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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

I really can't stand the whole 'Marie Kondo' bs. Ask your grandparents about quality and you can skip the nonsense. Buy what you need, save before you spend, buy quality and repair your stuff rather than throwing it away. It's just common sense.

This stuff only works on people that are easily pushed by marketing and advertising to fulfill needs they didn't have in the first place and end up with houses full of things they can easily get rid of. Fortunately for Miss Kondo the same people are also easily sold a book that they didn't really need. Who thought an 'organizing consultant' was something we would one day take serious.

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Common sense is not universal, common, or necessarily sensical.

I did not grow up with parents who raised me this way and had little to no contact with grandparents. My parents were also often cash strapped.

You and I know that saving up for quality products is a better approach. I learned it by watching my parents buying a cheap stand mixer every two years (max) growing up. Then I worked at a kitchen store and learned that there were some KitchenAids still working after 75 years. I saved up my paycheck and may have been one of the only 17 year olds to ever buy a KitchenAid. I'm still using it over 15 years later.

Thing is... I didn't have three kids, a mortgage, and other more pressing uses for my money. Once you get into a debt spiral you rarely have the cash needed to purchase the stuff of the quality you need to make it last. Instead you buy crappy stuff at the dollar store to make until the next paycheck.

Of course, they do still purchase more things than I do as they haven't learned the other part of this lesson -- if you can't afford the quality version you should probably make do without it.

Also note, the equipment, space, and know-how for repairing things is not available to many (probably most).

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms: The Play

eh. ignores the time value of money though.

No, it doesn't. Think about it harder.

A huge advantage of disposable things is it's no big deal if they are damaged. Stuff breaks outside of normal ware use. Cars for example often fail due to an accident which limits there maximum useful lifetime.

Time value of money also hits in. A cheap mattress that last for 7 years is arguably better than spending 2x as much for something that last 14 years.

Finally, some things simply don't get used much. Often buying say a cheap snowboard to start with is much better simply because it might not maintain your interest. High end home exercise equipment can be a great investment, but it's likely to just end up as an expensive coat rack.

But you are ignoring environmental cost.

Purchasing stuff several times leads to an enormous amount of waste and energy spent on construction, transport and recycling.

Following on your mattress example, some swedes take pride on owning the same Hästens mattress for more than 70 years. They are expensive, but not outrageous if you ignore their recent flashy models. Regular ones are maybe 3 or 4x of what a decent mattress costs.

Same can be said about lots of items, like chairs, tables, pens, kitchen tools or even clothes. Good stuff can last for long. There's even a reddit community that discusses these: http://reddit.com/r/bifl

You have any idea how much dead skin would be in those things after 70 years ick. Anyway for some real numbers a friend uses a 50$ foam pad that last ~5-10 years. It's not great, but it's better than a lot of older mattress people get used to.

Considering the light weight and minimal materials it's probably better for the environment than you might think. It's not like dumping the things in a landfill cases much harm and for the price not much resources / energy can go into making it.

Here's a good (and fun) column on how Ms. Kondo helps many people overcome cognitive biases.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/an-econo...

The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of a cheap price is forgotten.

I don't know about your Grandparents but when mine passed away they had so much junk saved for a rainy day. Literally 30 pairs of shoes. What is that for?

You pay for that square footage in rent, you pay for it by having to manage in your house, you pay for it in the uncertainty every time you look at it.

You're never going to read that collected works of Shakespeare. Well, maybe you are. But if you have to ask yourself the question, you won't.

Sure, it's fine to have some "art" around in the form of books, or nice plates. But being dishonest with yourself contributes to so much frustration. This is extra true if you're living with someone.

This is all hard and fast (people have different circumstances), but the whole "fitting your life into a suitcase thing" is valuable advice. So is throwing everything out that you haven't used in a year (one of Kondo's thing).

It might be worth experimenting with the ideas "organizing consultants" give. It's liberating to actually be able to use my entire desk.

Yes, my parents taught me how to clean up. But they also taught me to treasure books, but running a library takes time beyond just "having a shelf".

It's heavily related to culture and your influences growing up.

For example: I'm from East Germany. I grew up in a free country (after the reunion). I have a well-paying job and never had trouble getting access to all the household items etc. that I need. So over time, I have emphasized the role of property as a liability (although I'm not as radical in downsizing my inventory just yet). When I can always buy stuff that I need (or borrow it from someone), why own it now?

My parents were socialized in the GDR, where every single item in your household inventory was acquired through hard work, saving, and good connections to the people who can acquire certain luxury items live TV sets or silverware for them. It's very plausible that they take pride in an extensive inventory.

My grandmother grew up during World War II. Having had to flee from the destroyed remains of Berlin, and having lived in a time of cruel scarcity, it's no wonder that she, too, attaches a higher value to ownership than I do, and always keeps a fridge full of deep-frozen food whereas I always buy Just In Time.

> But they also taught me to treasure books, but running a library takes time beyond just "having a shelf".

I agree with the general idea of your comment, just wanted to add that there are people like myself for whom physically owning books is almost a fetishistic thing. What I mean is that there are moments after a day's work when I sit on my couch and just looking at the books from my library makes me think "at least I do all this for a reason, I have all these books, the ideas of some of the greatest minds of the human species are present in my 2-room apartment, it's all good".

> This stuff only works on people that are easily pushed by marketing and advertising to fulfill needs they didn't have in the first place and end up with houses full of things they can easily get rid of.

In other words, most people.

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