I grew up with $20 walmart blenders, and hated anything that required a blender.
Recently bought a ninja and there is no going back. I’ll never use a crappy blender again.
Anything else like that?
Boots.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
A cute little passage from Terry Pratchett, but it holds very true if you ever need boots.
Paying for quality boot work, especially the kind that can be re-soled, is worth it for anyone who has to wear boots with any regularity.
When I first got a job that needed boots I was using an old secondhand pair. It was hell. Eventually I saved up for a quality pair and was totally worth it. I’ve not underspent on boots since.
As for suggestions as to what brand to go with these days for that… I’m less sure on that because I’m researching new brands myself since Red Wings are a joke compared to what they used to be. Danner still seems pretty all right these days.
You don’t truly appreciate a good pair a boots till you park a 2 ton pallet jack on your toes and laugh it off.
I dropped a semi truck lift gate on my toes one time, and didn’t even notice until I went to walk away and realized I was pinned down. Red Wing doesn’t fuck around with their safety toe boots.
Best part of my time in a warehouse was that I could keep the safety boots after I quit
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Well now we know why the cumfarts are maggoty, huh
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That makes me even more worried as to where the maggots are coming from
Safety boots with steelcap? That’s another category though. Don’t want to use them for a walk.
That hasn’t stopped me. Just think of it as training weights.
I always walk my dog after I finish work in my steel capped work boots. The times that I actually do walk in my sneakers is so weird, like I’m not used to not having weights on my feet while I walk.
The shorter version of the Discworld quote is “being poor charges interest.”
And the interest is paid out to the rich, one way or another. Lately it’s been through retail, since we don’t qualify for home loans anymore.
Redwing still makes some good stuff, but they also make some “fashion” stuff that looks similar. Unfortunately happens with a lot of quality workwear.
Rose Anvil on YouTube cuts boots and shoes in half and explains how and why they are designed the way they are, and where corners are cut, and what to look out for. He’s a good resource for checking out a boot you are interested in.
Most of your “good” brands still have some crappy stuff in their lineup, but you might not be able to spot it by just looking at a web page.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll check out those vids.
Wearing a 16 year old pair of Redwings as I’m typing this. I haven’t even looked after them properly (e.g. greasing them frequently) and they’re still in good shape. Gave them a new sole a few years back.
I wear a similarly old pair of Chippewa’s that have also been poorly treated, and they are still good (though I don’t have a job that would beat them up anymore)
I second boots. I went through 3 cheap pairs of hiking boots (between £40 - £70) all promising the world and dry feet. In the end, sacked it off and bought all leather boots with a vibram sole. Requires maintenance of waxing them but they’ve had many miles in them now and just as good as day 1.
Yes, second to boots is getting quality boot wax.
Upvote for discworld quotes. Pratchett was full of good advice. Some of that advice may have required living in a world full of magic and dragons but it was good advice all the same!
Clothes in general. Sure, you can get and Old Navy T-shirt for ~$3-4, but they break down quickly. However, even a mid-level shirt from someplace like Land’s End or Eddie Bauer on sale can last year after year. Same with pants, jeans, coats, jackets, belts and other clothing. It’s also why it sucks to be poor. Needs need to be met immediately, but since you’re needing to keep food on the table and a roof over your head, so you buy what you can afford, even knowing that it’s more expensive in the long term.
I agree, but I also disagree.
A lot of people completely mistreat their clothes and have no idea how to wash them properly or mend them.
I have lots of cheap Old Navy tees kicking around in good condition because I wash t-shirts on gentler cycles and hang them out to dry.
I wish I could wear down my old navy stuff so I could replace it.
Old old navy clothes were actually well made. The newer ones are definitely hit or miss.
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Tires?
Generally, don’t skimp on anything that goes between you and the ground. Shoes, mattresses, tyres… your future you will hate you for cheaping out on those.
Anything that separates you from the ground. So a bed, shoes, your health…
your health…
:cries in American healthcare:
I can’t even afford the cheap shit!
Floors, carpets, stairs, your feet, a bicycle, maybe even your car, dirt, gotta invest in good walkable dirt, uhhh, what else here… socks, probably chairs, ladders, flights, if you’re flying always invest a lot in it, uhhhh. yeah probably some other stuff.
I dunno I guess the point of my joke is that I think this is one of those heuristics, or like, general expressions, that ends up taking longer to say than what it actually means. “invest in your shoes and bed” takes longer to say than “invest in anything that keeps you off the ground”.
Isn’t dirt a synonym for ground?
I’ll add ladders to this list. You don’t want a ladder to fail you when you’re at its top.
Chair and tires too.
For most things in life I generally follow Adam Savage’s advice: “Buy cheap tools until you know what you really need from that tool, then buy the best version you can afford.”
However, when it comes to things that are related to safety or protect you from harm the more expensive/high quality they get, that advice goes out the window. Case in point, PC PSUs. You probably don’t want your newly built PC to burst in flames because you skimped on it to buy a poorly rated PSU.
Anything that separates you from the ground for long periods of time. Shoes, tires, mattresses, computer chairs, couches, etc…
🤯
I mean seriously… totally true and I never thought about it like that.
This comment has come up a couple times. What’s the original source?
It’s almost always better to not buy a cheap sex toy. There’s no regulation of the industry and many materials in cheaper toys are just straight up dangerous. Here’s an article (it’s NSFW, there are pictures) that goes over what materials are and aren’t safe.
Like thinking you’re wearing a 100% silicon butt plus to an MRI….
For the unaware: A patient wore a buttplug into an MRI, because it was marketed as 100% silicone. It had a metal core. It was rocketed up into their abdomen. The patient survived with serious injuries.
Silicon is a crystal. You’re thinking of silicone.
Ouchie!
My first toy was hard plastic. After a couple years the painted coating was coming off. After that I only buy medical grade silicone, sometimes with hard plastic bullet inserts which can be replaced but never even touch my skin unless I’m taking them out for washing or replacing the battery.
100% silicon butt plug
Custom building a computer? Don’t cheap out on the power supply or you might end up with a smoke machine
Once you let the magic smoke leave, you can never get it back.
You got RGB but my PC is a smoke show
And if you pay for your own electricity it’s probably worth it over the long run to get something gold certified.
If the local electricity cost is high and the pc is power hungry, you will want to get more than 80+ gold rated.
I believe in the adage of, “If it sits between you and the ground, don’t skimp”.
Shoes, socks, desk chairs, lounge chairs, sofas, car( seat)s, mattresses…
You spend too much time in or on all of these things to be uncomfortable.
I also see posted here the Adam Savage advice of buying cheap tools first, and then upgrade after you better understand your needs. I also think that’s great advice you can apply to most things. Just not the above things.
Escorts
It’s pronounced E-sports
It’s pronounced escrow
It’s pronounced escargot
Which in America, we call snails with dirt.
Escar go where, though?
It’s pronounced ex-spouse . . . Wait, what was the question again?
Pretty sure that it’s exposure. The question is “to be or not to be”
What were you expecting for $5, 🦞?
Maybe not the expensive expensive versions but good headphones and earphones make a massive difference.
I’ll say a vacuum.
When I was a college kid in an apartment I bought the bottom-shelf, bagged Dirt Devil vacuums and dealt with it. All the clogging, hair in the brush, cheap quality/you get what you pay for, etc. Then I moved into a house I got a mid-range Bissell to help deal with all the pet hair. The thing was questionably designed, still got a bunch of the hair in the roll, and needed regular upkeep to make sure it functioned properly. When that one went out I wasn’t going to pickup the same thing even though it technically lasted for years.
I recently picked up a Shark Rotator and it sucks in the best way possible. Was it expensive? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely. I can vacuum my whole house knowing I’m getting as much dirt, dust, hair off the floor as possible. And I’m not going to have to deal with even half the problems the low-end vacuums have. It pivots and gets right up against walls. There is a clear window to see the brush roll from the top. It also uses fins that just don’t collect hair anyway. The whole canister comes off in one easy motion and I can dump it without spilling all over the now clean floor. There are two roll speeds for hard floors and carpet. The brush roll doesn’t spin when it’s locked upright so it’s not flinging stuff around or grinding into the carpet while I try to clean corners or the couch. And even though it’s one of their “heavier” models it’s still lighter than the Bissell I lugged around for years.
This is a case that better design and features comes with a price. And those design choices can directly make your life easier. So if you can afford it, go for it.
Sure, but I’d also avoid Shark at all costs because they’re not really made to be serviced. Also bagless, which generally suck in a bad way. I’d suggest something like a Sebo model with the electric brush head. Easy to service, last a very long time, use bags which are just cleaner and avoid needing to think about cleaning out dust storage areas to keep airflow up, and have great canister options.
Yeah, ask anyone who uses a vacuum regularly (like a custodian) and they’ll tell you that bagged vacuums are far superior to bagless. Go get a Sanitare commercial, or an Oreck commercial. It’ll last forever, never break, be easy to service, and it’ll suck a fucking golfball through a garden hose. My Sanitare commercial literally lifts the carpet up off of the pad, and virtually every single part is replaceable, (though I doubt I’ll ever need to replace anything except the brushes, bags, and belts.)
Commercial vacuums lack a lot of the bells and whistles that home vacuums have, but that’s because they’re laser focused on two things: Reliability and suction power.
I could rant about vacuums forever. So many people complain about vacuums not working well, but also never pull out and clean or replace the filter.
If you’re getting a BIFL buy-once-cry-once vacuum, I’d go straight for the Miele cannister vac. I went into an ADHD deep dive on vacuums a year ago when my own Shark needed replacing. Splurged on one and it completely changed how I feel about vacuuming. Of course, I’m 4’11, so ymmv on that, but using a good cannister vac that is lightweight VS pushing around something big and heavy makes a world of difference.
Plus, I like that it uses bags instead of a cannister; I was tired of emptying the cannister and getting a face full of dog hair and dirt that I then also had to clean up (again). That may also be personal preference, though.
I picked up a karcher shop style vacuum for my home, cost a bit more than the cheapest home style vacs, but a lot cheaper than the expensive home style vacuum, and boy does this baby suck (in a good way). I feel like most of the home vacs are only expensive to make them small and maybe a little quieter. But if you don’t care about that, you can get a very good vacuum for relatively cheap.
Some are expensive for filtering reasons. It can take some engineering to build HEPA or similar filtration along with seals that actually have the filters work, plus managing motors or filter designs that aid in the high speed airflow needed for a vacuum.
We have a Roomba for so many years now and what it taught me is that consistent daily effort > heroic occasional effort. It’s not a great vacuum at all but it runs every day for a couple of hours and that keeps the floors so much cleaner than any good vacuum. No way am I going to vacuum every day everywhere like it does. Two dogs, two cats, three girls, so much hair, and clean floors.
Parachutes.
I guess this gets filed under “Anything that separates you from the ground for long periods of time.”
You’ll never make that mistake again.
I find orphans to test my parachutes so I can make as many mistakes as necessary for the advancement of science. Anyone want to test out my neurolink alternative?
For most things, imo, there’s a middle ground. I don’t think that getting the super-high end version of anything is worth it unless you truly use it enough to justify it, like for work or a serious hobby. But the cheapest option is usually junk that will do a poor job and won’t last; if anything you’d save money by spending a little more for something decent, even if it’s not world-class.
That’s why I went ahead and got one of those 49" Samsung displays. I use it probably 300 days a year and I’ll likely keep it for 10 years like my old ones. I could have saved money but this was a luxury that I can easily justify by how often I use it.
I have to say, the Odyssey line deserves some huge respect for the kind of response times Samsung has achieved with a VA panel, of all things.
I had one of those, but sold it after a couple of years. Turns out that a good majority of the games I played either didn’t work in ultra-widescreen mode, or when it did, it didn’t really make that much of an improvement. Last year I bought a 4K projector and found myself using it way more than my monitor, as gaming on a 100+" screen felt so much more immersive. So I ended up selling my Odyssey and bought a 16:10 monitor instead. I found the 16:10 ratio better for productivity, and also felt it also more suitable for the games I play (mostly RPGs/RTS).
As in monitor, not tv, yea?
Yeah a Samsung Odyssey
Mattress and shoes.
Both of which you use multiple hours each day, and can really break your body if they aren’t ergonomic.
The cheap ones also break often, costing you more money in the long run.
Power supplies and motherboards for PCs
generally if either of them go the rest of your investment goes with it. Worst case scenario the power supply damages the motherboard meaning your cheap purchase made you lose more parts.
Yup, power supplies and batteries are also usually the first components to die. All the more reason to avoid cheap ones.
The current motherboard situation is a total clown fiesta though. There is no such thing as a cheap motherboard any more.
And you will have to upgrade them whenever you upgrade your CPU these days.
Almost like socket types aren’t a thing anymore…
What you said + nicer motherboards often come with bios flashback which should (IMO) be a mandatory feature for motherboards on platforms like AM4. Makes CPU compatibility much better since a supported bios version can be flashed anytime, no matter what CPU is currently installed (if a CPU is installed at all!).
I bought of pair of real, honest to goodness birkenstock sandals. They were stupid expensive compared to the shoes I normally buy.
…now I almost never wear any other shoe. They fit, they’re comfortable, the straps dont cut into my feet now that they’re broken in, and I can take them to the store to get resoled for way cheaper than if I had continued my pattern of buying cheap sandals and running them into the ground every few months.
