Things you buy once and then make do with for the rest of your life

[Ubiquery]

Cutlery sets. Has anyone ever changed their cutlery set? If so, why and what did you do with the old set. I reckon I will have mine for the rest of my life and never change them.

DP has just chipped another bowl this morning. Most of our crockery set is chipped so I'm toying with breaking them all up for crocking and buying a new one. It'd cost about £25 but feels incredibly wasteful and decadent.

My mum has had the same towels all of my life. None of them match. They are threadbare and patchy. I find it so sad. I wonder why she doesn't just use them all for rags and buy a brand new bale so that they all match and are clean and fluffy.

What things have you bought once and reckon you'll never replace even if you should (my mum's towels) or could (my cutlery set)?

Little purple basket thing that I got for Christmas when I was about 8 or 9 and its now our first aid kit in the cupboard.

2 fosters pint glasses, a magners glass and 2 frosted jagermeister shot glasses. All probably when I worked/lived at the pub over 15 years ago.

We’ve just had to part with a tumble dryer that was bought in 1987 😢
I have Pyrex and Swan roasting pans that were wedding presents in 1985.
I use a Peter Rabbit cot quilt from the 1970’s when Dgs stays here, it was handed down DH’s family and I remember using it for DD in 1990.
I still have the majority of brushes from a Mary Quant make up set given to me for my 16th - in 1982!

@TwoPaperAirplanes

It was indeed! The thread is now in Classics and might amuse you if you didn't see it at the time.

[https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/4178119-Early-Noughties-teen-mag-ridiculousness]

Sorry, here's the link properly formatted:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/4178119-Early-Noughties-teen-mag-ridiculousness

I tend to keep things until they fall apart.
Things that stand out in my mind
The towel I bought on holiday in Belgium when I was 14. I am now 53. It has Pluto ( the cartoon dog not the ex planet) on it and is perfect for wrapping up my hair after washing.
The milk pan my grand parents gave me when I went off to university. I use it every day to scramble eggs.
My A level scientific calculator. I swear it still has the same batteries in.
We are also using the duvet cover DH had on his bed when we first met. (about 23 years ago) It wasn't new when he got it, having come from his Grandmother. It is beautifully soft but is terribly faded and might disintegrate at any moment.

Lots of kitchen stuff really.
Actually a lot of mine is from generations before. The breadknife I use daily was a wedding present to my parents in the mid 60s. I use a lot of my mum's and granny's old cake decorating stuff. My egg separator is probably pre WW2 but it does the job grand.
Cutlery sets - yes, mine is over 30 years old but still going strong.

I helped my Dad spring clean his airing cupboard recently and we decided that it was time to downgrade some of the towels which I remember from childhood and are over 50 years old. They're actually not as bad as they sound and are now cleaning my dogs' paws. But we reckoned he had enough nicer and newer ones and really should be using them (when you are in your nineties I think it's time to let go of saving stuff for "best" and you should just enjoy it!).

I've got 'posh' cutlery and every day cutlery. I'll have both forever. I doubt I'll every replace my saucepans.

My mum gave me saucepans when I moved out. She first bought them when she moved out to her first house so they had cooked all my childhood home meals. They are still good as new

I have my dad's Kenwood. It was bought around 1975.

I also have my nana's teapot.

Le creuset and my bed have outlasted my DH.

I moved to this city after university 35 years ago and thought I should get some cheap kitchen stuff which included a set of 4 earthenware brown ramekins, I still have them but have never made a souffle in my life. I use them for keeping small leftovers, 2 are sitting in my fridge with leftover soup. I also bought a small cobalt blue enamel teapot which I think was made in Poland. I used to make my tea in it but that now sits on top of the fridge. with other defunct teapots. I searched through my teaspoons last night to find my yoghurt eating spoon, none of mine are silver but i do have a lot of really small spoons I do not remember buying which is odd as I think I consider every purchase carefully.

I have no idea how old my cutlery is. At least 25 years I think. It was my first set of new cutlery and it was paid for with Safeway supermarket stamps that we saved up.

egg slicer, 'inherited' from mil, poss 50's?
Original pyrex pie dishes from similar time

Patterned pyrex dishes from 1980.

All in weekly use, I am so not on trend!!

@LillianGish I have to say that my Brabantia bin does not have a pedal. I'm so sadly in love with it that I am posting a picture. It has a very smooth touch click open and shut. It was a wedding present 15 years ago. What really impressed me about it was that the catch mechanism did succumb to two toddlers using the bin as a drum. However, I wrote to Brabantia and they send me a whole new lid free of charge!! Then the catch went again 5 years later. I wrote again and that time they sent me the catch mechanism only and it was easy to fit and hey presto my beautiful bin was fixed!!

I have bought new cutlery over the years but I've still got part of a set from the early 90s. All the crockery is mismatched, but I do now buy only plain white as replacements - at some point it will all match. (the colour at least)

I have a toaster I bought as a set with a now defunct mixer 18 years ago. This toaster is honestly ugly with flaking silver paint and tired looking buttons but will it break? Will it hell!
I just can't throw away a perfectly working toaster. It's wasteful and pointless.

I also have a hairdryer which is 35 years old. Again it works perfectly well! I really would like to upgrade it but I cannot justify throwing it away.

On the plus side, our crappy tin opener (15 years old) broke last week. Shiny new one coming up!

Our "best" cutlery, crockery and wine glasses were all wedding presents and will probably last forever, but the every day stuff that I actually use regularly gets lost and broken.
I've got a sandwich toaster that my brother bought me in 1984 when I went to University that is still going strong and probably wont get replaced. He bought me a Good Housekeeping cookbook at the same time which is still my go to recipe book most of the time, despite the fact I have shelves full of others.
My sister and I both have bits and pieces that were our Mum's kitchen implements that probably date back to at least the early 50s. I use one of her old tablespoons to measure ingredients every time I bake and I love that it's the same sooon that she used to make cakes with me when I was little. My DD has asked that I pass it to her in due course - that spoon will live forever!

If it helps you justify a new crockery set, chipped crockery attracts bacteria and is unhygienic to eat off www.leaf.tv/articles/what-are-the-dangers-of-using-a-broken-dish/

I've just remembered, our everyday glasses were collected in the 80s, free with petrol. The highball type are just the right size and you can hold them comfortably in your hand. I did look at replacing them a number of years ago but the style then I couldn't get my hand round and was worried about dropping.

Can apply to husbands 😂.

I had a steamer (stove top not electric ) the big pot was used for pasta , soups etc , steamer on the top.
My Dad bought it for me when DH and I bought our house ( 30 years ago)
I only recycled it because it wouldn't work on my new induction hob. No point keeping it , I know my Dad would've said "Put it in the Charity Shop, ley someone use it "

Cutlery , I have a set over 20 years old , very plain.

12 of each knives/forks 6 soup/dessert/teaspoons

I buy a load of random teaspoons to use every day and keep the set ones together .
I do like buying up random teaspoons

I used to have a lovely white /yellow/blue fruitbowl , older than my DC (so 22+)

Until our cats .......female cat took offence and pushed the fruitbowl to its sad demise off the table .

Sewing box.....I’ve had mine 32 years ( I’m 56)

@Kitkat151

Sewing box.....I’ve had mine 32 years ( I’m 56)

This is a really good one! I 'inherited' my grandmothers handmade sewing box.

@WeAllHaveWings our 'spare' crockery was bought by my DSil with Safeway stamps about 30 years ago , was used by her everyday and then inherited by us when she sadly died to be used when we have numbers here.

I used a broken whisk for over 20 years. I bought it in my first year at university, it broke not long after and didn't replace it until a couple of years ago. I'm I'm my 40s and went to university aged 18. I've moved house several times and indeed have put in a whole new kitchen in this house, and yet made do with a broken whisk.

My mum is still using the pots and pans she took to university. She's 76. And went to university on a completely different continent!