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There’s the adage, “spend your money where you spend your time.”
If you’re going to spend a lot of time in front of a TV, get a nice one. Cook a lot? Get the good knives and pans. Don’t read much? Don’t buy an e-reader or book subscription service. Not big into DIY? Get cheap drill/driver for the rare times you need it.
There’s plenty of exceptions but it’s a nice general rule.
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Knifes. You maybe don’t need the ultra deluxe Japanese kitchen knives from the future. But a set of good, sharp knives will be a godsend if you plan to cook a lot.
Hiking gear. Especially the boots have to be of good quality. But breathable clothing (including socks) will also make a big difference when you go on a long trip.
Might be a no-brainer for some, but: meat. If you plan to make some steak, choosing a properly marbled piece of meat is as important as how you cook it. Will be exorbitantly more expensive than the discount meat, tho. But trust me, it will make a huge difference.
As a knife guy, choose the right knife. A lot of knives now are looking to sell on glitz and glamour whilst being fairly mediocre and criminally overpriced (see Dalstrong).
A lot of knives are overbuilt too. To give the impression of sturdyness, they are made far too thick, or have excessively large bolsters that just bog it down. You don’t use a machete for daily prep, you want something thin that won’t get wedged in the cut. Fun fact, in Japan a light knife is a sign of quality, it means it’s very thin, which is difficult to forge and requires a master.
The best knives for ordinary people I think are Victorianox fibrox and Tojiro DP series knives. The Victorianox has decent steel but is importantly very thin and sharp, with a comfortable handle. The Tojiro is more expensive but has better steel that will remain sharp much longer. Of course it is also thin and sharp.
Personally, I try not to cheap out on anything I want to last. You don’t have to buy the most expensive, but don’t buy the cheapest either. Something in the middle usually does good.
I’ve done well buying second hand too. I recently found a bread machine for 3$ at goodwill. Works perfectly. But I also figured if I decided not to use it anymore or it was crap, then I lost 3$
I’ve heard this line of thinking is how they get you. Example I heard was something like there’s a $10, $20, and $40 toaster at Walmart. The $10 and $20 one are functionally the same, but you don’t know that and don’t want to go with the cheapest one so you pick that.
Don’t know how true it is, but thought it’s interesting and started thinking about it when I’m buying stuff
Anything that goes between you and the ground. Shoes, bed, tires.
My god how many times is this question and this response going to be posted on the Internet. This single question/response must make up at least a third of all LLM datasets.
I just posted the same thing. Good on you, I’m deleting mine
Bought some nice shoes about a week ago after wearing the same pair of Crocs every day for over a year. It’s incredible
Side note, the bottoms of my Crocs where my big toe was is noticably thinner than the rest of the shoe lol
Other people have said better things, but I’ve found flour to be important in baking. Generic store brands can work mostly, but for more precise and nicer baking I’ve got to go with King Arthur flour
Hey King Arthur flour, sponsor me please, I need it to keep buying all this flour!
King Arthur flour
How does this specific thing keep popping up in every corner of the internet I ever go to?? Is it that good?
Not really exeptional except it is commercial grade. It’s not the random stuff you get from the local brand. The local brand is whatever. Sometimes it’s really good, other times it’s pretty poor.
The most common difference is in a test called “falling number”. Falling number is a fast easy way to figure out if an enzyme that degrades starch has been activated (alpha-amylase). Intact starch in flour creates a matrix in solution and thickens it. When alpha-amylase is activated it degrades the starch and makes it thinner.
For baking you want a thicker dough that holds together. It’s how you get light and fluffy breads. The thicker dough traps CO2 produced by yeast or an acid/base reaction better.
Great flour, consistent every time, no filler or weird blends like others might have, great recipes, employee owned, etc.
They also have gluten-free flours (both measure for measure and straight up) and good recipes for them. I’m not gluten free but I have a friend that is and the chocolate cake I made them with their flour and recipe was one of the best gluten free cakes there ever had (it’s better than some gluten cakes I’ve had tbh)
It really is better than most. This a company I actually think sort of cares. Their recipes for bread products are also spot on, at least the ones I’ve tried.
Their recipe for Cornish pasties has done me well, although my filling is always “things I have on hand”!
Any high quality brand will probably do you well. King Arthur is what I can get easily and have used it for decades. Also it’s employee owned, last I knew, which makes me feel a smidge better.
Also their online recipes are pretty nice, and they answer questions!
I wanna say get good gear for your hobbies, but most of us probably don’t need convincing to spend on what we love. I resisted buying a good set of gear for my main hobby for nearly two years, and I wish I’d done it sooner.
There was a post earlier asking for slurs for beginners in a hobby that buy the top of the line stuff for the hobby. Don’t cheap out on starter gear, but don’t go for top of the line right out of the gate either
The classic is anything that separates you from the ground.
I’d add anything related to plumbing, electricity and roofing.
If you write or sign things a lot, get a couple decent pens. Not expensive ones you’d be upset if you lost them, but not sad, free office pens.
I’ve gotten numerous compliments on my Pilot Precise V5. It’s bold, but easy to read, and if anyone borrows it, they’ll notice it’s smooth and feels nice to use.
The Precise is a rollerball. If you need a ballpoint, Uni Jetstream is great. Pentel Energel or Bic Inkjoys for gel. Grab a pair of each and you can write on near anything.
Zebra Sarasa Grand is a nice metal body with binder clip type clip if you want an upgrade. The above pens all use the same size refill, so if you like one body but a different ink, you can swap them.
The Grand is around $10, the rest you can find for around $5 for a pair.
If you’re using a pen all day, it’s an upgrade you’ll notice whenever you grab a freebie pen and it’s scratchy, the ink skips, and it smudges. It’s a nice upgrade that will feel more luxurious than the price would imply.
The Pilot Precice (V7 because I’m not a heathen) literally got me my first date with my current fiancée. I barely handwrite anymore since I graduated a few years ago but still make a note to grab a pack of those pens whenever I notice my home supply is getting a little thin. They’re really lovely things
That’s awesome! I have fancier pens, but the Precise is always the attention grabber when people write with it.
My gf is a 0.7 user and hates all my 0.5, but I write smaller than she does and the ink lasts longer as a bonus. She writes bigger to enjoy the bold lines.
I love the Parker Jotter. It’s a classic and looks so sleek.
Jotter is a classic!
Check out the OHTO Rays for something similar. It’s a plastic body so it cuts down on both weight and price.
Your kid’s first musical instrument. It’s counterproductive and false economy to buy them a piece of shit guitar or tuba or whatever it may be, in the belief that “if they like it and want to continue with it, I’ll buy them a better one in the future”. You might well turn the kid off the instrument for life if their instrument is harder to play/maintain and worse to listen to than it ought to be.
If you want your kid to be enriched by music and to be creative, buy them a decent mid-range instrument. Make it so that the kid can’t wait to pick it up, don’t make those crucial early days of learning the instrument feel like eating watery gruel for months with an expectation of pizza at some point down the line. A shitty instrument will be an additional barrier the kid will need to deal with every time they use it. Get out of their way, buy them something serviceable. If they lose interest regardless, well at least you know they had a fair shot at it and it wasn’t the crappiness of the instrument that caused them to abandon it. And you can always sell or donate the instrument if they really don’t give a shit about it.
The best instrument you can reasonably afford is significantly more likely to hook your kid than a £50 piece of junk would. It doesn’t need to be fancy, it just needs to be well-made, pleasant to play, and easy to tune/maintain/clean/whatever the case may be.
I’ll counter with the following: if you aren’t sure whether your kid will like it, it’s probably a better idea to start with renting. You’ll typically get a fully-serviced instrument with coverage for accidental damage.
Yes, it’s a fully sunk cost, but it’s predictable and you don’t have to deal with the hassle of selling off an instrument if they don’t get really into it. Once you’re confident that they’re going to stick with it and know they can handle and maintain it carefully, then you should look into buying.
Car brakes
I see a lot of specific examples, but here is a good engineering guideline: do not skimp on physical interfaces. **Anywhere energy is changing form or if it touches your body, don’t skimp on those. **
For example
- tires
- bicycle saddle
- heaters/furnaces
- electrical inverters
- keyboard
- mouse
- engines
- shoes
- eyewear
- clothes (buy used if necessary, but always buy quality clothing)
Quality usually means more money, but sometimes one is able to find a high quality and low-cost version. In my experience though, trying to find the cheap version that works well means trying so many permutations; it would have been more economical to just get the more costly version in the first place.
More expensive doesn’t always equal better, especially for things like keyboards, clothes or eyewear, where branding is huge and inflates prices more than quality.
Condoms
Bed mattress. Sleep is important.
Ice cream.
Toilet paper.
Get the good stuff or don’t get it at all.
Or upgrade to a bidet if you can afford one for as little as $30.
