this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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Buy it for Life

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A place to share practical, durable and quality made products that are made to last, with an emphasis on upcycled and sustainable products!

Guidelines:

Things that are well-made and durable (even if they won't last a lifetime) are A-Okay!

Unlike that other BIFL place, Home-made and DIY items are encouraged here, as long as some form of instruction is included in the body of the post.

Videos links are not allowed as post titles, but you may use them in a text post.

A limited amount of self-promotion is accepted, IF the item you are selling aligns with this criteria:

  1. The item must be made with sustainable or recycled materials.
  2. If electronic in some way, the item must be open-source.
  3. The item must be user-serviceable (if applicable).
  4. You cannot be a large corporation.
  5. The post must be clearly marked with a [Self Promotion] tag in your title.

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Is BIFL Still Possible Today? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 5 hours ago by rosahaj@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/buyitforlife@slrpnk.net
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Hi there, I came here to the BIFL Lemmy out of suspicion that the reddit posts are just unlabelled marketing, and I was wondering the possibility of sourcing goods that are more to a BIFL standard? In my area, second hand goods tend to be really quite poor in quality (reselling fast fashion) or otherwise not present, and I have not inherited anything that does last. So I would apprecite advice or reccomendations for finding goods at a BIFL standard. I was also wondering if maybe there would be anyone with good advice for finding sustainable, local textile production so that I may be able to tailor what I need without having to buy from the poor selection aforementioned, does anyone know of any of this?

TL:DR I am suspicious that a lot of what is claimed as 'BIFL' has been enshittified, and would like advice on being able to search for sustainable goods for a local area (not specified because I'm hoping for advice with searching, not exactly for specific reccs)

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[–] JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net 5 points 3 hours ago (4 children)

Throwing in a little odd advice for the secondhand scene - even if the shops are bad, I've had some good luck with estate sales and cleanouts (where a family or realtor basically opens the home to anyone who'll cary stuff away and save them the trouble and cost of throwing it out). It can feel kinda bad, picking through stuff in that context, but we've saved a bunch of nice old tools and kitchen stuff that way, and the houses generally have everything else you might need for a house. Personally I think the best BIFL stuff is old and made before they really perfected enshitifying their products.

The cleanouts I've been to we found through postings on our local free groups (which I also really recommend) or word of mouth, but I used to know some folks who went to them professionally, looking for merchandise for their own businesses, so they must be advertised somewhere normal people would find them too.

[–] rosahaj@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

just quickly replying again because my last could have come off wrong, I do genuinely appreciate the advice, I'll just need to find out how to find these sorts of scenes.

[–] JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 hours ago

No worries! And good luck!

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