Caitríona Redmond: Beat the manufacturer — buy smart, mend when needed and save money

Artificially capping the life of a product is known as planned obsolescence... a very real issue in modern life

"In the past week I’ve tackled two household appliances that would have clapped out if I hadn’t repaired them myself. Both jobs entailed getting a little dirty and are fairly simple to attempt, but if not done regularly the appliances would have been on the replacement list very quickly."

Did you ever feel that old lightbulbs didn’t last very long? There’s a reason for that and it’s all tied up in the Phoebus Cartel (seriously) which started to control the way that incandescent lightbulbs were made and sold between 1925 and 1939.

Originally, lightbulbs were made to last 2,500 hours but this wasn’t generating enough profit for the manufacturers.