Outdoor nature school sounds very cool!

My kids have Zak! Designs double walled stainless water bottles that work great. They have destroyed everything they've had prior to these. They are pretty dented after a year and most of the paint worn off put holding up. We live high up in the mountains and go up and down 2500 ft altitude just doing errands and almost every water bottle with an internal straw would leak from air pressure change, these do not. We have the kind with the straw and lid that closes and latches, push a button on the front and it pops open. They have a pretty convenient handle which is nice because I always end up carrying them when hiking.. We have tall ones that dont seem to be on Amazon anymore or their website, they can be top heavy anyway and fall over out of cup holders when full, but the shorter ones are still listed. Ours may have been $25? the shorter ones are less. May be worth giving them a try, cant say if they are BIFL as we've only had them for a year but the kids destroyed most other bottles in 6 to 8 months before these.

When you keep getting a citation for not having your number on the curb.

Dollars not Euros but yes still very high. It's mostly the stones and silver driving the price though, I bought the wife a small ring last year that was $100 for the same materials. I cringe spending so much on just a belt but I've literally been trying to find another one for 20 years.

This would have to be my one splurge for the year though and dont want to do it right out of the gate so going to hold off for a while, last years purchase was a pair of Nick's boots.

I second this. I got a belt from a street vendor in Santa Fe, NM 20 years ago and still looks like new. They made it in front of me and I got to pick different custom options that they made on the spot. It was quite expensive though at $300 with sterling silver and turqoise but hands down best belt I've ever owned, my primary belt as every other one I've tried has fallen apart quickly.

I found this vendor again last month and I was so happy as I'd been looking for another in a different color for decades. Inflation sticker shock though my same belt in black is now $700 ouch! going to have to save up.

I'm currently wearing a 5 year old pair of Flexon frames on their second pair of lenses. Frames are still good but paint has worn off on the bridge and bottom corners and plastic earpad on one side is starting to get pitted on the outside. Going to replace them this year as I need new lenses again.

Lee Valley tools are top notch!

If you are looking for usability the Japanese Swinger clones are a great buy and hard to beat because they are generally all metal. Post war, Swinger gave Japan their old blue prints to help reconstruction and the Japanese took that and ran with it. Japan was not big on branding in the 50's so it's next to impossible to figure out who made what and they'd stamp a lot of different labels on machines. Because of the lack of branding they are not collectable at all today. This makes them dirt cheap tanks if you want to actually use it :)

Mine is also a ZigZag model to compete with Swinger but unlike swinger's more elegant design my Japanese machine moves all of the internals back and forth instead of just the needle LOL.

Growing up poor I learned the hard way that cheaper is more expensive.

Say I needed to buy a tool that I expected to need regularly and my options were $20, $40, $60 or $100. When I was dirt broke and couldnt afford anything else I'd choose the 20 buck option which would soon break and wear out, so I'd replace it with another one and another one. Eventually I'll get tired of it breaking and get the upper mid range/lower upper range tool for $60 and be set but it cost me $120, more than if I'd picked the most expensive one right out of the gate.

It is expensive being poor. It became frustrating knowing I'd pay more but not being able to afford the upfront cost. These days I try to automatically pick the upper mid tier or lower top tier of all products and look for the best quality for cost, above that for most things you are getting significantly less gain in quality for the money.

Pretty cool!! I have a BMW R90 that this would have been worn with ;)

My tech company insurance pays for regular glasses and computer glasses with the blue light blocker. For years I didn't want to bother with multiple pairs of glasses until I attended mandatory company zoom meeting with the insurer explaining all the options and benefits people may not know about. The extra computer glasses were not just the same prescription with blue blocker added to the lens as I had always assumed. They are set to a different focal length and optimized for computer monitor distances.

So I got a pair and have to say they generally make things crisper and my eyes feel less tired at the end of the day. I believe this has everything to do with the different focal length and not set for distance like my others. I don't know if the blue-blocker helps your sleep rhythm or not but an extra pair of computer glasses really helps reduce eyestrain.

I'm not anti-China, I have plenty of great stuff made in China and some amazing brands are based there like Grant Stone boots.

I am anti quality cutting and well known brands using their name to sell inferior products. I gave an example of this above: 3 vintage Stanley's I inherited that were used hard on construction sites for 40 years still holding up still functional and still looking good, save for the one with a new handle welded on. 2 New stanley's used for motorcycle touring and commuting for 5 years, staying mostly in a saddle bag and much lighter use than the originals, already have paint flaking off, gaskets failing and plastic cup top cracking. The quality is just not the same.

I'm not the only one saying this, there are YT reviews stating the same.

Check the bottom, new stuff is mostly made in China :( not quite as good as the old Stanley. Mine have had paint flake off and start coming apart within a year, where as my grandfathers that I inherited look beat to hell and one even has a rebar handle welded on it and paint is chip free, all still good condition.

I do have 4 of the soup thermoses that are 1/3 that size for my kids school lunches though. In the morning I'll cook up some chicken or pork, sometimes with rice and put it in hot off the stove and it'll stay hot till their lunch. My kids are so spoiled lol, I was lucky to get crappy sloppy joe or meatloaf from the cafeteria at school when I was a kid.

Depends on the quality of the veneer and substrate. Many high end antique furniture is veneered but solid cheaper wood underneath.

My bedframe is almost 800 lbs, just the 16 inch wide oak rails take 2 people to move, and I was quite surprised to find out it has thick veneers with laminated MDF underneath on the corner posts. When I chipped it I was disappointed to find the MDF, I had always assumed it was solid wood and it was sold as such pretty expensively too. I had no problem fixing it and it's still beyond sturdy built like a tank and survived multiple moves including hired movers knocking a hole in a wall getting it down some stairs once.

Our previous bedframe was a solid wood hand me down with metal rails and it was thin and broke beyond repair, hence the super beefy replacement.

Dont assume its BIFL just because its solid wood, and not because it may have some veneers.

I had a big E-Machines cardboard box with built in handles for laundry. Cardboard box lasted 25 years, about 20 years longer than the computer that came inside it. Only got rid of it because new wife thought it was hideous and bought a purpose built laundry basket that promptly fell apart.

I love Duluth Trading pants! This is one of the few brands that actually fit me and doesnt slide down when I sit down.

I'm in the market myself and I'm seriously considering the Beckett Siminon Gaston bag, unfortunately I missed their 30% off Christmas sale so going to wait for a sale to come around again. I cant speak for their long term durability as I haven't owned one yet but I do have some of their shoes and the leather and fit and finish of their shoes is amazing. Also primarily a shoe company not a bag company so options are limited.

They are a made to order company though to keep inventory costs down and pass savings to the customer so you may have to wait for whatever you buy from them.