Yeah, for utilities I try to estimate numbers and or timespan of usage and shop accordingly. If it’s for my type of heavy usage, I try to go for quality. And good quality does not automatically mean luxury price tag.

If you don’t care for prestige, Opel or Vauxhall is a good bet in its premium segment. The Opel Insignia drops almost 50% in the first year and is actually a pretty good car.

Flossing every day. Never had issues with my gums ever since.

My go-tos are legumes: cheap, easy to cook, go well with a lot of stuff, filling and full of fibre. If I feel snackish I go for a can of peas, f.i…

Pair them with rice, more veggies and lean meat, when you can score a good deal.

While I generally agree with your way of thinking, one problem I see is that higher status sex work (i.e. escort services) are not the issue but are already very expensive. The issues get more severe the closer you get to the lower end of the spectrum. And there it gets difficult in judging or controlling what really is voluntary and equal exchange of values.

More governmental control might be a solution worth exploring. This could also be realised by legalising sex work exclusively in controlled establishments. However that again leads to higher cost on all ends.

Sweden has banned buying sex but not offering it, so only the Johns are punished if caught. But that is no real solution imo and I am keen on seeing the long term effects of this.

While I agree with your argument that prohibition has seldom made anything better, the problem with prostitution is that it often does not happen voluntarily. While the transaction itself might still appear to be, in the background there are dire lives and more often than not human trafficking and extortion.

Germany has tried establishing sex work as “real” and regulated work for voluntary self-employed persons, including healthcare and consulting services. In the end this lead mostly to a steep increase in effectively illegal prostitution, as pimps used cover-constructs. Consequently forced prostitution esp. from eastern Europe flooded the marked with dirt-cheap offerings.

There is no easy solution for this. I believe that as with everything that happens within isolated milieus the only way to effectively tackle this problem is to reach out directly to the affected persons on a broad basis. But this is laborious and costly…