Don't cheap out on anything which separates you from the ground. This goes for shoes, wheels, your bed, and so forth. You're better off going for good quality which will last on these items.
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Yes!
Anything involving cheaping out on shoes. 100% of the time you'll regret it.
Don't remember where I first heard it, but I've always gone with the mantra "Don't cheap out on anything between you and the ground", specifically shoes, bed, and tires for your car.
Good mantra.
I read that as "anything involving eating out of a shoe". Good alternative to a bowl.
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There's actually quite a few. Can't think of them all, but the idea of things like making your own shampoo concoction is overkill to me. You can get a 39oz bottle of shampoo for like $7.50 US. Bought a bottle in January of this year and still have more than half the bottle left.
Just seems like the effort and cost savings aren't worth it to me for something like this. Plus it's questionable if it even works as good.
Basically though, I think people confuse cheap with frugal. Frugal is being about getting the bang for the buck, not depriving ones self for the sake of saving a few dollars. Mobile phones are a good example. Is there really a need to get a $1000 flagship phone when I can get a $200 lesser name phone that can do all the same things as the top tier one can? Sure, the photos might not be as high quality, but they're way good enough for every day use.
There's a great book that speaks to this in regards to food called "make the bread, buy the butter", but the same mentality can be applied to many aspects beyond food.
I will say on the phone side though I was always a mid-tier phone buyer. Always owned my phone outright. Last upgrade my carrier (T-Mobile) hooked me with a deal. Flagship phone for $100. Rate didn't increase, and it was cheaper than a mid tier.
Motorola phones are still really good for what you get.
Even got a headphone jack~
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Socks are not "just as good" as coffee filters.
The reverse of that is also true.
Yea that's jail house tactics lol
If you use it to make money, how much you should spend on it becomes a whole other formula. If a better tool costs 10x more, but let's you complete work 2x as fast, it's worth it. If you stare at a monitor all day long, getting a good one that doesn't cause you eye strain is worth it even if it costs way more. Etc.
I used to have a $90 Office Depot chair before COVID and they sent me home to work. I didn't realize how bad it was when I sat in it for two hours a day MAX. When I started spending 8+ hours at my desk daily, my back started aching something nasty. I was popping prescription amounts of ibuprofen just to make my back numb enough to sleep.
So two months into the pandemic, my wife (who also worked remote at the time and had an even crappier chair) and I spent $800 on new ergo chairs. That has been some of the best money we have ever spent.
Same thing happened to me when I went full time remote. An office chair that doesn't hurt the user seems to cost at least $500. Meanwhile a garage sale beanbag chair from the 70's that's 85% farts is comfortable for all-day chilling.
"85% farts" made me chuckle.
I hear that if you can hit up a local university or government surplus auction that you can find some baller chairs for bargain prices. The drawback is you have to compete at an auction.
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Wait...are you saying this is bad advice, or are you refuting other bad advice?
Sorry, was just saying that you shouldn't try to be super frugal with things that you use for income. Like if you get a deal on some tools, cool. But the value proposition changes a lot when it comes to tools used for work. $1,000 gaming monitor? Pass. $1,000 monitor with a built in KVM and a single cable solution that will charge my work laptop? Hell yeah.
This entirely depends on what the net positive is. If you get a 10x tool that gets the job done faster, but you use it once a year... Still not worth it
You'll regret it if you buy the cheap Qtips
A cheap chair, a very used chair, or even a slighly used chair is too big a gamble. It is either go all in on a very good chair for long term expectations, or expect to have a soon battle with back pains.
Also, don't fall for the marketing of the "gaming" chairs or any of those that look like racing seats. I had a maxnomic and it is horrible for long sitting sessions. Finally spent the money on a Herman Miller Mirra and I can sit for hours with no issues.
Herman Millers are Goated, though i will say their business practices are not the best anymore unfortunately. Though second hand, always go for it.
I think the best middle ground is refurbished. There's a few good companies out there that do it, but I can only really attest to Crandall furniture's quality. I bought a Steelcase Amia from them a year and a half ago and it's made all the difference in my home office.
I have an Autonomous chair I got in 2020 after watching a JayzTwoCents vid. My wife and I both got one for about $400 or so each. I'd say it probably won't still hold up after another 5 years but it's miles ahead of the $90 chair it replaced. And my back still doesn't hurt after sitting in it for 8-12 hours a day.
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My job bought me a decent (not great, not horrible) chair from Amazon. It was leagues ahead of what I previously had. I took my old one home. It sucks... Then COVID hit. I took my Amazon chair home. So much better. It's still home. :) I've had multiple back surgeries, and having that lumbar support and better posture really makes a huge difference. And the chair wasn't that expensive, either. It's a low end chair for those standards, but the price isn't that much more than the really cheap crappy ones. It's worth it to invest just a few more dollars into a higher quality chair. I'm sure it's worth it to spend a bit more than that for a much, much better chair.
Sometimes, investing just a little more into something can make a huge difference. Going frugal can mean spending a little more now but saving a lot more (in repurchasing, pain, Dr. bills, out of work for pain, whatever) in the long run. I look at trends and historical data for frugality.
Microphones. If you want to create content of some sort and are looking to invest in audio, buying a super cheap microphone won't get you far. There won't be a huge difference (if any) compared to your phone mic. Buying a mid-tier microphone will serve you much longer.
A tip I got long ago was not to buy "gamer" or "business" type mics and other audio stuff. Instead, buy used music gear. You tend to get way better stuff for the money in both audio quality and durability.
Truth. Marketing to "gamers" is for those that don't know better yet, and marketing those "business" items is for the exec intern to suck up to their boss with reassuring buzzwords.
Definitely this!! There are so many videos around where the sound quality makes them unwatchable. A decent microphone is not even that expensive. Just do a bit of research into what type you want for your setup - especially if you are outside (with wind noise) or there is background noise.
Mayo, never buy cheap mayo. My Dad used to make these breakfast sandwiches where he would scramble sausage and eggs and then mix mayo in and put on toast with cheese. They are delicious. Always mixed in the mayo in the same pan while it was still hot, but off the burner with no issues until I used cheap mayo once and I ended up with eggs and sausage swimming in oil. Like I just poured in veg oil.
Mayo is one of the few things I have always bought name-brand. It's just not worth it to get the cheap stuff.
I switched over recently from Hellmann's to Kewpie though, and I'm never looking back!
I'm Asian, and have always had some kewpie around but I still prefer Hellmann's for sandwiches and stuff. I pretty much only use the Kewpie on Asian foods.
To be fair, aioli is one of the easiest and cheapest condiments to make yourself, and offers so much room for creativity (if you're into that). You don't have to get a food processor, either. Ignore the food snobs and use a blender. Thank me later.
(Essentially: an egg, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and a light oil [I prefer olive, but others can work too]. All told, a quart of aioli will run you less than $0.20, and you can't beat the pride that comes from knowing you made it that damn delicious.)
I just got into gardening. Raised beds, apple trees. Feels a lot more like farming at this point. It's a great worthwhile activity, but I'm not sure I could actually feed myself AND maintain a full time job at the same time. Between watering, pest control, pruning, etc it's quite a lot of work. I could see maybe saving a few bucks on apples and potatoes though for sure lol.
If your goal is feeding yourself and you family beyond just "having veggies from the garden sometimes", it is fundamentally impossible for an individual to do that. The reasoning behind that is that the only reason we as a society are able to have jobs that are not "farmer" and "cook" and "someone who makes tools for farming" is that the industrial revolution has brought us mass-scale farming with tractors and reacted tools that can do in seconds what would take you hours to do.
I got the impression that in The Walking Dead when a community gets a vegetable garden, it’s barely going to produce enough to sustain many people; they’d need more than that to fight off starvation.
It does make me wonder about the practicality of the story of The Martian, where he’s only trying to extend his time limit and does it with tons of high-calorie potatoes.
As fiction goes, it's relatively plausible - Watney's a good enough botanist to be selected for the space program, and in the bit of the novel/film he's working on potatoes, he's not doing much else, so can dedicate as much time as is necessary to get what he needs. For plot-convenience reasons, he's in a situation where he's got enough space, starter potatoes and existing food to make it all work, too. Andy Weir got those quantities by consulting experts rather than guessing, so they should be realistic.
Yea I'm def not trying to do that lol.
I have gardeners who visit twice monthly for the front yard and they've been instructional and helpful with the garden. They weed it and tell me how much to water it and other care needs.
They cut my frustration and work by 75%. Highly recommend hiring gardeners.
Tempting BUT.. I got clean off hard drugs a bit over a year ago so it's kinda MY project and therapy yknow. I wanna figure it out. Still in the frustrating start up and learning phase, but even now it's pretty fulfilling. Maybe in 15 years when my back is broken I may do that 😄
Hey, good on ya for staying the course! I completely agree that gardening is an incredibly satisfying therapy, a meditation even. Back in the day, I got into cannabis cultivation and ended up more fulfilled by the growing part and less about the end product — though my friends never seemed to mind the free gifts every few weeks, heh. My mom was the same way with her vegetable garden when I was little, now that I think of it: all the neighbors looked forward to her tomatoes, long beans, snap peas, and strawberries. 🥰
I think this really depends on what you plant. We have blackberries (which do very well in our area) and they need no work whatsoever besides picking. We probably get a few hundred dollars worth a year.
I’ve found raised beds to be a waste of money. I’ve had better luck just amending my soil. I would look into what grows best in your area. It will be the least upkeep and most reward.
Yea absolutely I agree. I have lots of berries too, and most of the stuff is native. I'm just getting started so obviously it's a lot of work and time consuming right now so I guess my point is that that should be considered first lol. I have a ton of animals and pests that need to be kept at bay as well and that's a whole different battle (:
I live in a super rocky mountain area, amending the soil would be insane work here, but not impossible. It took me all day to plant 2 apple trees. HuGE boulders and rock, but luckily they like the kind of soil we have as long as I put down phosphorus in fall.
I'm still figuring it out. And obviously it would save you money, but perhaps not worth the trade off at least initially, and probably outright impossible if you are already struggling hard.
Rocky soil is a whole other beast! Deer are a pain too. Good luck! Location makes or breaks a lot of gardening
There’s reusing quite old coffee grounds in coffee filters.
Self-hosting email. It's pretty cheap but one of the most tiresome experiences I've had.
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