…to a reasonable degree, at least.
Weddings.
Yes, It IS a big day. It’s not such a big day that you spend your entire life savings, and have no future.
Get a DJ, get a cake, get a hall, get a photographer…forget the doves, forget the ice sculptures, forget the wedding planner, forget the genocidial mimes, forget the big limo, keep it small. Do you really need to invite your great aunt, who you’ve seen 3 times in your life?
You should NOT be spending like $20,000 on a wedding.
The genocidal mimes are non negotiable
I know right…we HAVE to have standards
out of the loop, what are genocidal mimes?
It’s right there on the tin
$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.
I can get a venue for like $200. What are you guys renting??? The Royal Palace???
It varies a LOT regionally.
Look for a venue in Maryland, you know, with DC right there.
I have a friend who’s entire wedding was the same price as a venue in Maryland.
We got married in DC and saved so much money on locations. We booked the Jefferson memorial 6 months in advance for like $50 (saved a couple thousand), and a boathouse on the Potomac for $800 (saved 8-20 grand) because we knew someone - wedding still cost like 33k. We were so cognizant of cost too - no flowers at all, DJ instead of a band, bought our own booze, etc.
I think people don’t realize how much more expensive cities are, and also do a terrible job accounting for all the true costs of things. Food was obviously the bulk of it and other big things like booze, rings… But I kept impeccable records, and what really added up was the little $100 here, $300 there things. Hotel and plane tickets for destitute father-in-law, all the meals at restaurants you’re taste testing to see if you wanna have the rehearsal dinner there, tips, food while the bridal party is getting ready, gifts for bridal party, the officiant, etc etc.
I wouldn’t trade it for the money back because I’m notoriously cheap, so I pinched and saved and was super proud of our wedding’s price to quality ratio, but I’d be lying if I said the final tally wasn’t super painful and didn’t delay our house a bit. It worked out in the end, though. Thanks interest rates!
Yeah, people definitely don’t understand that you can cut so much and bargain hunt the whole thing and still spend 15-20k. That’s a"cheap" wedding. The average in my area is 33k. That’s not because people are just spending frivolously and don’t budget, that’s because every single aspect of a wedding is expensive. Hell, tipping out the bar staff and photographer alone is expensive.
Skip it if you want, but even as a very frugal person, I’m very happy we had a huge party with lots of food and an open bar. It’s worth it to spend money on life rites. Life rites are like half the point of being human!
If you don’t care about celebrating with friends and family, don’t spend the money, but for us sharing the day with the people we love and merging our families was important.
We got out cheap at about $25… we had a smaller (100 person) wedding, went budget on the food, had a DJ, cake, etc. (basically just what the OP said), and we were still hand crafting stuff to reduce the cost. Shit is fucking expensive.
$25 is cheap, imagine one that costs a whole fifty dollars /s
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.
Did the same, then went out for a nice meal, weddings are a complete waste of money.
Spent less than 1k, no real honeymoon…but we bought our first house with the money we saved. 0 regrets.
This. This right here.
Couple goals.
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.
Oh, by DJ, yeah, thats all he’d be doing is controlling the winamp playlist basically.
And a wedding planner I don’t see as being needed.
Step 1) rent local venue.
Step 2) ask cousin to be DJ.
Step 3) pick up cake from dairy queen.
Step 4) Flowers??? I’m sure the florist can figure something out.
Thats about it.
eh, as a photographer that works weddings, any wedding without a planner is hell for me. i might actually just say no if that’s the case.
if you hire people to work it you should have a person who can be their go to while you are getting married.
if you go for an event like you describe people will be unhappy at the lack of food and leave after not long. if that’s what you want, good for you. go for it. if you want people to stick around and have a good time, you need to feed them. that’s expensive, even if you somehow make it all yourself with food from the farmers market, it’s still going to be over a thousand dollars for most people. again, unless you only invite like five people, but most people care about more than 5 people. throwing a big party of any kind isn’t cheap unless you throw a terrible party.
you don’t have to have a traditional wedding at all though. my sister got married during COVID in her backyard on video call. it was lovely. a big beautiful wedding with lots of people is also lovely and uniquely fun. just don’t let you relatives pressure you into things you don’t want. there’s where it always goes wrong.
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 mean…yes and no. A down payment for a single family home in today’s market is many orders of magnitude more expensive than $20k. But I agree that weddings are too expensive. Just have a small party and use that money elsewhere.
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!
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.
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.
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.
If you do get a permit, are you allowed to put up decorations?
I think that depends on the location. Parks may have their own specific rules.
Use that money for a honeymoon instead.
Unpopular opinion but wine.
From my experience majority of people can’t distinguish between 5€ wine and 500€ wine. And even if they do, they say it tastes “a bit better”, not worth the 495€ difference. Pick one that tastes good to you and don’t be ashamed if it’s cheap.
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.
Also very cheap wine seems to give worse hangovers. I’m guessing due to lower quality ingredients, less filtration, and less aging.
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.
The French Fiasco (or whatever it was called) in the mid-70’s is proof.
It’s actually not really that hard, any cook worth their salt can make a good shot at reverse-engineering a sauce from tasting it. It just takes a lot of practice at tasting things.
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.
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.
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.
Apparentlyv Mr Clean MagicErasers are just melamine sponges which are actually mucho cheapo
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.
Over the counter medications. Store brand ibuprofen, allergy meds, cold medicine, etc. Sometimes as much as 1/7th the price, just make sure the active ingredients match amounts and you’re set.
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.
Decongestants are a weird one. Pseudoephedrine is available but is behind the pharmacy counter where most people don’t realize they can get it. Pretty much every other nasal decongestant has been replaced by phenylephrine which is extremely ineffective. Both the generic cold/sinus meds and sudafed PE will be most likely be phenylephrine, and you might as well not waste your money at that point. Actual pseudoephedrine (sudafed or a generic if they make it) will help.
Reminder, I am not a doctor, pharmacist, or healthcare worker. I’m just a rando on the internet who has heard a lot about this.
Meth heads ruined pseudoephedrine. The last thing I want to do when there’s a compressor filling my sinuses with 300psi of pain is wait in the pharmacy line, show 3 forms of ID, and get questioned about why I need medicine.
Look at me. If I were to start crying from the pressure in my head, the tears would shoot forward 20ft…
That’s very true and I’d argue more an issue of our regulation (or lack thereof) of both drugs and medication.
Cell phones and plans. Any phone is good enough for regular use these days. And any carrier uses the towers of all the other carriers, it’s not like the old days where there was CDMA vs GSM.
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.
Can find great deals for 2yo second hand high tier phones
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.
Redpocket is really cheap if you guys want some prepaid plans
Former chef: Knives. My most expensive knife is $80 with a lifetime warrantee. Most are $10-$20. Instead, learn how to use and take care of a knife.
Yup. I learnt that the price tag doesn’t make much of a difference. Sharpening tools do.
I’ve been sharpening my knives for a year or so now, but last week i bought this piece of plastic with the angles for different knives on them and it leveled up my sharpening game significantly
Good advice but I wouldnt really call that ‘cheaping out’. You can buy kitchen knives for 2$ which you definitely shouldnt do
Disagree. My favourite paring knife came from a discount bin at a dollar store in a pack of five. You can find decent knives at a dump if to you look hard enough, depending on your definition of cheap.
If the handle falls apart then the average person cant do shit about it even if blade quality is the same as a nice one.
I have hope for the average person.
Oh yeah? Well half of all people are even dumber than that, so there.
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.
I refuse to get a forged knife, I demand the real thing.
Great Grampa was supposed to be buried with that joke.
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.
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
I work in a restaurant and 10 lbs of onions lasts 36 hours. We buy the shittiest chef knife Ed Don has to offer and it’s fine. I like nice knives on a hobby level, but they’re not necessary on a personal or professional level.
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.
College books.
Yar har libgen be free
pets.
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.
Neighborhood kitty is still cute kitty!!! But they gotta be healthy kitty.
If you are looking for a companion, definitely. If you are looking for an animal bred for a specific purpose, find a reputable breeder.
Wrapping paper and bows/ribbons. THey’re just gonna get torn up anyway, no reason to spent a ton of money to make it fancy
My grandfather used to wrap our presents in the comics pages from newspapers when I was a kid. I loved it.
Same for me. It was easy for him to spot which gifts were from him when bringing them to our house and putting them together with the other gifts too, so that was another win in his book :)
I had some older relatives who would use the Sunday comics as wrapping paper, and I’d open the gifts carefully so I could read the comics when I was done.
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
Clothes and housewares. Buying secondhand is vastly cheaper, better for the environment, and can get you surprisingly high quality sometimes.
Over the counter medications. If the active ingredient is the same, delivered in the same way and in the same dosage, the effects will be the same.
Games. There’s no good reason to not wait for a price drop and/or sale unless it’s some multiplayer thing and you want to play with friends. In the modern day, you’ll even usually get an improved product after more time has passed for patches and updates.
In case someone needs to hear this:
DO NOT PREORDER GAMES FROM AAA-DEVELOPERS/STUDIOS
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. 👍
Also anything potentially breakable. Crockery, glassware etc. Best to have something that’s already been stress tested in someone else’s home.
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!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.
Fun Fact, Zertec is just Citrizine Hydrochloride but 10x the price of generics.
Power tools. If you are not a professional and need to buy a tool (if you can’t borrow one), buy the cheap one.
I used a $30 Ryobi drill for over a decade and it was fine.
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.
Ironically, it didn’t break, but when I was on the road and needed a power drill to fix something, I didn’t feel bad about dropping $500 on a new Milwaukee from Ace hardware.
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
We needed a router for one job. My boss got a router from Harbor Freight. Burned through the brushes halfway through (same day). Swapped brushes. Finished the job.
His alternate plan (if we burned through the second set): return it as dysfunctional. As it would be same day, replacement would be natural.
I think he ended up taking it back for a refund after the job was done.
I bought a cylinder head pressure gauge from HF and took it home, didn’t work at all. When I looked at it closely I could see that it was completely missing the core valve that is supposed to be in the bottom. It was just a hole instead of a valve. Took it back for a refund next day.
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.
Is there a sharpener you recommend? Drill Doctor?
Never tried sharpening them myself, always used a service as standard jobber bits are less than a pound to get done for you. I normally save up a bunch of stuff including saw blades and get them done at once to save on shipping at hit the low volume discounts.
However, its only worth doing on quality components, I wouldn’t pay a pound or waste my own time to get a cheap ass drill bit sharpened, I would just replace it.
My saw blades start at like £70 so paying £12 to get it sharpened is good value, but a £30 blade is not really worth it, not least for which it won’t cut anywhere near as much material before getting blunt between sharpens. Same logic for drill bills, some of my SDS ones are over £30 each, my augur bits can be over £50 each, so those are worth looking after, not going to bother for a set of 10 bits for £20.
Wine - it is full of marketing gimmick and usually the mid range is best. The same is with whisky, rums and other alcohol.
On the other hand, at least here, is better to pay premium for craft beer.
If you like the taste, why pay more?
Possibly an unpopular opinion among parents, but: Diapers. I’ve noticed no negative effect on my kids when going offbrand.
I remember the expensive ones, Pampers, being way worse, the pee is so absorbed the kid doesn’t feel it but is still in it and get irritated skin, and poo leaked way more easily.
Yeah, that’s the only real difference I’ve noticed: The fit. On my oldest kid, libro fit best. The rest were offbrand. I think it’s mostly down to each individual kid and not so much the brand.
We tried cheap ones, but our kids get irritated skin from them. Pampers works for us. That being said, I’d go for the cheapest brand that works for the little ones.
Consider spending a bit more on sustainable, non-popular brands.
Generally, medications. It’s pretty rare you have some sort of specific metabolic issue which calls for the branded version; the generic is usually just as good. I have a note in my medical records to NOT give me the branded version of my meds because there’s something in the expensive ones that gives me horrific reflux, while the others don’t.
Canned fruit salad, the ratio of ingredients is for some fuckdamn reason federally mandated so there’s little difference between brands.
(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
This is amazing.
And not more than one square inch of peach peel per pound of salad!
