Lately I've been thinking a lot about consumer habits. There are a number of interesting trends I've noticed in myself over the last few years - and changed to better suit my needs and values.

1. First is the need to collect them all. When I was first shopping for kitchen utensils, for instance, my immediate instinct was to purchase a set of knives. drinktoforgetme encouraged me instead to put all of my money into a single really good santoku knife and a couple of pairing knives. In practice, that's all I need and I'm much happier having a really high-quality Wüsthof knife than a mediocre quality bread knife, chef's knife, steak knife and whatever else they throw into a set. Since then, my tendency in all purchases has been to spend more on fewer items that precisely meet my needs - even if that means I'm purchasing specialty items from various "collections" that weren't designed as a set. (Of course, in some cases, such as flatware and cookware, it's much more economical to buy as a set).


2. Second, and closely related, is the expectation that everything must match. A lot of people have the tendency to want everything to be from the same designer if not the same line - and, in doing so, end up buying an assortment of mediocre items for the sake of consistency. In a lot of collections, the designer comes up with a really great idea for one item and then tries to apply it to each individual piece. This usually works really well for one or two items, but ends up looking gimmicky when applied to an entire collection (you often see this same mistake in typography, too). A hand-selected assortment of items often looks less Stepford Wives and yet can still feel deliberate and coordinated, while better meeting needs. (I find this particularly true in audio/video equipment; the best manufacturer of televisions is not the best manufacturer for amplifiers).


3. Third, and again related, is the wisdom of buying quality over quantity. For clothing, for example; I'd rather buy three $150 shirts that I really love, will always want to wear and which will last me ten years than ten $50 shirts that I don't like as much and which will wear fairly quickly. Similarly, I bought a DVD player eleven years ago which I still use today (although I just ordered a replacement, finally); yes, it cost me more upfront, but it gave me significantly better quality and, over time, cost no more. Most of the things I've bought in the last few years I've put the time into research and the money into the purchase to ensure that they'll last me for at least a decade; this is true of my pots, appliances, furniture, wife, etc.


4. At odds with this, however, is my fourth point: the ability to repurpose utilitarian products. When we went to get power outlet covers for our old house, for example, we found these beautiful brushed nickel plates at $6/each. That adds up when you have 30+ power outlets in your house! Two aisles down at Home Depot, however, we found some very similar aluminum plates in the commercial section for $1.50/each. The nickel ones looked nicer on close inspection, but not nicer enough to justify the cost difference. Similarly, with regards to clothes, I've really been impressed by the quality vs. price of many clothes at the Army/Navy Surplus store; they're unique (sometimes even stylish), cheap, and built to withstand more wear than I'll ever put my clothes through.


5. Fifth, is how certain small purchases simplify life. For example, we only have four settings of our dishes which means we're constantly doing dishes and, when we throw dinner parties (usually six people) we have to mix in our old grimy plates. We recently found two more place settings of our dishes (which were discontinued by Pottery Barn a few years ago) on eBay for a good price. It only cost us $50 for the two sets (two plates, bowl, cup) and we never have to think about dishes again. We're planning a number of purchases like this in the near future. Other examples are buying a bunch of nice wool socks Katie recently found (since I'm always out of socks), getting a nice pair of scissors for the main floor (we're constantly looking for our single pair), getting a pair of nail clippers for each bathroom and buying a handful of spare computer/AV cables (power, HDMI, DVI, USB, etc) since we never seem to have one (that's working) when we need it. If we evaluate the things we're most often looking around for, it'll only cost us a few hundred dollars to get a couple extra of each item so we don't have to worry about them.


6. Last is the tendency for people to buy everything at once, instead of distributing purchases. There are a number of problems with this. First, it's overwhelming to research that many things at once. Second, it spreads your budget thin. Katie and I have been getting really disciplined about shopping for one item at a time, doing our homework, finding the best product and then moving onto the next. We take on a different product each weekend; this weekend, for example, we tackled flatware.