What is something you SHOULD cheap out on?

The genocidal mimes are non negotiable

$20k?

Damn dude, all my friends getting married are spending a minimum of $50k. $15k gets you the venue for the night without anything else included or factored in (food, music, fucking chairs or tables or lights, etc)

Weddings are a predatory business.

A friend of mine donned his nicest clothes and went down to the courthouse with his fiance and a couple of witnesses. I mentioned this to my sister, and she mentioned that in retrospect, she wished she'd done something similar when she got married.

Spent less than 1k, no real honeymoon...but we bought our first house with the money we saved. 0 regrets.

My brother's father-in-law had offered to pay up to $15,000 for his daughter's wedding. He gave them the option of taking it all in cash and then getting a courthouse wedding so they could have a nest egg to grow, or spend it all on the wedding of his fiancée's dreams, or anywhere in between.

She opted to spend it all on the wedding. 😒 My gawd did that piss me off.

I laugh when I hear some couple spent $20k on their wedding but can’t buy a house. Dude, that could have been your down payment wtf.

I'm in agreement except for the wedding planner. Whether they help with the planning from day one or are just the day-of coordinator, a good wedding planner is worth their weight in gold. I'd rather plug an old mp3 player into a portable speaker and skip the DJ before I recommend skipping out on the planner.

Don't take a loan either.

Our wedding was under 5k, excluding dress and suit. Immediate family and close friends only, less than 40 people. Major expenses were the photographer, food and booze. We rented a cheap, small place in the countryside, we planned and did everything else ourselves, having a kanban board in the kitchen for a year was fun! My wife even did the cakes herself because she's an amazing amateur pastry chef. No DJ, but I spent months on and off curating a playlist with a good flow and steadily increasing intensity.

It was the perfect wedding. Huge amount of work but 100% worth it.

We spent less than 10k on our wedding and only invited close family. Did most of it ourselves. It was the best day ever!

We had our wedding at our house in the backyard, no DJ, a discounted cake from my wife's work (a bakery), catering from a BBQ place. Still ended up costing just about 2k, after food, flowers, and rented tables and chairs.

Go, and preach this gospel to SE asian families, I beg you.

Getting away with a wedding for under 80k sometimes is considered "cheap" by those standards. And you absolutely must invite your third cousin once removed and your nextdoor neighbor who you hate. You see him every day afterall!

Here's my pro tip.

You want a unique picturesque wedding on a budget?

National Parks in the US. If you keep your guest list under 50 people, you can get married anywhere in the park, provided you don't block access, put up decorations, or damage the park, and it's free! If you have more than 50 people, you need a permit, and those are raffled off per day, and almost no one uses them.

I got married on the bluffs overlooking Little Hunter's Beach in Acadia National Park. The drive, food, and lodging for my wedding there cost less than the first payment for the venue of my "local" ceremony in my home city, which we ended up canceling anyway.

Absolutely! Making it memorable and fun does not mean making it expensive. Cut whatever you can't afford, do not take out a loan to cover anything. Then cut anything that isn't meaningful to you and your partner.

A wedding planner is helpful if you don't have a trusted and naturally organized friend who volunteers to handle details for you.

I'd also recommend taking a local honeymoon.

My wife and I spent $350 altogether for the paperwork and an officiant. We eloped beneath a tree in a park with her family present, and afterward I returned my dress shirt to Walmart for a refund. I will never regret how low-class that was.

We've been married now for ten years.

We bought a house, had the wedding in backyard for $10K, we put it all on credit cards for the sign up bonuses and had a 2 week honeymoon to Europe staying in 5 star hotels and first class flights all for $1,300 in signup fees.

Use that money for a honeymoon instead.

Mine cost $150. $70 for the license and $80 for the JP to do their thing.

I have never broken a 10 mm wrench, but I have lost a few. So I bought a ten pack on Amazon.

Sorry, but this only applies to drills and sanding machines. Maybe a bench grinder also you can cheap out on. Hand tools are fine to cheap out on also.

Circular saw, table saws, miter saws, angle grinders, etc..

Any spinning blade, if you cheap out, don't be surprised if you get life-alteringly injured when you "use it enough to break it". I was just helping some friends renovate where they had a dirt cheap miter saw and it was just about the most dangerous experience of my life.

If you are doing any big renovations, at least get makita, Milwaukee, or dewalt. You can get a TON of cheaper stuff second hand. Quality at a lower price. I got a professional older model hilti hammer drill at a tiny fraction of the price.

Seconded. This has been my strategy for accumulating personal tools.

Proper/professional grade stuff I have:

• Circle saw
• Drill
• Screwdrivers of various sizes, especially PH2
• 13mm ratchet spanner

The rest is of a lot more dubious quality.

That is something I would disagree with. Especially when it comes to battery powered tools which seems to be everything nowadays.

If you go with one of the big brands you are almost guaranteed to get a spare part later. If you only use your drill once a year, the battery might be dead in a few years if you don't take care of it. Of course your battery might cost the same as a no name drill, but that is still a fair point IMO.

Now that you have a drill maybe you need a saw later. If you went with a big brand they typically have a large range of devices that work with the same batteries. So you can reuse your battery from the drill and also don't need another charger for that single device. This is also not limited to tools only. Maybe you need a light or a battery powered radio for something totally unrelated.

This is very situational. I'm not a contractor, but I spend a significant portion of my time doing hobbies that require power tools. I don't need a drill that will last for an entire day at a jobsite. Ryobi works fine for me. On the other hand, I wish I had never spent $600 on a cheap planer; I knew I'd want a better one eventually,, and sure enough, I found a need to upgrade after a few years. Now I've spent $3600 on planers. I could have just gone with the $3k one and saved myself $600.

If I'm going to use it once, I borrow it. If I'm going to use it every few months, I buy a cheap one. If I'm going to use it every week, then it's worth it to me to buy something I can keep for at least a decade or two.

Pretty good for anything that can kill you if it fails. Even beyond power tools.

So, for example, yes to drill. No to compressors, jacks, etc.

I forget which brand it was, but I once bought a drill........charged the battery overnight, went to use it......and it died within 3 seconds. Literally 3 seconds. Thing cost like $100 a couple of years ago. Now I got a DeWalt, and it's fine.

I will disagree with a caveat. Basically yes there is a difference between wines, and it’s not BS.

There is a world of a difference between a $5 and a $500 wine. But there isn’t a world of a difference between a $5 and a $30 wine, nor is there a world of difference between a $500 and a $1000. It’s about a class structure of the product as with so many things. There’s cheap and simple and there’s more sophisticated and expensive. But once you’re comparing within the same class, it’s really just a matter of varying subtleties. There’s certain distinctions that are absolutely distinguishable such as dry, sweet etc. and there are undertones. This stuff is absolutely real so if someone says it’s all nonsense that someone has not really had the experience needed to make that kind of judgment.

I'm not much of wine drinker myself, but I once did a chef menu with the wine pairing. Every two dishes, they'd bring out a new glass of wine. It was kind blowing how the would taste one way with the first dish and a completely different way with the second dish. I'm not sure I can tell the difference between a $12 bottle and $40 bottle, but in that one meal i understood two things: first, if you know what your doing, wine and food pairings can be magical and, second, I don't know what I'm doing.

I somewhat disagree, 5€ is too low to get a decent wine imo. Buy a wine for 10-15€ and there is no longer any difference from the 500€ one.

The last point however is the key, and I agree wholeheartedly. If you can find one for 5€ then that is good enough

I highly disagree. I always walk in and say. "Vitner! Your finest box of wine, on the double"

I’m far from a wine connoisseur and my favorite is an $8 rosé wine you can find at your local grocery store.

There have been so many studies showing that everyone from average joes to top-tier judges can't tell the difference between cheap and expensive wines.

Wine is a huge scam.

Sommeliers are just salespeople making shit up.

It's bullshit, you don't detect notes of 15 different things all mixed together.

Seems something like [Proportion of People OK w/the Wine] - [Price] might be:

50% - $5
75% - $10
90% - $20
95% - $30
99% - $50

I made all of this up. Who actually drinks wine? Did I come close to your made-up numbers?

Also assume some of the highest-rated wines at each price point for consumers who appreciate that style in general.

Depending on the country, and where you shop. You should spend more if you can tell the difference, but not more than that.

On the expensive end you are paying for the famous canteen+region, and if you go to a wine shop you could find something from a less known vineyard that is as good for less.

There are so many great tasting cheap wines! My favorite is about $16-18 or so but I'm perfectly happy with $4-8 wine too. I will agree though that there are some extremely interesting and complex flavors to be found in the high end stuff that I find very compelling, and can understand the appeal of, but I ain't paying for it.

Canadian wine would like to have a word 🤭

Also, if you're not going to play it this week, think twice! And, if you're not going to play it this month, think a third time!

Yup. My strategy has long been:

1. Put game in wishlist.
2. Wait for it to drop to under 20$ (or close)
3. Profit. Well maybe not profit, but save money.

Also good to wait until all the bugs are worked out. Been playing Cyberpunk recently and it performs really well!

Waits and waits but Nintendo won't budge.

Yeah, great for cleaning, and I got a pack of 100 for like $4

I buy the giant blocks of 100 generic melamine sponges from Amazon.

However, having a couple of the Mr clean versions around is prudent. They are slightly different. They deform more easily and disintegrate faster but they get deeper into crevices. It's super rare that I find something that generic ones won't do a great job on but it's good to have a couple of the name brand ones for that time when they don't cut it.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/06/17/metro/dozens-of-cvs-generic-drug-recalls-expose-link-to-tainted-factories/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/arthurkellermann/2024/01/10/we-should-test-generic-drugs-to-assure-safety-the-fda-hates-the-idea/

Most of the time, yes. Though certain cough medicines have been apparently using benzene in them, which is insane. (Cheaper to produce)

You can look for carbomers in the inactive ingredients list, but they don't have to put that info in if they don't want, which is insane to me. We need regulations that ban carcinogens like benzene being used for the manufacturing of drugs.

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/16/nx-s1-5077764/millions-of-americans-may-be-getting-cancer-causing-chemical-in-generic-cold-medicine

The problem with store brand medications is they often will have the same active ingredient, but then will have a cheaper or less-effective catalyst used. This generally causes them to be less effective. At least this is what I was taught years ago. I've definitely noticed a difference in cold/sinus meds. Generic does not compare to brand name Sudafed.

Yar har libgen be free

When people ask which breed my cats are, I respond with the truth: Purebred neighborhood conglomerate. They're both healthy, happy, and awesome.

Just make sure you don't cheap out in their medical care - sterilization and any necessary vaccinations.

If you are looking for a companion, definitely. If you are looking for an animal bred for a specific purpose, find a reputable breeder.

Yup. I learnt that the price tag doesn't make much of a difference. Sharpening tools do.

I can pay a little more for a nice forged knife, folded steel, but anything you buy at walmart or amazon is the same quality regardless of price.

Handles make a huge difference but they rarely impact price.

Good advice but I wouldnt really call that 'cheaping out'. You can buy kitchen knives for 2$ which you definitely shouldnt do

In my experience the vast majority of cheap knives can't hold an edge at all. The super budget stainless used is just too soft. At the same time I can find many in the $70-100 range that do considerably better in that regard - I sharpen them 3-4 times less frequently.

I prefer to spend a little more on the 1-2 that get the most use.

Knife handles are important. If you buy a cheap knife where the handle snaps while you’re using it, you’re going to get cut.

I think you should get expensive knives as a convenience, or you are pushing the limits of the steel. I cook a lot, and do lots and lots of chopping to cook food for the family. There have been times I've fine diced 10lbs of onions in one go, on top of cabbage, tomatoes, peppers etc.

With that much chopping, anything that can't shave like a razor is dull. That's why I use a really nice knife, thinned, sharpened and tuned it to my preferences.

TLDR most people are fine to use any generic knife (if you lack self respect) but if those aren't cutting it for you, get something better. No pun intended

The most expensive and cheapest phones are not worth it. Anything in between is good enough. For me at least prepaid phone plans are better than contract plans.

There is at least ONE exception in the US: Firstnet. They primarily use AT&T's towers, but they have some additional resources that other carriers don't have - they have additional towers and entire network bands that other carriers don't have access to. This allows us to still have coverage in natural disasters or network congestion times. In addition, if there's a natural disaster that knocks out coverage, they have satellite-based trucks that stage DURING the disaster, then come online as soon as it's over.

A few years ago, I had to ride out hurricane Ida in New Orleans (long story). The western eyewall passed directly over the house we were in, and the primary trunk lines coming into the city got destroyed by a cable tower that collapsed into the Mississippi. The next morning I had cell phone coverage when none of the other carriers had come back online yet. We didn't even have power, but my phone worked perfectly.

You have to be a first responder to join - you have to be added by your department's communications coordinator.

if with cell phones you mean the non-smart, dumb phones then I can agree. however if you buy the cheapest of smartphones, what you'll get is even more datamining than usual, which you may be even unable go remove because it's bootloader cannot be unlocked.
but I would say don't cheap out on tech generally, because you'll get extremely weak security and nonexistent respect towards you as a customer.

smartphones is a dirty business. don't support the bad actors with your many, and then long term with your data

Bell and Rogers actually don't share their towers in Canada.

Redpocket is really cheap if you guys want some prepaid plans

I believe what you say about networks using each other’s towers is incorrect for a large portion of the world. Where do you live?

My attitude has become to buy high-end tools because even if I don't use them again, I got the best possible experience when I did to decide whether it was worth it, and chances are I can resell it (keeping the box and all accessories) for barely enough discount to have rented some piece of shit that I couldn't choose to keep if I wanted to.

And bad tools make bad products. A tablesaw that can't cut a straight line and starts to wobble after 10 uses doesn't make you want to keep doing that. When I've replaced a bad tool with a good one, I like the feeling I get when it just works properly.

I've bought enough cheap-shit tools over the years to change my attitude entirely on this. I've gotten lucky sometimes, but usually you pay for what you get.

I call it the Harbor Freight rule - If I need to buy a tool for the first time, I buy the cheapass Harbor Freight version. If I then use the cheapass version enough to kill it (or make me wish I was dead instead), then I spring for the expensive version.

"Buy once cry once" seems to apply very well to wire cutters. (Link is to a YouTube video about how terrible most wire cutters actually are)

My grandfather used to wrap our presents in the comics pages from newspapers when I was a kid. I loved it.

I just use brown kraft paper and some basic ribbon in a color appropriate for the occasion. I think maybe $15 in materials has given me a solid decade of gift wrapping and I haven't even gone through half of it yet. Costs basically nothing on a per gift basis, and I get way more compliments on my wrap jobs than I did before I switched to using brown paper.

I had a friend wrapping gifts in the free maps you could grab at the post office and library. Those always looked cool.

Gotta love the wrapping paper so thin you can see the gift under it

This is solid advice. If you buy a cheap one and use it so much it breaks, you'll know you use it enough to warrant a nicer one.

I wouldn't even call Ryobi the cheap one, they are good quality and cost more than many others. Harbor Freight is what I'd call cheap - my rule of thumb is that very simple hand tools from HF are OK but anything complex is probably not

But don't cheap out on drill bits, nor should you try and use the same drill bit for like a decade without sharpening it.

Think of drill bits like a good, sharp knife. Knives cut far better and far easier when they sharp, exactly the same with drill bits. If you trying to cut something you would normally pick the right type of knife to do the job, exactly the same with drill bits.

If you driving screws or other fasteners with your drill consider better quality driver bits if you have a lot of them to drive, such as building a deck. Good quality driver bits cam out far far less and will take more torque so be faster/go in better. Using cheap driver bits is probably worse than using cheap drill bits.

In case someone needs to hear this:

DO NOT PREORDER GAMES FROM AAA-DEVELOPERS/STUDIOS

I agree with all of those. Some of my favorite clothing I've gotten thrifting. I've been able to find never worn brand name clothing for way cheaper. Heck. I recently got a pair of Eddie Bauer shorts, never used (still had the baggie with spare buttons attached to the waistband), for $5.

Second thrift stores, especially for any small appliance that a couple might get 2 of from their wedding. You can often find a brand new crockpot or juicer or coffee maker. 👍

Fun Fact, Zertec is just Citrizine Hydrochloride but 10x the price of generics.

On board with the thrift shops! I got a $250 brand new wok for $10 and it's the best one I've ever used.

I love second hand shopping for everything, even smartphones and laptops. Just yesterday I bought several pairs of shoes for the kids, some nice sweaters, toys and two wine glasses second hand and I paid 18€ in total, no lie.
Society was brainwashed into buying new shit, while drowning in second hand shit that just looks slightly different. Insanity!

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/16/723545864/the-generic-drugs-youre-taking-may-not-be-as-safe-or-effective-as-you-think

Depends on the country you're in.

If you like the taste, why pay more?

(i) Peaches. Any firm yellow variety of the species Prunus persica L., excluding nectarine varieties, which are pitted, peeled, and diced, not less than 30 percent and not more than 50 percent.

(ii) Pears. Any variety, of the species Pyrus communis L. or Pyrus sinensis L., which are peeled, cored, and diced, not less than 25 percent and not more than 45 percent.

(iii) Pineapples. Any variety, of the species Ananas comosus L., which are peeled, cored, and cut into sectors or into dice, not less than 6 percent and not more than 16 percent.

(iv) Grapes. Any seedless variety, of the species Vitis vinifera L., or Vitis labrusca L., not less than 6 percent and not more than 20 percent.

(v) Cherries. Approximate halves or whole pitted cherries of the species Prunus cerasus L., not less than 2 percent and not more than 6 percent, of the following types:

(a ) Cherries of any light, sweet variety;

(b ) Cherries artificially colored red; or

(c ) Cherries artificially colored red and flavored, natural or artificial.

Provided, That each 127.5 grams (4 1/2 ounces avoirdupois) of the finished canned fruit cocktail and each fraction thereof greater than 56.7 grams (2 ounces avoirdupois) contain not less than 2 sectors or 3 dice of pineapple and not less than 1 approximate half of the optional cherry ingredient.

(3) Packing media. (i) The optional packing media referred to in paragraph (a)(1) of this section, as defined in § 145.3 are:

(a ) Water.

(b ) Fruit juice(s) and water.

(c ) Fruit juice(s).

From https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=145.135