askchapo

The 1970s

other people are addressing clothing, so - regarding your phone and chargers:

• your phones shit themselves - RAM is a big issue (my phone has 4gb, fucking Android itself takes up 2+) along with apps sneakily running in the background (any food or grocery things that give you coupons are probably doing background stuff consistently)

• your chargers melt - this is terrifying to read and I will happily scrape together some money for you to buy a nicer charging brick - please do not fuck around with cheapo chargers, your life is worth the extra $5 and I will happily give you the money to buy a safer one

There is a subreddit called "buy it for life" abbreviated to bifl it is worth searching.

Workwear tends to hold up pretty good if you don't mind looking like a contractor or lumberperson

Some of it can be pretty nice looking too, I've got some nice shirts from Duluth that have held up for a while

I obsessively research things or intentionally buy cheap anticipating breakage.

I'll list what I do for the things you mention but obviously it's just my experience:

Clothes:

• Thrift high quality clothes. Have to literally feel the fabric and judge the stitching and slowly learn brands that often have decent quality for your style. You can also look for cheap mid-quality clothes and they'll still be way better than the usual H&M or Target stuff. It will depend on where you live.

• Roll the dice on AliExpress. Sometimes the stuff is great and has reinforced stitching (certain sock brands, for example). Sometimes it's paper thin garbage. Read the reviews and look for items with many reviews. Also consider finding one of the groups that uses private links to buy branded dupes. I haven't done that in a long time but it seems to be something you can still do.

Bags:

It really depends on the kind of bag I guess. But here are some ideas:

• Brands with really good warranties will either have good stuff or will give you a new item if their stuff breaks down fast. Patagonia, for example (they also sell to the US military...). Timbuk2 is also decent. You can also judge the quality here by the material, Denier rating, and stitching.

• AliExpress "tactical" backpacks are pretty decent. The ones with lots of reviews. As a bonus they're great for on-the-ground actions because they blend in.

• Fjallraven sometimes has good stuff. Most items that use Cordura (any brand) will hold up pretty well.

• You can also thrift bags. I have found fantastic backpacks, $300 backpacks, for $30 at thrift stores.

Phones:

I've had good luck with phones. I shoot for well-reviewed phones in the $300-$400 range. There's also that guy that beats up phones to review their sturdiness. It can help you decide on which ones to avoid. OnePlus phones are usually a pretty good bet. If you want to run alternative ROMs there's a big incentive to get a Pixel of some kind.

Chargers: I just buy Anker exclusively. No problems like melting yet.

Many categories of manufactured goods are becoming higher quality and cheaper due to Chinese productive capacity. See if there are just-as-good Chinese niche products in a given category. The nice ones will often be more expensive than the cheapest Chinese items but still 1/5-1/3 as expensive as the Western name brans stuff they are competing with. For example, there are many backpacks by lesser known Chinese brands that are reportedly very high quality and are that much cheaper. They're very popular in East Asia and you can often find them on AliExpress if you search carefully.

Darn tough socks are great

Maxpedition makes classically sturdy and reliable bags and pouches. Has the tactical look, but you might find something that fits your style.

I went through a phase of only buying MILSPEC rated gear. My watch is nearly 20 years old and never changed the battery or set the time. It sets the time from the atomic clock every night and charges from solar. Casio G-Shock.

"Buy 100% American made! That'll ensure it'll last forever!"

In all seriousness I'm not sure. Tons of things aren't bifl and aren't meant to be, they have a natural lifespan. The problem is that the natural lifespan in the US is cut unnecessarily short for such things because Walmart wants to keep selling you stuff.

You could try making your own clothes but it's hard and time consuming to do that for everything. Having an economy divorced from production is unfortunately going to become even worse of a drag as time goes on. It's why I'm sounding the alarm bells and begging all my friends and family to get off the sinking ship that is the west. They won't listen, but I do it because I care, and maybe someone will listen.

I'm in China, and in Asia in general, people have access to affordable high quality tailors and fabrics. I've noticed products I've bought off of pinduoduo are better quality than products I've bought off temu, despite it being the same company. There's also the fact that there is a lack of recourse when your seller is halfway across the world.

The thing is, you aren't going to find many options for affordable stuff outside China, so I believe looking for labels like "American made", and "Italian made" is not the answer. Chinese logistics, manufacturing, production, automation, quality... it's pretty close to the best value in the world, even the cheapy things sold in the US. The only way you could do better is with actual real slave labor like in Bangladesh or India.

While I was in the US and doing my own research into all this was the best course of action for me was to basically buy the cheap Chinese good off of Amazon, tenu, wish, Shein, whatever and aggressively use the return policy if quality wasn't up to snuff. Learn to look at stiching, fabric, and other markers of quality, never buy the cheapest thing from a Chinese retailer, a $3 tank top from Shein can be terrible but a.$30 dress can be amazing.

100% make sure to never pay the Walmart/target/bullshit markups, unless you absolutely need to assess the items quality in person and are willing to pay the premium to do so. If a cheap flimsy shirt that gets destroyed in a month is $3, pay the $3, don't pay $30.

Once your clothes get worn through, learn to patch/darn/mend. Conspicuous mending can be beautiful and really cool.

And shop at thrift stores and see if you can snag something good.

Buy expensive things.

used and/or local

This is something I'm still figuring out fwiw.
If it's a big purchase, like fridges freezers ovens televisions washing machines etc, buying either a subscription or article access to Consumer Reports might be worth it.

But that doesn't really work for everyday items and making things even worse, sometimes a good brand for some products is a bad brand for others. Usually because they make some items themselves but for others they lease their brand to a smaller less reliable company.

Toshiba televisions being one example. They used to make decent ones but then they stopped making them due to low margins yet leased the name out to a company called Compal, and the quality of their sets plummeted.

It all depends on what you are looking for.

Anker is the only brand I use anymore for chargers and cords.

I'm fairly hard on clothes, I expect most things to wear out. Carhartt pants stay intact long enough to be acceptable to me. I'm trying to lose weight cause pants last longer for me when my thighs aren't rubbing together. Carhartt coats are good. Socks, I get a big pack from walmart, I think I bought their third cheapest option and they've been going good for twoish years. I wear boots out in about a year.

Stihl small engines with ethanol free gas.

I currently drive and old Jeep with 260k miles, and have a 20 year old chevy tahoe with 320k miles. Find vehicles that have been taken care of and continue to take care of them.

I got a heck of a deal on a GoRuck bag and I've been very pleased.

If you can be more specific with what you are looking for, I can try to help more.

There's probably a market for a site/service that provides advice to achieve this goal. Here in the UK we have moneysavingexpert and moneysupermarket which are not really doing this job but instead aiming for money saving. Something like these but for long-life goals would probably be a beneficial thing. Essentially services specialising in helping people find long life products instead of just solely low price products, this isn't just useful for saving money but it fits into green agendas too.