one so they could fix that and sell it on. They bought a refurbished dryer, that worked from 1985, until both my parents passed, and the house was sold in 2012. For all I know, it’s still working? Why do I laugh? If you ever watch the “That’s 70’s Show”, in the background of the basement set the kids hang out in, there’s an avocado green version of my parents exact dryer that worked for them for over 27 years!
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I am with you on the appliance thing. My dryer is from the 80s and I have done some repairs to it myself. I also have a fridge from the 90s and another from around 2010, and so far so good on them both.
I think part of the obsolescence thing is a worldwide race to cut costs out of everything for maximum efficiency. However, I think many of those efficiciencies are stolen from other areas of life, be it shorter useful life of a product or the passing over of local labor for cheaper labor abroad.
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I like to think of myself as a “hanger-on” as to my possessions too JP. It is not because I’m cheap necessarily, but I live by the “KISS” principle and it works for me. We’ve had all these power blips, where the power goes off just long enough for the digitals to go off and my instant-on generator to turn on. We had another rodent-eating-the-circuit-board-cable a month ago and it caused a massive power outage in the area for seven hours. Each time the power goes off, there’s a 50-50 chance the fridge was on and the power cut it off. I hope my fridge, which is a 1990 model, does not go on the blink. I have a whole house surge suppressor and it has its own mini surge suppressor, but ….
The car should roll to 14,000 miles shortly. Thankfully I don’t have all the gizmos that look like a plane cockpit … I hope it will last me a while longer. Maytag would like me to endorse them in commercials since my washer and dryer were installed in 1985.
I resist change and here I was blaming myself since I will turn 70 next year and you are of a similar mindset.
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My mother bought a Maytag washer and dryer in 1972 and both were still going strong when she sold her house 25 years later. We bought a not-inexpensive Maytag washer in the early 90s and its new-design transmission went bad in 6 or 7 years. That taught me that a brand name isn’t always something you can rely on.
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When my plumber replaced the tap downstairs after the handle broke off, he admired the washer and dryer when I said they were installed in ’85 and he said Maytag doesn’t make ’em like they used to. He told me when the washer goes, I likely won’t be able to get parts for it unless we get them from eBay. I asked him what parts would likely go and I’d get them from the appliance store now and he just looked at me … well, I don’t know how complicated the washer’s “guts” are.
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I definitely understand about the car. I’m driving a 10-year old VW Jetta TDI with a six-speed manual transmission. We just ticked over 220K miles on it. I’m not planning to get rid of it. I have no idea when I’ll be able to find another manual transmission car. (And 220K miles on a diesel is hardly adolescence in terms of lifespan)…
I despise the need to computerize everything. The first time I heard of an IoT (internet of things) device it was a Microsoft engineer talking about a bathroom scale. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why the hell one would want one of those. Also, there’s this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M_hmwBBPnc
I’m too young to be breaking out lines like “back in my day” and “Get off my lawn”, but I find I resist the push toward technological always-connectedness. I do think that’s partially why I like my old Bronica S2A camera as much as I do.
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I am with you on lamenting the ever shrinking choice of cars with a manual transmission. They are even starting to become uncommon in newer big trucks!
My new washer doesn’t connect to the internet (I hope) but it now uses electronics to sense how much water it needs for a load. That used to be my job, when I chose small, medium or large for the dial marked Load Size. I’ll bet if something fails, that will probably be it. Also, a cycle seems to take forever now, compared with before.
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Appliance repair men are in scarce supply these days. The one I knew retired and the guy who took over from him, a nice man named Ahmed, moved to Nova Scotia because he was tired of being yelled at by people whose stove was only 2 years old and already the electronic circuit board had quit and a new one cost almost the same price as a new stove – apparently people are more easy going on the east coast. I have a set of 37 year old Maytag washer and dryer and he said never to get rid of them as they are workhorses with nothing much to break on them. The guy who bought my mother’s house and totally gutted everything, kept her 25 year old Maytag washer and dryer and her 15 year old Sears Kenmore stove….that should tell you something. I dread the day something major happens to my old (2006) Honda…..I keep procrastinating looking for a new one…..but when I buy one I may just keep the old one too, as then I won’t have to worry about driving the new one in winter weather. My neighbours new hybrid hardly ever leaves the garage, they drive the old 2010 Toyota…there’s 50K wasted….
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I could justify the second car when both of us were driving. Now I’m the only driver, but I can still justify the cheap old second car if it makes the new one last longer. When I finally retire, I may have to rethink the 2-car thing.
The use of circuit boards in things that get hot or vibrate really irks me.
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I have found that the only way to guarantee I will drive the new car is to sell the old car… which we did not do when we bought the BMW X1. I did not bond with the BMW. So I am still driving my PT Cruiser and with any luck it and I will have another 20 years of happy driving experiences.
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Bonding with a car is a great term. I am the same way, once I bond with one it is tough getting it away from me. Maybe my bond is stronger on the old one because I’ve driven it so much more, even though I’ve actually had the new car longer.
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I agree with you on the electro-mechanical control board. A guy could fix it himself if he wanted to. As to the different cars, in our case it was more practical to get a different car as the old one was nickel-and-diming us to death. But you get used to its sounds and the feel and the seats and you don’t want to give away the comfort of the known for the unknown.
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I have been guilty of putting too much money into an old car I really liked. I am trying to restrain myself on this one.
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Be sure to get the low mileage discount on your new car. Over the decades, we have started leaning toward “replace” over “repair” but still use a local homeowners referral service. They cannot guarantee much but we have had a few victories. Sometimes we irrationally save using the good stuff for special occasions. I recently read a quote from a woman sorting the nice clothes her sister left behind when she died. Some were several years old but still had price tags on them.
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We insure the new car for low miles, but not this low, so I probably ought to review that.
Saving the good stuff is part of the car thing too. I washed the new car Thursday and had to go out Friday. But it had rained so we took the dirty old one to keep the new one clean.
On the repair or replace, replacement is just easier.
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LOL – I agree, our trusty old things in some cases are much better than the new shiny ones.
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Maybe it has something to do with being raised to be satisfied with what you have, then getting used to it.
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I think so. We were taught, to treasure the old socks with a hole, you fix them, you don’t throw them out, etc. There is comfort in the old, new is not always better… but sometimes it is!! If you start driving the new car more, it will get its FIRST dent, you’ll be mad, and then suddenly, it will be old and treasured. That’s what happened to my daughter. When her car got a dent, FINALLY, she could drive carefree, she wasn’t worried anymore about it. Her car become “old Betsy,” even though the car was still relatively new. 😉
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