Between Thanksgiving and this coming Monday, when our new refrigerator arrives, my bride and I will have replaced all four major kitchen appliances. These expenditures were practical: Our dishwasher hadn’t worked in a year or more; the electronic oven controls on our gas range worked only if you held your mouth right while pressing the buttons; our microwave struggled to pop popcorn, and the range lights quit working; and our refrigerator/freezer gets hot to the touch.

At the same time, new appliances were not entirely necessary. We had, after all, survived a year without a dishwasher; the oven still worked with a little coaxing; the microwave was still quicker than most other options for a wide range of tasks; and thus far, the fridge is still cold inside, if not outside. And plenty of people live quite comfortably without one or more of these devices.

Over the past couple weeks, as we prepare to tackle some home projects and work on my old truck, I convinced my bride to allow me to upgrade our garage. My work has gone well the past year—I’ve picked up a few extra projects and used the money from one such project to purchase some new hand and power tools and organize them. Now, when I have time to work on projects, I spend far less time looking for tools, purchasing cheap tools for particular tasks, setting up, and cleaning up. I can just get to work.