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Comment by xefer | Hacker News Reader

One thing I've noticed over the years reading old wills and probate records (16th -18th century) is just how few physical possessions even fairly well-off people owned. Estate inventories often list individual coats, shirts, bedding, bowls, tools, etc. I think the material wealth we have today is so incredible we don't even realize how much we've accumulated and could probably do without.

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Modern manufacturing is sufficiently weird that it messes with my sense of thriftiness. That it really is possible to manufacture new items less expensively than it is to repair them (especially counting my own time to do so).

Like I can remember my grandmother knitting and darning socks.

But she wished she had one of these sock knitting machines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N7hsho4Sjg&feature=youtu.be...

And now you can buy a 10 pack of decent socks for $1/pair (and they may objectively be of higher quality).

I'm trying to think how I'd even explain this to someone from another time:

"10% of your net worth is this pair of socks? And they took you a day each to make? I just threw away a pair because my toe poked through the top."

I was shocked and pleasantly surprised recently at $3 high quality plain tshirts (in multiple colors) that you can order online: http://www.michaels.com/apparel-crafts/t-shirts/876004921

I'm wearing a magenta one now.. Then I found out there are tons of online outfits doing this. https://www.jiffyshirts.com/

I've always shopped at Salvation Army and other thrift stores, with occasional trips to malls to pick up Levi's Slim Straight jeans, but the last pair of those I bought from Amazon since I know my size. It's kind of been a revelation, and the big box stores are going to have to get creative to stay around I think. I used to be picky about favoring American Apparel shirts as well, in their heydey, but the ones I got from Michaels are surprisingly good.

I only realized how big this market really is when I found out that Berkshire Hathaway owns Fruit of the Loom, a Gildan competitor.

Funny enough, I think I've seen them on sale for less than $3.

This reminds me of this quote from historian Carlo Cipolla in Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now:

"In preindustrial Europe, the purchase of a garment or of the cloth for a garment remained a luxury the common people could only afford a few times in their lives. One of the main preoccupations of hospital administration was to ensure that the clothes of the deceased should not be usurped but should be given to lawful inheritors. During epidemics of plague, the town authorities had to struggle to confiscate the clothes of the dead and to burn them: people waited for others to die so as to take over their clothes—which generally had the effect of spreading the epidemic." (Excerpt from Carlo Cipolla, 1994)

Based on a phase I went through involving getting rid of almost all my possessions, you can get rid of ~50% of your stuff and barely notice. But that last 10-20% is so amazingly critical, you come to appreciate it and the work that must have gone into it more. That said, having things that are useful and last never gets old, just make donating something you do as often as shopping. Also that is a pretty strange but interesting hobby.

I've had a thing ever since grad school (I lived in a 400 sq. ft. apartment, so it was necessity then) that if I buy a thing, I have to donate something else -- particularly for clothes. It's amazing how much less crap I've accumulated than friends and family of a similar age.

I'm think the hobby you're referring to is genealogy. It's actually a very common and useful hobby. :-)

https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/genealogy-second-most-popular-...

A lot of divorced people know this from experience. I certainly do. Don't miss any of it.

Reminds me of the proverbial "Great Depression Mindset" that I noticed in my grandparents. Also this comment I came across on Reddit's Bestof recently that made me see the world and myself a little differently:

> Minimalism often focuses on a few high quality pieces that serve many purposes. When you're poor, you often can't afford higher quality or multipurpose...

https://np.reddit.com/r/minimalism/comments/86pkeu/meta_can_...

When you're poor, you often can't afford higher quality or multipurpose

Interesting, I have heard "Cheap is expensive, because you have to keep buying it" as well "We are not so rich we can afford cheap stuff."

Any examples? I'd like to see one.

Original documents are harder to reference directly but lots of old probate records have been transcribed; e.g.:

"The Probate records of Essex County, Massachusetts"

https://archive.org/details/probaterecordsof01dowg

This is fascinating.

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