Your grandpa’s old hammer might outlast every cheap new one you buy. Some things were made to be passed on.

Tools used to be built on the assumption that they would be inherited. A tool with a wooden handle and a forged head gets repaired instead of replaced, and it works better after forty years than a new one does after two. That design choice is also a message about time.

Find out which things in your house are in that category and ask who they came from. Use them rather than keeping them safe, since an unused tool is just an ornament. When you do buy something yourself, consider buying once properly instead of three times cheaply.