Living well on a shoestring

Beside me, John, an older male friend, is taking a look at my washing machine which suddenly went on strike. John thinks there’s a blockage somewhere. After getting water all over the floor John’s now proposing to take the machine outside & flush out all the hoses. Like John, my father was a talented handyman. Whenever necessary he would repair all our household appliances – iron, toaster and even washing machine. Products now are far too technically complicated to repair oneself. It’s often easier to replace with new rather than repair. The reasons are the high cost of spare parts, low overseas manufacturing costs and being able to find a repair person anyway. And so we end up as a massive consumer society. Companies operate on a planned obsolescence model forcing us to regularly replace products. It’s annoying and expensive to be forced to replace our phone and computer every couple of years. Even worse is machinery controlled by a computer system and the owner not allowed to repair it without using the company’s computer analytics. No longer can I tinker with my car as I used to years ago. My car is now plugged into a computer system for diagnostics There is a pushback with growing momentum for consumers of new products must be given the right to repair. Buying higher quality in the first place, looking after the product and making it last is also recommended to beat what seems like a short life span for products. By being able to extend the life of our products we would not spend so much money on the need to replace with new all the time.