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.
Fashion clothes, if you’re getting something that you’ll wear for one summer and then never again then Primark is fine.
Salt, sugar, most herbs and spices, it’s all the same stuff regardless of brands
Some snacks, often crisps are the same Aldi own brand as Walkers or whatever, or they’re perfectly good. Yes we all want some kettle chips sometimes but it’s all good, same for jelly sweets, a lot of chocolate, etc.
Hobbies for beginners, if you want to take up knitting then start with a cheap kit and upgrade as you get more serious.
Fashion clothes
Better yet: buy long-lasting stuff that is ethically produced. Primark is notoriously bad in this regard — but most fast fashion stores are.
Hobbies for beginners, if you want to take up knitting then start with a cheap kit and upgrade as you get more serious.
This is the big one. If you’re starting a new hobby, it’s easy to fall into the trap of buying loads of expensive kit because it’s shiny and new. Buy the cheaper versions first and learn what you actually need. If you need to upgrade then, at least you know what to buy.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to safety kit 👍
I find the opposite with some hobbies. If you buy a cheap acoustic guitar it’s going to be horrible to play and will probably sound crap. That might discourage you from continuing. More expensive guitars have a much better resale value too, so you’d probably be out of pocket for less if you buy a nice one and sell it again than if you bought a crap one and no one else wanted to buy it.
I kinda agree. Knitting is the go-to for this advice, which makes sense. It gets crazy expensive crazy fast. But starting out with shitty yarn and needles makes the whole thing miserable. Same with a lot of other crafting and baking. Using low quality materials results in an unsatisfying product, and low quality tools make for an unsatisfying learning process.
I generally recommend letting yourself buy something nice-but-not-luxury that you’re excited about, but keeping those initial investments really limited in scope. Buy one nice(ish) pair of needles and just enough nice(ish) yarn to make a specific project. You don’t want to go broke for something you end up hating, but you do want to be able to know whether you hate the actual hobby or you just hate doing that hobby badly.
I began learning on a cheap acoustic that made it incredibly hard to play, but I never knew any better.
Many years later, I was given a nicer acoustic and I realized how much easier it was to play. Suddenly the F chord wasn’t such a monster to hold down.
I feel like the cheap acoustic absolutely stunted my learning, and possibly caused me to pick up bad habits. But I still have it cause it was my first guitar and kinda like the sound of it. But holy shit, it’s still hard for me to play it
Nah, buy a used guitar for $50 and try it out. Most people trying out new hobbies give up after a short time.
Decorations, jeweleries, basically any nonfunctional items, things that you can live without it, things that you don’t have to “use”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
First date. If you just want to get laid, go lavish, no problem.
But if you want to find a long-term partner, take her on a cheap first date. Like, coffee and a walk through the park.
Generic meds vs brand meds.
Brands pay a lot for branding, and thus charge more. The formulas are moderated and regulated by the FDA, so unless you enjoy paying for ads, get the generic.
Unfortunately, generics can vary wildly in efficacy & quality. As @Aradina pointed out, sometimes the encapsulation is different (e.g. extended release coating vs. standard release), but also the form of the drug can differ (e.g. capsule, tablet, softgel, chewable, etc), chemical by-products from different manufacturing techniques may be present in different amounts, and different manufacturing processes can also yield different chiral enantiomer ratios in the end product.
The “same” drug from different manufacturers may vary in effectiveness / side-effects, and brand-name drugs aren’t always the best formulations for most patients.
Generics are required to be as efficacious as name brand in the US.
I do not understand your point on encapsulation and the form of the drug. Name brands can have different encapsulations and forms within their own line. That has nothing to do with it being name brand vs. generic.
As someone who takes Adderall daily and has for many years, I can tell you the Teva brand generics work very well while the malinkrokdt (sp?) in the same dosage do almost nothing, and I crash very fast and need a nap in the afternoon and have to go to sleep early.
Conversely, I got some random Indian-HQ brand from Walmart many years ago (a pink tablet) that kept me up for 3 days. I was begging God for sleep. Placebo or nocebo my ass. Pretty sure someone “accidently” added a methyl group and was overly gracious with the dosage.
The book Bottle Of Lies goes into this much deeper. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/12/722216512/bottle-of-lies-exposes-the-dark-side-of-the-generic-drug-boom
But it’s also noticable in OTC meds. If you get real, severe inflammatory pain (not ‘oh I have le headache’), buy a bottle of ibuprofen from the local dollar store and then buy brand-name Ibuprofen from a big box store, and blind test yourself.
(I may be misremembering the specifics on this part) Generics can only be 80% similar to the brand name in formulation, and often times they use fillers and binders that aren’t as good as the formulation created by the R&D department of PharmaCo.
I’m not saying generics do nothing, I’m just saying my boss asks me what’s wrong when I can’t get my Tevas filled and have to use another manufacturer.
Generics are required to be as efficacious as name brand in the US.
Let me introduce you to the way the FDA actually works.
Was confused by their post too. Not to mention, generics typically say that they’re trying to replicate xyz extended release or xyz extra strength.
Caveat: you aren’t super sensitive to extra/less medicine. The tolerances for generic are much wider.
Technically no. The tolerances should be more or less the same (generally 90%-110% label claim for the active ingredient) . Manufacturers aim for 100% and generally hit that target (or get very close to it).
The bioavailability could be different though - if you are doing a bioequivalence trial for generic VS brand, the generic would have to be between 80% - 120%. This difference is generally a result of the starches, fillers, and other stuff that may be in a generic formulation.
Same net effect as your comment (wider tolerances), but there is a bit more nuance.
Extra info is great. Thanks for adding to the discussion!
I’ve got a family member with a rare allergy. I’ve found that sometimes one or the other will have the allergen in it, but it’s not consistent between generic/branded. Always check the ingredients and never assume it’s exactly the same just because they have the same active ingredients
So you’re saying that your advice doesn’t apply to 99.9999999% of people? Got it, thanks
Allergies are not an uncommon thing
Someone elaborating on your advice is not an attack on you.
Drugstores here (Denmark) are required by law to ask if you’d like to buy the cheaper alternative to brand medicines. They will often change from week to week so a typical order at the drug store would be “I need this” - “I’ll grab it for you but are you OK with cheapest alternative?”
This isn’t always true. The content has to be the same, but the delivery mechanism can be different in generics as long as testing shows similar results
Generic concerta for example, often sucks
Smartphones. Most people don’t need to buy the latest and greatest iPhone every year.
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.
I second this, especially with Android you can breath new life into a phone by installing a custom ROM
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
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
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.
yeah, are y’all just rawdogging the Internet? i like Blokada (the free one) + Hypatia for my adblocker/antivirus combo, and it works just fine. i practice good Internet “hygiene” and have never had a problem. idk how all that works with Apple stuff, though.
Your phone is rawdogging all it’s connections. It can receive SMS and Phone calls without your intervention. There have been several zero-click bugs in the past that allowed injecting malicious code into your phone without any interaction.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 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
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.
Always compare active ingredients for OTC stuff too
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.
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.
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 ?
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.
As I understand it, most of them don’t actually expire
Buying previous generation products. I got something like a Braun series 5 instead of the newest series 9, as there isn’t that much difference.
-Any clothing/toys for children can be bought second hand, we have a very good site for that in Norway. For example, we bought 8kg of Legos, very reasonable price. Re-use is very popular in Norway.
-If you change food you eat often, it’s very important to do some reaserch on the nutrition and sugar.
-Any locally grown food should be supported by bying, if possible.
-Much electronics can also be bought second hand in Norway, since we have strong consumer protection laws. Breakdown on electronic can be repaired within 5 years, usually. But, only if the seller has the receipt.
-Jewelry and stuff isn’t nessesary, but buying cheap can be a nagging feeling and perhaps just buy something else for the person you love. Like an experience, trip to the massage/restaurant/etc. Spending time together is much more romantic anyways.
-Don’t cheap out on the bed/mattress, you spend about 1/3 of you life there.
I want 8kg of Legos so much.
Adult second hand clothes are fine too even if you’ll wear them longer than a child. There are many people who give away clothes in perfect state just because they don’t wear them as much. I’ve had similar luck with brand new 40€ jeans and second hand 5€ jeans.
Several years ago, we were given clothes by a woman whose husband had died. I still wear some of them, and we refer to one of the shirts as “the dead guy shirt”.
I had to sleep on the floor on a shitty mattress this week and it was hell. The only thing making sleeping somewhat comfortable were 2 additional yoga mats stacked on top of it.
For example, we bought 8kg of Legos, very reasonable price.
That’s like a kilo of cocaine’s worth.
Just checked, 7,5kg for about 120$. I have no idea about cocaine price, though… https://www.finn.no/bap/forsale/ad.html?finnkode=337960167
Yeah, definitely don’t overspend on kid’s clothes. First, they don’t really care that much and they’re going to end up ruining them anyway. And second, they grow out of them so quickly, you’re buying new clothes in 6 months anyway.
Nonstick pan for eggs. Get the cheapest. Only use for eggs. Replace if coating damaged.
Does not apply to any other cooking ware tho
Get cast iron instead, and never worry about having to replace it
I have cast iron, I use it often, but I don’t like using it for eggs in the morning.
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I’m with you. Started working to eliminate Teflon from the kitchen and went full cast iron, but eggs were still a challenge… Until someone turned me on to carbon steel.
It’s lighter (not as light as an aluminum pan with Teflon, but significantly lighter than cast iron) and takes the same abuse and seasoning as cast iron.
If it’s seasoned well enough it will work great with eggs
Its not a matter of stick, it’s a matter of convenience. It takes too long to get to temperature when I just need one egg.
I have a gas stove so I wouldn’t know
This is horrible advice. Cheap nonstick flakes nasty teflon chemicals into your food. Shitty advice
Cheap nonstick flakes nasty teflon chemicals into your food.
All Teflon coatings will degrade if abused. Getting expensive nonstick just makes you want to use it longer than you should (sunk cost), and abuse it because it’s “more durable”.
So get a cheap T-fal, be very careful with it, always handwash, never use metal utensils, dispose if damaged at all, and only use for eggs.
Lastly, If you can’t use a nonstick pan carefully every time, just don’t use nonstick at all.
I’m gonna disagree. Cheap nonstick pans are horrible and just contribute to unnecessary waste plus you have no idea what’s in that coating. Carbon steel or cast iron, when properly seasoned, are just as non stick as a “non stick” coated pan and will literally last forever. They’re also WAY more useful than a nonstick since you can use them with almost any heat source and any temperature.
I’ve never had a nonstick pan I’ve personally owned go bad, because I use it for the right things. Low heat only, hands wash, and only use silicone utensils. Whenever I see other people with shitty non sticks it’s because they abuse them horribly. Searing things and using metal utensils and throwing them in the dishwasher or scrubbing the hell out of them. I love cast iron too, but I can never get them to not stick with low heat.
Do people really buy pans for just eggs though? I’ve always used my regular pans for cooking eggs and if I’m storing them in my home I’d want them to cook more than just eggs.
Some people do, yeah. I’ve always used stainless steel cause it’s what I had. Takes a little practice to get it to not stick, but after that it’s fine. I heat the empty pan on medium, medium high until it’s pretty hot. If you add a drop of water, it should bead up and roll. Then add the oil, wait until it shimmers, and add the eggs.
Enameled cast iron is nice too. It’s non-stick and not as heavy as a regular cast iron.
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.
Which holes?
See video but the ones wheee you put the detergent pack
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/_rBO8neWw04
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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.
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.
Yeah, don’t buy them on TEMU.
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.
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.
Cell phone. A $200 android is extremely fast these days
Depends. That’s about what I paid for my previous phone second hand and it lasted me 7 years and I loved it to bits. But I was pretty broke and only could afford that. New phone, I decided to buy a brand new fairphone, because i think that the moment I get enough disposable income, I have a moral responsibility to use it in ways that encourage more ethical practices, for all the people who can’t. Doing that is bloody expensive, but if it somehow helps make this dystopian hellscape a little more bearable, I’ll invest.
Indeed. And that’s a great point, I would love a fairphone (or idealy a true linux handheld) for my next mobile device.
The key to my post is that purchasing $1500 sansungs and ios devices is ludicrous in this market, unless you are developing on the cutting edge or are a luxury tech enthusiast
It is, yeah. Especially if it’s to change it after 2 short years of use because if you keep it longer than that you look like a bum or whatever. I will never understand that tbh.
Based and pilled bro, based and pilled
Their fear response is triggered by the use of “pill” as a verb.
And, of course, that their moral philosophy operates at the level of reflex.
LOL, sadly, this is probably the case. Well stated.
I’m a bit disappointed to see this behaviour on Lemmy of all places
Unknown, but it seems like many people enjoy their low-cost mobiles so I am happy.
Or tablets. I’m using a tab s6 for browsing news sites occasionally. Best tab that runs lineage and was 200$ new (bought it late 2023)
Have any recommendations for cheap foldables?
napkin
You can get a Z Flip 3 for like $300 on eBay.
No I meant the ones that turn into tablets. I’m fine with my Z Fold 3 for the next 5 years or so. Was just curious to see if there were any cheap options on the scene yet.
That’s only cheap if you don’t consider how long it will survive and the replacement/repair cost. A slab phone with no moving parts will last much longer than a foldable making the $/year cost much lower.
I can’t wait until my device and destructively scan, then re-print objects, so fast and effortlessly that I can have a folding phone that is my card carrier too. I just swipe the icon for my debit card, the thing materializes at full speed feeling exactly like Im pulling it out of a billfold, then when I push it back in it just gets chewed up again.
People who want a foldable are at peace with it randomly becoming unusable. People who buy cheap phones are not.
You can either have cheap or foldable. Both won’t work.
Absolutely, currently in the purchase of a Pixel 7a (second hand) for 300euros, looking forwards to getting that in hand and install Graphene 👍👍
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.
