Consumer appliances continue to take a beating during the recession. At least our priorities are right though as iPods continue their growth path and are considered more important than microwave ovens. From CNBC:
The microwave, it seems, is one of the biggest casualties of the recession: Less than half of the adults surveyed said they consider the microwave a necessity, a 21-percent drop from the 2006 survey.This may be a bit deceiving though. Don't you think that people are making due with what they have instead of rushing out to upgrade their appliances? Also, with the housing collapse, these numbers are all going to take a beating since there's less need for new. These items tend to last long enough that they don't need to be replaced every couple of years as we may have seen during the easy credit years.
Among other appliances consumers have begun to drop from their necessity list are clothes dryers (-17%), air conditioners (-16%), dishwashers (-14%) and TVs (-12%).
In other words, they see those items as more of a luxury than a necessity.
As for the iPod, even during a recession people like to have some amount of enjoyment without dropping a ton of cash. Even for us, as frugal as we are, we're upgrading to a new iPod for our summer road trip. And yes, if our fridge was to die tomorrow, that would be replaced immediately, contrary to what some may think. We could get used to anything if we really had to - like anyone - but the hassle of shifting ice blocks to keep food cool sounds like a nightmare. For vacation, perhaps, but beyond that I wouldn't want the hassle.
