- Phones on contract payment plans
- New monitors: Maybe my eyes suck, but my set of two 21-inch LCD monitors from 2005 is still going strong
- Third-party meal delivery: I’m fine sitting down with a microwaved meal or some canned soup if I don’t feel like cooking
- A new car every x years: My car of choice is old and relatively cheap, so I could afford to pay in full in cash. Bonus of being spyware-free, so I’ll just maintain it for as long as I can.
- Stuff from Aliexpress, Temu and the like: the user experience is horrendous, customer service is nonexistent, and discount codes are pure gimmicks
Television. It’s like paying to see ads.
Hand soap. Dish soap works better and you can use it on dishes in addition to your hands.
A dining table. I eat at my desk or standing at a counter. I was pressured into buying one by family because it was apparently bizarre to them I did not have one. Got the cheapest one I could find to appease them. I have now owned it for 4 years and it has never been used once, it just takes up space.
Just wanted to add that dish soap is actually very strong and removes all the natrual oils from your skin. If you are prone to sensitive skin it’s a bad habit to regularly use dish soap as it can aggrivate it. Every now and then isn’t going to hurt though.
True enough. I haven’t had any problems in using it myself but I supposed you could ratio it with some water or something to make it not as intense for hands.
It’s a lot cheaper than hand soap too so in doing this you could probably get a tonne of hand washes out of it for really cheap.
The primary downside to it for me is that it lasts ages and I get kind of tired of the smell.
Restaurant fries and drinks.
Was on a really tight budget for a time, so I know I can feed myself for a few Euros a day. Going back to fast food restaurants at all still instils some guilt in me, but there is 1 that has unbelievably good prices and I can still appreciate the convenience at times.
But fries and drinks are just a scam with how big the profit margins are, and not even hard to prepare at home if you’re ordering take out or have it delivered (I also don’t pay for delivery, my bike is free).
I agree for the drinks. But I can’t cook fries like my local burger place does. And it’s cheap, like half a dollar (USD equivalent of my home currency) for 1 box of fries.
God restaurants have gotten so expensive, especially delivery. $15-$18 for a burger, another $4-$6 for fries, multiplied by two, plus delivery fees, taxes, and tip… easily $50+
Software subscriptions. I’ll buy a perpetual license if there’s no decent open source alternative as long as it will run offline. For example, $300 for Marvelous Designer back in the day was reasonable, but they can fuck right off with the subscription-only model.
Hair product. I use a bar of Irish Spring for everything.
A few people are saying “streaming services”, I go further and rarely-if-ever buy entertainment media. Music, videos, games, websites.
Not even pirating most of the time, there’s a whole world of good Creative Commons music, FOSS games and actual creative communities (not just parasocial fan communities) for me to be entertained for lifetimes. It’s just healthier to be outside the world of profit and addiction machines. (It amazes me that people can think ‘influencer’ is not a creepy ominous title)
Jarred tomato sauce. It’s one of the easiest things to make and every jarred sauce I have ever had tasted like shit
Ethanol, caffeine, mushroom, and cauliflower
At the same time?
Is this a recipe?
Why cauliflower???
Onions. Can’t stand 'em.
😢
A car. Gas/petrol for a car. A parking spot for a car. Car insurance. A driver’s license. Winter tires for cars. Anything car related.
It’s so ridiculous to pay for a mobile living room that needs to be parked everywhere people go with it.
I just moved back to a city with decent enough transit and dumped my car and god I’m so much happier. I hate driving and car ownership with a fiery passion.
Sadly, many cities are designed around cars where owning one has become more or less a necessity.
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Only Fans cause that shit is free dude
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Anything advertised on Instagram or Facebook by “influencers” like some cable tv tele-marathon my grandma would fall for.
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Stocks and shares in any sort of oil and gas company, Google, Meta, Amazon, etc.
I get the stocks one totally, I try and boycott companies/countries/policies I don’t like by investing my money in certain ways, but stocks generally are necessary to stop you from losing money to inflation
I go with an esg etf, that only uses companies with very high scores, and only from democratic countries (-> no usa)
I feel like that is a good middle ground without spending too much time on this?
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Pre-built computers. I’ve just been building PCs for so long I can’t imagine buying something that meet my specifications within a reasonable budget. And it’s fun.
I have never tried building a PC myself but I have gotten into reviving old ones. I haven’t bought a computer in over a decade. I just inherit people’s old ones and bring them back to life with linux, maybe replace a dead PSU or something. I’m new to hardware stuff. I really wish I knew a way to get these computers into the hands of people who can’t afford to buy one and don’t know how to do this themselves.
I built my own because I wanted a gaming computer with a blu-ray drive. That was the only way. I also added a floppy drive for shits and giggles.
Wouldn’t a pre-built secondhand pc be cheaper, if your just starting out?
Pretty unlikely to find a second hand system with the highish specs I’d want.
But if you mean if someone just needed a computer, then yes used would be much cheaper given how quickly things advance.
Any paid subscription which doesn’t either
a) Save me money, eg Amazon prime (although someone else in my family has Prime so if I need something from Amazon I just use their account) b) Do something I can’t setup myself
And especially no subscriptions which give me the licenses to digital media, without hardware, eg xbox or netlfix
for amazon i think, it makes sense if one buys a lot of small things for some reason online,
but like otherwise often it is possible to buy from the website of the product company directly with free shipping (if one orders enough)
and i feel like every money amazon does not get is good
Labubus
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Nestle and Goya products
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Lottery tickets
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New phones
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Anything from Temu or Shein
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I try to avoid the keyboard mash sellers on Amazon but for some products it’s pretty much impossible to find anything else.
I like to get some scratchies every now and then - it’s one of the major funding sources for museums and sports in the UK, so I see it as a little donation with a dopamine hit rather than an attempt at winning big!
Do you buy used phones? How do you deal with the battery? Used phones generally have old batteries, no?
I just buy a cheap/budget (mid?) phone, 200 EUR max, every 5 years or so…
You can get phone batteries from Aliexpress for very cheap. They are typically not too difficult to replace (as long as the back panel is not glass). Give it a go!
My phone is a Galaxy S9+ from 2018 that I bought used in 2020 for about $200. The battery life is diminished but it lasts through the day.
I will likely need to buy another refurbished phone soon though, as support for this device is getting cut from my banking app. I try to buy them at $300 or lower.
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