I often hear, “You should never cheap out on a good office chair, shoes, underpants, backpack etc…” but what are some items that you would feel OK to cheap out on?
This can by anything from items such as: expensive clothing brands to general groceries.
Soap of any kind. It’s fine if you want a certain smell, but at the end of the day it all works the same. Goes for hand soap, shampoo, detergent, body wash, etc.
All your basic staples: salt, flour, oil, sugar, pasta, pasta, milk, eggs etc. There’s literally nothing to do better or worse, so for god’s sake don’t pay for the label. Fancy olive oil is nicer, and fancy butter for actually putting on bread is nice too - but for cooking, cheap the hell out.
Get your spices from an Indian / Asian / etc grocer - you can get a huge bag for the price of a tiny supermarket jar, and because they have so much turnover, they’ll be plenty fresh.
Store-brand laundry detergent and dishwasher tablets work just fine for me (and dear god you can save a lot on those).
All your basic staples: salt, flour, oil, sugar, pasta, pasta, milk, eggs
It depends. Cheap salt is just fine. And flour, unless you’re into baking. But some things can make a difference and you don’t necessarily have to pay a lot more for it.
Pasta, for example. Bronze cut pasta absorbs sauce a lot better than “normal” pasta. It looks dull, rough, and pale as opposed to shiny and smooth. It usually only costs a buck or two more. I find it’s a big step up taste and texture-wise.
Or butter. The ones without natural flavor taste better. Sometimes it’s the store brand that doesn’t have added flavor.
And eggs. Orange yolks are way better than the pale yellow ones. But those you do have to shell out for.
Agreed. The store brand pasta at my store sucks. It’s sticky and falls apart. It used to be fine but something changed recently.
Eggs I always buy free-range because yeah it makes a difference to taste (and is so much kinder to the chickens), but in the UK butter is butter. I know in the US you have butter that’s practically white but here’s it’s all yellow and tasty. Flour every brand has plain, self raising and bread flour and those categories are pretty similar across brands.
Milk, the filtered stuff (Cravendale or similar) is nicer but not much nicer so it’s not worth the upgrade IMO
Oh yeah, the yellow European style butter was a revelation when I found out about it. It tastes way better and is less watery than the pale American butter.
I never heard of filtered milk. Milk is milk for the most part, but once I made the mistake of buying it on clearance. Grabbed it without looking because the price for a normal gallon freaked me out. It wasn’t spoiled, but it was super watery and had a weird color.
Just to reply to “it’s so much kinder to the chickens”, I hate to break it to you but “free range eggs” is a scam. Here’s a (very opinionated) article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/30/free-range-eggs-con-ethical
TBF he said kinder, not kind. I don’t buy eggs myself except for occasionally from rescue hens, but if I was I’d feel a lot better knowing they saw daylight occasionally.
I still pick those, even though I know it’s a scam. When you have 9 chicken per square meter though, not sure they often find their way outside.
When I did buy eggs I bought woodland eggs with a story on the side. Also a scam, but like, slightly better… kinda?
Like even in the ads you can see they’re packed in, but I bet there’s some bugs to eat there, and they can scratch dirt.
I dunno, commercialising animals is just all a bit grim really.
Oh I know it’s not great, but I don’t pretend to be vegan. It is definitely better than battery though
“Free range eggs” at the grocery store is a scam.
“FREE RANGE EGGS” on a sign by the side of the road are the best eggs you’ll find
To be clear, it is kinder. Not much, but it absolutely is kinder. Pasture raised is what free range should have meant… But fortunately we have a word for it now.
Eggs isn’t true. The only thing you’re buying is for sound of mind for ethically raised chickens and the orange color of the yolk specifically for things where you need that nice orange color.
Nutrients aren’t statistically significant. Taste has no difference. Especially if you aren’t eating them plain.
Chicken wrangler here. This may be true of supermarket eggs but should not be taken to imply that all eggs are the same.
Perhaps there isn’t a huge difference between the different labels available at the supermarket.
However, I’m incredulous that there is no difference between an egg laid by a backyard chicken who is well cared for and has a varied nutritious diet, and that which you’ll find at the supermarket.
I realise you (and youtube guy) are not talking about backyard eggs, but just because “pastured eggs” are not significantly different to cage eggs, that does not mean that it’s not possible to buy proper eggs.
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Agree no difference as an ingredient in some baked dish.
But if you are eating the egg by itself or as the primary item, there is definitely a difference in taste. Not a revolutionary change your life difference, but still a difference.
In my experience the difference is pretty small amongst the options in the grocery store, but fairly noticable for eggs I get from the farmers market.
Wait wait wait. Your butter has flavouring added? Like, I realise I’m spoiled here in Ireland, but fuck mei can’t even picture what that might be
diacetyl is typically used as butter aroma
That was my exact reaction! But butter is literally nothing but churned cream and possibly salt added? If there’s anything else added, such as water or any kinds of oils, it’s no longer butter. I get more scared every time I learn something new about US food culture…
Gotta check the ingredients on damn near everything here, or just make everything yourself :P.
Homemade unwashed butter = best butter (although spoils very quickly when not washing, like a day or two). I would eat that shit by itself if it wasn’t so unhealthy lmao
Irish butter is sold in a lot of grocery stores at least around me in the U.S. and my God it’s night and day compared to our shit sicks of fuck
For bronze cut pasta, De Cecco is the brand to look for
This has been my favorite dried pasta! I used to get it off Amazon before my grocery store carried it, and I can still get more shares online. I like three orrichetti and radiatorre(sp?)!
Flour - disagree. King Arthur for baking vs your basic supermarket crap is a tangible taste and texture difference in baking. While you’re at it, get a mill and buy organic wheat berries and save money for higher quality l, more nutritious flour. It’s literally cheaper to get better quality if you are willing to mill it.
Butter- Same for butter if you’re using butter as a spread. It’s ok to use cheap stuff in cooking but if it’s the main complementary flavor, like butter on toast, treat yo self to some Kerry Gold.
I’d even suggest buying laundry detergent in bulk online.
You’re absolutely wrong about flour. There’s a huge difference in flours (besides the cursory fact that most wheat undergoes a process called desiccation which is literally spraying it with roundup).
I’ll take my glyphosate-free wheat and corn and I won’t be cheaping out thank you very much, Toxic Avenger.
You are also missing the FACT that the other essentials you name are also badly polluted with chemicals that medical science has yet to understand.
I always buy the cheapest pasta available and they’ve always been good. Just last week, the store brand (Complements) was cheapest for the first time I’ve seen, and it was also my first time experiencing bad pasta. I don’t know what they did differently, but there’s clearly a way to mess it up.
Be careful with cheap spices, some of them (like turmeric) can be laced with lead and other nasty stuff to make them more attractive.
Authentic Asian/Indian/Chinese/Korean ones do not do it. This is a Western capitalist thing, because Nestlé is well known to add lead in Maggi’s tastemaker. Worst form of adulteration I have seen in Indian grocery sellers is adding tiny stones to bags of lentils or beans to increase weight, and they can be easily removed and is also becoming uncommon with time.
Uhh, yes they do. This does not take much googling to find out. Capitalist companies produce spices in the east too.
I live in India, and have not seen lead adulteration yet, outside of Nestlé’s (USA) Maggi tastemaker.
I’d hope this isn’t a concern in any country with even a small account of regulation on what you’re allowed to sell or on whether you’re allowed to murder people
Well, most of these spices are imported (in western countries), and it’s hard to tell how often they’re tested. There are some tests you can do at home (for example, turmeric should apparently not dissolve in water, so if you drop a spoonful in a glass and look at it after 20min, the water should still be relatively clear, or it means there are other additives).
I buy them exclusively so I slowly become leader.
How does lead make them more attractive? The weight?
It makes them sexy. Stupid, sexy lead-additives.
Nestlé Maggi also adds lead to its tastemaker spice mix. No idea if for taste or to kill people faster, because I have not eaten Maggi in about 12-13 years. Stopped as soon as I learnt about it in childhood.
Nestlé
Say no more you have aldready conviced me.
Color.
Great advice for the most part but I very much disagree on dishwasher detergent. Nothing works as well as finish pods for us. Could be our dishwasher of course but all the cheap brands leave our dishes dirty.
Same thing. I was considering buying a new dishwasher, until we switched to a good brand. I think cheap dishwasher detergent used to be ok until they removed phosphates around 2010.
Phosphates were the secret behind all good cleaners for sure.
Agree on spices, bulk and into the freezer. Cheap spices aren’t just as good, they are better.
I used to agree on flour, got good bread flour but recently husband brought me store brand unbleached white flour and it near killed my sourdough starter, so my mind is changed on that - I’d still use it for cake, but cheap flour is low protein and won’t work for everything.
Disagree on pasta too, good pasta is easier to cook, doesn’t turn to mush as easily.
Bread, cake, and all purpose flours are different. It’s not just cheap, they are almost different products.
Yes. I’d always used whatever brand all purpose unbleached flour for the starter and figured it didn’t matter. So I always asked for “Gold Medal Bread Flour and whatever brand all purpose unbleached flour”. But the Publix brand all purpose unbleached wrecked my starter. It took almost the whole bag before I figured out it was the flour, because I didn’t realize they varied.
It’s actually quite good for pancakes. Maybe it’s good for biscuits, that would actually make sense. But it’s no good for bread; but Gold Medal or King Arthur unbleached all purpose work fine.
https://watch.foodnetwork.com/video/good-eats-food-network/the-dough-also-rises
It gives a good overview of the types, what makes them different, and what they are good for and how they change what you’re baking.
Medicine: the branded stuff is normally exactly the same but many times the price.
When I go to the pharmacy I always ask for the cheapest generic drug product of Ibuprofen or whatever I need, it’s a couple of euroes cheaper.
Not that drugs are expensive in the EU compared to the US…not even relatively close!
Over the counter stuff in the EU does tend to be more expensive here than the US in my experience. Definitely here in the Netherlands but also noticed this in Spain and Germany.
One thing the US is good about is selling you a huge fucking bottle of something like Ibuprofen for basically nothing. Here in the NL they really like only selling you a 12 pack of it for the same price. It’s annoying as shit.
Spain I can get the powdered Ibuprofen 400mg for about 2/3€, which I really prefer over the pill, and you get about 20 packets.
I agree with the huge US bottles, but personally the powder gets old and usually clumps up before i finish them all and I end up buying a new pack.
In the US you can get a bottle of 500 ibuprofen 200mg pills for about $10.
So for your case that’s 8000mg for 3 euros or .0375 cents a mg
In the US that would be 100,000mg for $10 or .01 cents a mg.
So 3.75x more expensive not factoring in the Euro being higher on the dollar.
But it’s not even about the price, it’s the fact that it’s just hard to find a large bottle of it here in the EU at all (at least the Netherlands where I am now). I’ve never really seen it in stores. I much prefer buying a bulk bottle that lasts a year or two easily.
Yeah I mean I get it, but still don’t/can’t use 500 before they expire anyway…plus since I only buy them every couple for years I’m not the expert on the price. Just an anecdote…please don’t quote me.
They have an expiration date of 4-5 years, so not really an issue. I just think it’s a waste of my time to go to the store to get a 10-20 pack and also a waste of space and a waste of packaging.
Small annoyance overall I know, but it’s one of my gripes about over the counter medicine here.
Edit: more annoying is that more hardcore cold medicine is not sold over the counter here at all. Anything with pseudoephedrine is prescription only. Also the sort of actually effective decongestants and antihistimes are all prescription only if they’re even legal at all here.
But what’s funny is despite that, I can literally walk into the grocery store and buy codeine cough syrup right off the shelf without asking anybody or showing ID. It seems ridiculous to me.
I had no idea one could buy powdered ibuprofen. What’s the advantage? Advil’s marketing suggests you need special technology to deliver the medicine to the correct point in your digestive system.
Yeah, it’s actually more mild than the pill form, and acts SO much faster, most times you can feel the headache just fade away.
I used to pop aspirin and Excedrin for migraines but found out (the hard way) it’s no bueno for your stomach, so I have to use these sparingly. We also have 1g Acetaminophen (Tylenol) horse size pills, but it doesn’t do anything/help the pain for me anymore.
I mean, sure. But store bought ibuprofen? It’s $9 for 500 count 500mg bottle off Amazon.
We only charge extra for life saving drugs, normal stuff is cheaper than dirt.
You get ibuprofen in what ? 500 pack ?! Surely there is enough to kill yourself with this amount. How do you even finish it before it expire ?
As I understand it, most of them don’t actually expire
Depends on the size of the household, ages and activities of people living there. Plus depending on the product and storage, most expiration dates have some wiggle room.
Here in Sweden they always ask: “Do you want the cheapest option?” when you buy prescribed medicine. If there’s a reason for a specific manufacturer then that’s stated on the prescription.
I’ve even had them say that the drugstore I’m at is out of the cheapest option and then ask if I want them to look up which drugstore is closest that has it in stock and if they should send them a note to save what I’m looking for so there’s no chance it might sell out before I get there.And there’s also high-cost protection, an annual maximum amount (about $275) you can spend on prescribed medication and anything else healthcare-related. So any medication you buy and the cost of any medical services you use are added together and if that cost reaches the maximum amount within a year everything is free until the next year. So basically you can’t pay more than $275 per year for medication and any other medical services.
Always compare active ingredients for OTC stuff too
Sunglasses. There’s very little difference in terms of UV protection between cheap and expensive glasses and at the rate I scratch or break them it would be idiotic to spend a lot of money on them.
Glasses in general too, the frames are often 5-10x the cost of the lenses. You do not need Dior frames.
Just got 4 pairs with prescription lenses for ~$80. I use eyebuydirect, but I’m sure there’s other vendors like it
But make sure there IS UV protection. Buying just a dark tint with no UV filter can be very harmful to your eyes.
And that they are polarised. Only a few dollars more.
I need to object on the polarized lens. Polarized lenses are great if you are spending all your time outdoors and never get in vehicles or need to look at electronic displays, but most vehicles and displays have a polarizing filters. Mixing two polarized lenses together is not a great idea as it can lead to blind spots.
I drive trucks for a living and can’t use polarized glasses for that reason. I’ve heard pilots are in the same boat. Having blind spots when you are herding that much mass is a bad idea.
Yeah, don’t buy them on TEMU.
I learned early that there is a direct relation from how much I spend to how long I will keep them without breaking them, loosing them, or somehow destroying them in creative ways. I have a 10€ pair that has, so far, has lasted 2 years.
it’s silly.
From my experience so far most things in life can be found cheap, moderate price and expensively priced. However there’s a point of diminishing returns on your investment ie after that point you could spend loads for marginal gains. Find this point see where on the graph you can afford it.
Somebody on lemmy shared this and opened my eyes: https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04
TLDW; buy detergent power for your dish washer and fill both holes. Cheaper and wayyyy better cleaning prowess.
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Which holes?
See video but the ones wheee you put the detergent pack
Tools you’re not sure you’ll need. Harbor Freight tools are super cheap and flimsy, but may be the right choice if you’re not using them often.
If you find yourself using a cheap tool all the time and hating the quality of it, then it’s time to buy something better.
I go by: If you are not sure you need a good one, buy the first one for cheap. Of you break it, buy a quality one. You obviously need it.
I would say if you’re not sure if you’ll use it, borrow it first. If you keep borrowing something, then buy a nice one.
If I break it, I buy a better tool. If I lose it, buy a cheap one.
Some experiences/adventures can be had for little money. Not for free. But I’d prefer a walk through nature, or a visit to an Irish village at the coast over an expensive guided tour through Dublin.
Guided tours are in most cases the worst… Especially those in towns. No idea why people spend so much money on that when you can just go explore yourself, each to their own I guess 🙃
It depends heavily on the tour and the tour guide. Wife and I took a Ripper tour in London last year and the guide made it really fun and memorable.
It’s not usually an either/or.
I like guided tours because the guide knows the area, will provide local context in an entertaining manner, and will probably take you to the highlights. Best of all, they can answer questions (they might even be right!). Relative to the cost of getting to the place, the price is usually insignificant.
But I also enjoy walking around by myself. I can focus on stuff I’m interested in, take photos, and read plaques.
I realise it’s the opposite of what you’re asking, but:
Honestly it doesn’t really matter what it is, if it’s something you are going to rely on, don’t cheap out on it if you can afford not to.
Pretty much every non-consumable product category has a low end of cheap shit that is not worth anyone’s money.
Also, and this only really applies to big electrical items: if you can be bothered, find someone who repairs the kind of thing you’re trying to buy and ask them what the best made brands and models are. They are the people that will know better than anyone else what is built to last and what is built to be replaced when the warranty expires.
Honestly it doesn’t really matter what it is, if it’s something you are going to rely on, don’t cheap out on it if you can afford not to.
But that’s the whole point of this post. Pointing out situations where this logic doesn’t hold up. And there are for sure situations where it doesn’t. The expensive version of some things really aren’t worth the extra money at all.
There’s a price to quality/value/utility bell curve to be identified for everything basically and even if some expensive (for example 3x priced) thing is higher quality than the cheap version that costs 1/3 the price, it very well may not at all by any measure be 3x as good/reliable/etc.
Oh yeah, I’m not saying always go for the high end, mid range is often perfectly fine. I’ll highlight I’m talking about non-consumable products which you will rely on.
If it’s something consumable, the low-mid range often has minimal practical variation due to market forces. If it’s not something you’re going to rely on, you don’t need to care too much if it’s gonna break itself or whatever you’re using it for.
Excuse the tautology, but anything you’re relying on, needs to be reliable. If the low end is reliable enough for that, market forces unfortunately dictate that a worse version must be made for cheaper, because that it-doesn’t-need-to-be-reliable demographic is not currently being saturated.
It’s kinda away from my original point, but it’s also very important—if we can afford it, we should be buying the longest lasting versions of everything we need, we generate an unreasonable amount of waste currently due to the proliferation of planned obsolescence and disposable consumerism. It’s not a bargain in the long term if we turn the planet into an oven.
The whole point is that “value for money” is not constant across products or kinds of products. The post is asking to optimize value while minimizing cost. It is a reasonable enough question to have legitimate answers.
I don’t think I got my point across clearly then, apologies:
I was answering the question “what products would you be okay cheaping out on?” with basically “out of non-consumables, only things I don’t want to rely on if I can afford it”. For me “cheaping out” means going for the low-end, cheapest option.
I then tried to explain why, that in a free-market economy, market forces ensure the low end will pretty much always be borderline-useless waste and therefore IMO not worth any amount of money for anyone expecting something reliable. This is not unique to a specific set of products, this applies to everything that has a choice between different models and brands of the same product, because nearly always, the cheaper and worse option is rewarded by increased profit margins and/or sales volume and reduced sales for competitors. This is because humans psychologically love the feeling of getting something for less even if what they’re getting is worse, that feeling can short-cut a load of our usual reasoning and manipulate how we spend our money.
Back to my opinion again though: I personally can’t think of anything really that I’d want to buy but not want to also be reliable, where the reliable option wasn’t prohibitively expensive—so, I can’t really give a more specific list of items. Tbh, unless I had an urgent need for something and lacked the funds for something that would last, I think I would most likely wait rather than cheap out.
edit: typo
I “just” moved and now taking care of the garden. I want a small vegetable garden (again) in raised beds.
You have a lot of raised beds kits the cheapest ones are €40 and more expensive ones are €90. I however used pallet collar’s at €5 a piece. You don’t even have to screw them together just put them down. For some custom size beds I use free pallets. They do take some work however.
Give them one treatment with linseed oil and you can use them for years. They live longer then the cheap kits and just a bit shorter then expensive ones. (Hardwood probably out life them)
Kits for vegetable gardens are most of the time really overpriced. Raised beds kits, tool kits and so on.
If you want high quality tools buy them of course, but starter kits are most of the time just the cheapest ones at a premium. Want hardwood raised beds, just buy wood and not a kit.
I suggest start on the cheap side, see if it your hobby. Buy cheap tools they already least long enough and if they break you know that you maybe want to invest in a premium one. Because you use that tool really often. (Second hand old tools are sometimes a better option of course)
Cheap/free pallets are used pallets and these have been in contact with so much shit that they should never be used with anything you’ll put in your mouth and shouldn’t be used indoors either (not relevant to you, just saying)
Just be sure those pallets were not used with toxic stuff. I’m damn sure that those that lay behind food stores are just ok.
For this use, maybe add a liner then
“shit” even humans’, is used as fertilizer all over the world.
So tell me you have no idea about farming without saying that you have no idea about farming.
I don’t think the comment you’re replying to was referring to shit as in fecal matter, but rather shit as in unknown potentially toxic substances.
Thanks for you comment, didn’t think of that.
I bought the used pallet collar’s for a company I know and it shipped and stored stainless steel. I’m fine with that. But if someone isn’t comfortable with used new pallet collar’s are about €15.
The free pallets I used only moved pavement stones once, so I also think it fine. But yeah don’t just pick something on the side of the road to grow food in.
A other comment mentioned chemical treatment of pallets. I didn’t think of that. Most pallet in the eu are not allowed to use chemicals to treat the wood. Only heat treatment. That covers eur/epal pallets and single use pallets. Basically the only ones that are free or cheap. And it most be printed on the pallet how they are treated.
That being said be careful especially in countries without laws against using chemicals on pallets.
So I’m fine using them also understand other people are not. Then buying new are just wood for the store is always a option.
This is a great one for sure, enjoy the gardening! 🌻
Thanks! 😌
Do not use free range pallets for anything that isn’t strictly decorative with lots of coating on it. Those things are treated to high heaven with loads of chemicals and you never know what they had on them.
Woods preservatives and methyl bromide are known carcinogens and they’re not even recommended to burn, let alone grow food in.
https://aaapalletco.com/are-pallets-safe-to-burn-answers-from-the-experts/
It’s forbidden to use chemical treatment on Eur pallet/epal pallets. They are only heat treated. Single use pallet are also forbidden to use chemical treatment, but are normally not heat treated. So for the eu the treatment is not the problem. Of course didn’t think of the rest of the world. Sorry for that.
For the stuff that’s was on the pallet collar’s stored and transported stainless steel and the free pallets I got where form work and shipped some pavement stones.
If you don’t feel safe buy/getting for free used. New epal pallet collar’s are about €15. They are only heat treated by law.
One of the big ones for me is non denim pants. I went through a phase where I got into somewhat more expensive clothes for a bit. Not like flashy stuff, but like just like presumably high quality stuff that wasn’t so mass produced and in many cases, specifically made in the the US.
Well for some reason or another a bunch of the pants I bought in that period of time just did not hold up at all. Lots of various problems including buttons falling off, seams splitting, holes in pockets. And not just from one brand either.
Well I buy pants from places like H&M now and they all last me a long time. I’ve got pants I’ve owned for 5+ years and worn quite a lot and they’re still in great condition. And I paid like $30 for them.
Maybe I had bad luck with the nice pants back then, idk. But the price/value equation does not work out for me whatsoever. I’ve had somewhat similar experiences with casual button down shirts. My Uniqlo shirts have held up a lot longer than shirts I’ve spent like 3-5x the money for. But it hasn’t been as extreme as my experience with nicer pants.
Stuff like shoes and jackets on the other hand, I prefer to spend a little more for quality.
Decorations, jeweleries, basically any nonfunctional items, things that you can live without it, things that you don’t have to “use”.
Not sure if this applies to the US but for most things you buy from a supermarket the generic supermarket brand is usually just as good or even better than the big brands. And it’s usually much cheaper.
Often it’s literally the same thing. In Europe there is a code in every product that’ll show you where it’s produced. You’ll often find that the cheap brand comes from the same factory as the expensive brand. They just get different packaging.
In some cases it’s actually the same product made by a big brand. They might be losing money (or just not making as much profit), but it denies profit to the competitors, so it’s still considered a win.
You’re conflating copackers with brands.
Store brands will go to the same copackers, truth. But the copacker will not just make a premium brand product for a store brand at a lower cost. It will be a recipe made to a taste/price spec. Maybe all the ingredients are sourced from the same place, but the recipe will be different.
What can be nearly identical are branding tiers. Large companies like Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble etc will sometimes have multiple “competing” brands in the same market, all made in the same factory.
To counter this I used to visit some factories for a big contract manufacturer in the UK. They would often make say lasagne for the supermarkets and for the “premium” brands. Whilst they were all made in the same place, the “premium” brands products had much better quality ingredients in them and different ratios of the good stuff (say meat) to filler (say pasta sheets).
For some things it’s the exact same materials, but for many it’s different. You have to do blind taste tests to see which ones you prefer.
Kroger’s “private selection” brand is legitimately unbelievably good in every category! Their chocolate is better than Lindt. Their bread is simply the best! Their jerky is effing amazing and with options I’ve never even heard of from other brands! The tea is pretty good, though I have actually had better. The ice cream bro!
In the US, most of the food is made in the same factories because they’re regional, then the name brands might get to pick the freshest batch, but often it’s the exact same stuff just in different boxes.
From my experience, most of the time they’re healthier too!
A lot of store-brand products either don’t use as much sugar, or salt or saturated fats then their big brand counter parts.
I have certain things I don’t buy the generic for, such as Mac & Cheese and crescent rolls (one because the sauce is unmatched by off-brand and the other because the cans are impossible to open) but this is generally good advice
RE: office chairs…. You could spend a shit ton of money or…. You could totes cheap out and replace them every 4-6 months.
I WFH and use my office for other things as well. My ass is in that chair 60-70 hours a week, in a weird position that’s comfy to me but no chair is designed to support.
The padding isn’t the issue. I can always throw a pillow too thin to sleep on under my butt. The hydraulic cylinder is the issue.
Give me a hard chair that stays at a constant fucking height with no effort any day. Padding I can fix, but if I’m constantly at weird and non ergonomic levels with little control that’s a real problem.
Context, I’m actively typing much of my day on the kb directly in front of me, and jumping back to the keyboard at around 45 degrees to the left any chance I get.
If you have a metal cut-off saw, and you only like your chair at or consistently above a specific height, you can force this minimum height despite that stupid hydraulic cylinder. This technique also helps once that cylinder breaks down after 12-24 months and you get this constant sinking feeling that puts your knees up under your chin within 15 minutes of any height adjustment.
Measure the outer diameter of the largest part of your chair’s central shaft. Measure the perfect minimum height between the bottom of the chair (where the shaft emerges) and where the shaft ends down at the rollers. For example, if you always like your chair at max height, put it there (without sitting in it) and then measure that distance.
Go to your hardware store and find a piece of metal pipe, min. ½mm in thickness, ideally steel. Copper might be too soft (go at least 1mm), iron piping might be too brittle.
This pipe will have to have an inner diameter slightly larger than the shaft, and be at least as long as the ideal height distance you measured.
If you get a pre-made piece of pipe (sink drain downspout, for example) that is longer than what you need, you will need that metal cut-off saw to tailor that length to the correct amount.
Take the shaft of the chair apart. The vast majority of chairs literally just sit on that hydraulic cylinder, they don’t even click into a locked-in position much less have any fasteners. Although if you have been using it for a while you may need a rubber mallet to convince the seat to separate from that hydraulic cylinder.
Put your metal pipe over the shaft, put the seat back onto the gas cylinder.
Ergo, you now have a height-defined chair that won’t descend beyond a defined point. You still need the cylinder to connect the chair to the bottom half, but that hydraulic cylinder could be completely dead (with a max height pipe), and it wouldn’t matter one bit.
Socks. Personally I am a change every 2-3 days kind of guy.
(Sorry)
Nah this ain’t it for me. Darn tough socks for life
Yea I made a joke on ops cost. Go to their profile and check their last posts.
Need to change socks every day.
Oh it’s that guy! Lol thanks for pointing it out
Smartphones. Most people don’t need to buy the latest and greatest iPhone every year.
Lemmy hates Apple, but my five year old iPhone XS Max is still beastly fast, and I have like 40k pictures and all of my texts back nine years on it.
Better make a backup of those pics sooner than later
The beauty of iTunes (and the ONLY good thing about iTunes) is that I can make an encrypted incremental backup image of exactly what’s on my phone with one click.
Those pics have always been backed up.
The oldest pics are from my previous iPhone, so maybe eight years ago?
When I get a new phone (maybe soon, now that USB-C) I just plug into my computer and now my new phone is the same exact phone and layout as this phone, with all pictures and texts and files and everything.
Yes and no. For apple you can use their phones for quite a long time securely. For Android that is a very different story. As far as I know only Google with their new pixel phones and Samsung have offered more than 2 years of updates. After that time your phone becomes a security risk. So make sure your devices receives updates or can be used with a custom ROM (though that can be insecure as well).
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There have been a few bugs in the past years that let you take over a phone without user interaction. There was one where you only need to receive an SMS (it was invisible even) and your phone is infected. Another one was a vulnerability in wifi calling and voice over lte.
A phone is not a passive device that only gets something when you request it. You take also it with you to public places, use it in open wifi networks and you get calls. All that while being used for security critical stuff like 2FA, banking and payment.
You shouldn’t use a phone without current security updates for much more than calling. It is a time bomb. If you want to educate yourself further you should look at “zero click vulnerabilities”.
And if you happen to be in Vegas during Def con you should probably just turn off your phone and leave it in the room.
It’s 2 years of FEATURE updates, usually longer for security.
Sometimes. It depends on the manufacturer. Some do more some don’t promise anything. You have to know what you have. Also the support time starts usually at the start of sale not at the time of purchase. That means if you buy a new phone that was released a year ago on clearance or something you might have only half the time.
It is the one device most people use literally all day everyday. Having a great one is worth the money. But it does not need replaced every year. Mine is 4 years old and still works like new (one battery replacement). I will likely replace it next year.
There’s a reason my phone has no trouble with the Roku, works immediately when I use microHDMI, and gets updates for games on time and my roommate’s does not. Hardly a day passes where I’m not convinced he’s relegated to a worse quality of life because his phone just isn’t allowed to do things right. His phone doesn’t even run the transit app properly.
Now I’m not saying but a new phone every year for the incremental improvement, but don’t get something from a crap factory pushing high volume for small margins. Get something good.
Going to respectfully disagree here. Outside of my glasses, my phone is the tool I use most often, many times daily. It’s worth getting a quality device, and if there’s an issue with the current one (battery, cracked screen etc) it’s worth replacing. But you’re right, it doesn’t need replacing just for the sake of newness.
Think outside the box. Get a previous generation. Pixel 8 was about to be released. To move inventory, Google discounted the 7 series by like 30-40%. I got the 256GB 7 Pro for $600. Without the sale, $600 is the same price as the 128GB 7. I got a top of the range flagship phone for the cost of a midrange. My mom did something similar with a Samsung phone. She got an S20 when the S22 released. Huge discount when Verizon offered it for $449.
Gonna respectfully disagree back at you. You don’t have to get a $100 crapsung, but most people whose work depends on a good phone still don’t need a $2000 top of the line phone.
An iPhone SE or Pixel ?a phone is more than sufficient for almost anyone anything more I’m probably going to call opulence.
Well the prompt was what are things you should cheap out on. I have a pixel 6, I think it was $600 or something like that? But to me cheaping out on a phone would be like a $100 device.
Because of how often I use it, it’s worth it to me to not have bloatware, to have a good camera, for the battery to last, resistant to water, etc.
Pixel 7a is currently $500 new, so good mid tier device. https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_7a
But really what you should do is get a used mid or top tier phone that’s one or two generations behind. Depreciation on phones is so great that you get a lot of bang for your buck.
For example mint condition Pixel 7 is $300
https://swappa.com/listings/google-pixel-7?carrier=&color=&storage=&modeln=&condition=mint&sort=
I’ve adopted a policy of buying the latest iPhone every 5 years, which is about how long they tend to last in my experience. So far it’s worked out well.
What phones would you consider worthwhile in terms of price, i.e. those you can cheap out on, but not suffer the consequences of it being slow even in the simplest tasks?
One Android phone I had, Nokia 5.1, had to be replaced in less than 5 years because it often froze and lagged when I had to make or receive a phone call, open a single tab in some light-weight browser, etc.
I’m not a big fan of the smartphone industry and especially the reviewers because they seem to have a very twisted idea of a budget device. Or maybe I’m a cheapskate.
To combat this generally, you can buy one with more RAM. Also, right now there is a bit of a “race to the top” for longest phone support with Google announcing 7 years of support in November. Repairability is coming around too, which is great for replacing old batteries and broken charging ports.
Don’t tell people that!
I always get a refurbished phone which are last years model that someone traded in when they got the newest and greatest thing. If people stopped doing this I might have to actually shell out for a new phone!
I usually try to stay about 3–5 years behind whatever the newest one is. It’s good enough for what I need and helluvalot cheaper than current phone prices.
Another way to do that is one year old manufacturer refurbished phones. I generally spend $250-$300 for a year old phone that will last me 4-5 years
I second this, especially with Android you can breath new life into a phone by installing a custom ROM
Damn right. I bought myself a redmi note 12 last year and now I am back to using my 5 year old OnePlus 6 with lineage OS as it just runs better somehow.
You should try replacing LineageOS with DivestOS, it’s a much more secure build of Los.
Also, the oneplus 6 is such a great phone
breath new life into a phone by installing a custom ROM
Smh Nope, you don’t want to go down this ROM hole!
Why?
Because they doesn’t know what their talking about.
What if my phone isn’t supported by any ROMs? Is there an easier alternative to building it for your device on your own, following the given instructions, for example?
Sadly the best bet is to only buy devices that you know have good custom ROM support
I’m in that situation right now with my OnePlus N10, the plan is to buy a second hand device that is supported by LineageOS
I’m on my phone 8 hours a day. Quality counts. Slow is bad. Lacking features is bad. Crappy cameras are bad. Get a good phone. Use it until one of the following happens:
- It no longer gets security updates
- There is a new built-in hardware feature that will actually improve the quality of your life because you’ve been wanting it forever
- You break it or the battery performance starts to suck too much.
I’m on my phone 8 hours a day.
That is generally not good and shouldn’t be common. I’d argue folks should consider whether a nice phone will lead to overuse, and if so, buying a cheaper phone.
Before I had a phone I was on a computer for all that time. And before that I was reading in bed for all that time. And before that I was watching TV for all of that time. This is so much healthier than anything else I’ve done in 5 decades.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t trying to be critical of you. I know some people can’t actually reduce their screen time due to their job or way of life. I’m curious though, could you elaborate on what you mean by this being healthier for you?
I used to sit, or lay, for all those hours. Now I’m up moving around. Talking to my geese, trimming trees, painting rooms, figuring out what some idiot electrician did 60 years ago that’s causing me a problem today (stupid loopbacks and hot neutrals, aluminum wiring optional), going someplace to hike and get the physical therapy I need after breaking my back falling off a ladder, etc. Living life while managing my ADHD and still consuming massive info dumps while also having one of the 200 podcasts I listen to play in my ear at 2.5x speed.
For me it’s just the last one that counts.
Just for my personal understanding. How often have you heard about security issues from missing updates in older phones? In real life, I mean, not in some blog or video? I’m having a hard time finding any information about real cases. There are hundreds of articles from tech-sites and security companies.
To me it feels like selling pick-proof locks, a market without actual use-cases. You can pick them all anyway, but nobody actually does it.
Unlike the good ol’ malwares that let you know that you’re infected by deleting your files or messing up your system, modern malware authors are profit-oriented and will do everything they can to make you unaware that your devices are infected. Then they’ll exfiltrate your data and sell them on various underground marketplace such as this one.
Definitely. If you know your device is infected then someone drastically messed up. The new stuff isn’t like the old stuff.
I used to do phone security for a living. I’ve seen a handful of cases in person. The bigger issue is that most of the time you don’t know it was the phone that caused your problems. One day your bank is drained and you don’t know why.
There have been several zero days that gave anyone that wanted to the ability to own your phone with a text that you never even saw because the phone doesn’t show you command texts.
