Buy to last

:: 2026.03.29 — life, repair

I cannot define myself a minimalist. But I do own very few things, I hate throwing them away and so I make them last.

Here are some examples.

I bought my Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 in September 2019, mainly for work, but oftentimes also for my focus time with deep music. I changed the ear pads in 2023 and now I'm hunting for a replacement battery.

I got an iPhone 12 mini as a gift in December 2020, I fell in love with its small dimension, they don't do small phones anymore and I am going to do whatever I can to make it last. Soon I will look for a battery replacement as well, if it's not worth, I'll probably go for a refurbed 13 mini.

When I started working from home after COVID, I bought my reMarkable 2 (May 2021) to regain the joy of manual writing. It still does exactly what it did back then, what a wonderful product.

I don't have a smart watch, I wear a Casio Sports AE-1200WH-1B that I bought in January 2024 and that costs less than a dinner out. I wear it every moment of my life, the strap broke and I just change it. 10 years of battery, no charger needed. A solid part of my day-to-day.

I recently switched from Mac to Linux, and bought a Framework Laptop 12. The concept is amazing, it exists precisely because someone agreed that repairability matters. I'm curious to see how long I will make it last and how much I will enjoy making it my own.

The pattern isn't accidental. I buy things expecting them to last many years, and in most cases I expect to repair them. Things with replaceable parts, screws instead of glue, communities that still sell the components years later. Things that get better as you learn them.

The market wants you to upgrade. It frames your five-year-old device as a liability, your repaired jacket as poverty. But there's something the upgrade cycle doesn't offer: the quiet satisfaction of knowing your objects deeply. The battery you ordered yourself. The strap you swapped. The screw you didn't strip this time.

Falling in love with things takes time. Fast consumption skips that part entirely.

Buy less. Fix more. Let things age with you.