Intereesting, yeah local location can absolutely be an influencing factor.

I would still definitely say its worth it to break down the microwaves a bit and at least reduce your clutter to some degree, it’s certainly what I would do. Especially since you said:

Never had a knob or handle fail on this model actually, just electrical parts

Instantly that means you can eliminate like a solid 80% of the volume of the microwave, which would reduce clutter tremendously. You are looking at 3? distinct sections of parts/boards you’d be left with typically (fan unit, main board, and the transformer/magnetron assembly)

Thats enough to divide up into 3 bins and now 3 microwaves are 3 bins of parts, which could be put up and out of the way on a shelf.

As for renting/buying maybe that’s just a country different but I can go the the Chinese tool shop and get tools for not much more than the cost of renting, assuming it’s even available for rent here.

Here in Canada, typically you’d have to rent something for multiple weeks before its about the same price as buying. If you rent for just 1-2 days at a time you’d have to rent it many many times before it comes close to the price to buy the same tool.

So for tools you use all the time, yeah, absolutely buy it.

But if I say, need a jackhammer literally once to just break up the concrete pad in my yard to replace it, I dont need to buy a whole jackhammer and can just rent it for 1-2 days. Same for cement mixer and whatnot. I probably at most see myself needing to pour concrete maybe 2 or 3 times tops for the entire life of my home I own, so I dont ever see myself buying an entire cement mixer or jackhammer.

But a Saw? Drill? Etc, other power tools I use all the time? Yeah 100% I will buy those.

But even with all my power tools, I have a very organized wall system they go on. A big part of Minimalism is the principle of Mise en Place. Everything has a place it belong, and everything is in its place it belongs.

As long as what you own truly is something you need, and it has a place it goes, and it is in its place it goes, thats minimalist.

People often skip over the boring part but, a big part of minimalism is containers, organization, storage, etc.