My most recent frig is from 2013 and it's ... 12 cubic feet i think. The 9 cubic foot uses about the same amount of electricity. I say 'about the same amount' because they're in different buildings, both climate controlled but obviously there can be variations. My goal is to have everything either frozen (I have a couple of freezers; when you live as far from a grocery as I do, you don't go often) keeping just a day of leftovers and fresh veg in the refrigerator. And any beef, pork, or chicken that is being defrosted. So I don't really need enormous refrigerators.

Exactly. I mean, I have no problems buying new things - but they DO have a cost. Yeah I have 2 friges in use right now -- one bought in 2013 and one bought in 2006. I'm done with buying new appliances when I look at the decline in reliability. Is your microwave an Amana Radarrange? I had the fortune of getting one from 1981 -- it has a touchpad, I wanted a dial - but the price was right at $20 and it's a great microwave.

soon it will be touted as the 'new extra secure Azure' and then it's going to be 'company machines do not have to be on the internet'

Nobody ever wants to count the total cost. Even by electric consumption standards, it's not high because a) it's compressor is very efficient, b) it's very well insulated, and, c) it does not have a frost free freezer. Of course, it's old enough it doesn't have much of a freezer at all. I've got that covered with deep freezers. And i'm still using my 2005 refrigerator.

Actually, it isn't. It uses less electricity than a modern frig - I measured it with a 'kill-a-watt' and if it was leaking it wouldn't be working after 80+ years. But, hey, replace your appliances every three years.

Every country needs this. The UK has a BIT better food but there's a huge amount of utter trash food there. Your consumption of ultra processed foods as a percentage of diet is not far behind the USA percentage.

So slave labor is okay to you?

I have a GE refrigerator from 1941 that still works very well. I think I'll be using it when my current early 2000s model dies.

OK here's an interesting thing. I had a significant car cost due to getting preventative work done - a timing chain. It wasn't a catastrophic failure, but the truck is older and it was past the time to replace it. I paid it with a card - the dealer didn't want to take a check. And I got whatever points I get. I went home and initiated a payment from my bank account. The next month my credit score dropped because I was using more of my balance. It feels like a scam to me...since i have zero plans to take loans out (or anything other than my credit card I pay off every month) I don't care, but for many people it can negatively affect their ability to get a mortgage or whatever.

That just tells you how bad it is in the rural areas of china.

And what exactly does this mean? The implication that I was responding to was that the range itself had a failure in it, which caused a fire. If I deep fry potatoes and don't cook them properly, the oil boils over and starts a grease fire, that's operator error NOT a failure in the electric or gas range. Who is the cretin here, exactly? Not me.

I simply switch the circuit off when I go away.

Yeah I was born mid sixties and that was discussed in Weekly Reader when I was in FIRST GRADE. So, yeah, no, I don't expect to see it in my lifetime.

You also have to prepare healthy food which, as I've commented here on /. more than once, won't fly because Americans (literally) would rather die than cook something healthy. It also doesn't help that even so called 'healthy' celebrity chefs douse all their foods with a huge amount of "EVOO" -- sorry, you can still get fat on healthy food. I'm living proof of that (LOL).

All of it was done to save fuel for WWI -- by the Germans and the Americans and the British. Standard time feels more normal to me - which is odd because I always as a kid loved it being light later. Now? I'd rather have standard time and go to work earlier so I have light in the evening.