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Buy Once, Use Forever: These Products Last for Decades (According to the ‘Buy It For Life’ Fans Who Bought Them)

If it ain't broke, don't repurchase it.

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Wouldn’t you love to know whether a product is going to last you a decade or longer before you buy it? Reviews and ratings have helped solve this problem to some degree, but it’s still difficult to get a true estimate on a product’s longevity. Enter Buy It For Life: an online forum within the Reddit website (known as a subReddit) that’s dedicated to practical, durable, high quality products. Users all over the world are using it to share the best purchases they’ve ever made.

For the uninitiated, Reddit is a news aggregation, social media, and discussion-based website. Registered users — you must have an account to post content and comment on posts — submit content, such as links, pictures, and videos on subReddits. (A subReddit is a subsidiary page on the website dedicated to one topic.) Users can “upvote,” or “downvote,” or comment on content.

Why is Buy It For Life so useful?

Unlike most websites these days, Buy It for Life is never sponsored by any brands, and users don’t receive free products in exchange for reviews. In other words, it’s completely independent, so users tend to give their very honest opinions. The moderator (Reddit user Petrarch1603, moderates posts, and eliminates content that is sponsored or gimmicky.

How can I use Buy It For Life?

You don’t have to have a Reddit account to use Buy It For Life, but it may make things a little easier. To sign up for Reddit, visit the homepage and click the blue login button in the top right corner. In the pop-up that appears, click on “sign up” at the very bottom (below the login button). Enter your email address or use an existing Google or Apple account, and continue the sign-up process from there.

Whether you have an account or not, you can navigate the Buy It For Life subReddit by first visiting the site’s main page. The posts are a mix of questions (“any good recommendations for dishes?“) and recommendations (“my Garmont Hiker boots have lasted me 19 years“). To find a specific topic, use the search function at the top of the page. Type in the topic for which you need information, and hit the enter or return key on your keyboard.

For example: Searching for “induction stove” will display all the posts on Buy It For Life that relate to induction stoves. Some of the posts that appear in the search, such as “what are some of the best brand[s for] electric or induction stoves?” and “what’s the best, durable induction range?” yield some helpful answers.

What are the cons of Buy It For Life?

Since anyone with a Reddit account is allowed to comment posts or post pictures of products, quality control isn’t guaranteed. So, there’s always a risk that you’ll get a positive review for a product that you may end up not liking. In addition, the website may feel disorganized because you won’t be able to find topics by category. Instead, you can find them only by using the search function. Still, many Reddit users love Buy It For Life because it has a reputation of being very honest, so they are willing to put up with the disorganized nature of the site.

Examples of Some of the Best Products on Buy It For Life

Wondering what types of posts you might find on Buy It For Life? Check out the products that users swear by.

What vintage products would you post on Buy It For Life? Let us know in the comments.

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