IEMs. Or speakers in general. I previously bought the cheapest cheapo crap and didn’t give much thought past “mmm bass go brrrr.” Then I spent a little extra on a nice set and sat for hours re-listening to albums just gobsmacked by the clarity alone. Lots of snake oil in the industry though.
Nothing. If I’m paying for it, it’s worth it. Convenience, quality, durability, whatever the reason I paid a high price for something, it’s worth the price. If it isn’t, I don’t buy it. There are things that I buy which are more expensive than other options, sure, but that expense is justified. I paid over $1000 for a washing machine, because it will last longer than the string of cheaper machines I would buy instead, which would add up to more than what I paid; not to mention the value of my time and energy in dealing with replacing a broken one.
Frozen custard over regular ice cream. I’m semi lactose intolerant and for some reason I can tolerate Andy’s Frozen Custard Concrete over a DQ Blizzard. The former just makes me gassy and have thunderous farts, but the latter gives me straight up diarrhea.
coffee. pretty much every local roaster within 50 miles of me has a better dark roast than 99% of the grocery store crap, which is also usually already stale when they stock it on the shelf
Dumber tech that works without internet/network/bluetooth/account or stuff that I can connect to HA.
Any tips on cheap a 32in tv? I can’t find any locally and online they all have smart junk.
Best suggestion I can give you (after having this battle a few years ago regarding a 55” tv and losing) is just don’t connect the damn thing to the internet during setup. (I had to connect online for a firmware update and my pihole was having a field day blocking like 15 different domains it was trying to reach to for ads and whatnot. )
Or just get a pc monitor, at 32” I think you’re still within parameters for that.
Who is HA?
Wikipedia link to Home Assistant
official website for Home assistant
In short, open source platform to run your smart devices locally when possible.
Food, cocktails, occasional fine dining.
Definitely agree on occasional fine dining. If you can afford to save up for a really nice splurge meal every once in a long while, it’s absolutely worth it. The key is to find a place that is truly actually good and not pretentious or Instagram hype. But when you do, the combination of incredible food, drinks, and service can reinvigorate your zest for life.
Not personally, but my parents would pay much, much more for cooking utensils than what “it’s worth”. They live in China, and I don’t think the locals (especially their generation) trust Chinese manufacturing that much… so for anything food- or health-related my parents would just get stuff from say Japan, the US, or the EU. Quite sure mom side still insists on buying kitchen knives from Zwilling whenever she’s traveling
I guess this is becoming more relevant now that Temu is a thing
I dunno’, with all the chemicals around food and microplastics stuff, I’d say they’re pretty wise for getting good tools.
Also she has good taste if she’s getting Zwilling. Good and pricy, but arguably worth the price if affordable.
Victorinox is a decent affordable alternative. I’ve used my chef’s knife basically daily for almost a decade and I still haven’t had to sharpen it (although I do hone it occasionally)
Anything that separates you from the ground. Shoes, mattress, tires.
Socks, chairs, houses
Paprika. The grocery store stuff may as well be red glitter for all its flavor. I go to specialty spice stores to buy a premium paprika so it actually has taste
Agree on commercial paprika being little more than food colouring.
Food. Could I survive on rice/ potatoes/ pasta with veggies? Surely. But do I want to spent 10 bucks on ingredients for my favourite homemade food? Yes.
more like 100 bucks.
10 bucks buys me like 1 lb of decent chicken these days. good chicken is 20
Don’t look at beef prices… I’ve eaten more pork in the last week than all of last year.
20 bucks gets you 8 oz of beef. a nice cut is 30 or 40
good news is that cheap cuts, like shoulder are still cheap. they just take like 4-6 hours to cook.
Fiber Internet. Synchronous gigabit up and down with no datacaps is a must. My ping in fps games is like 9 ms and it’s amazing. My homelab uses a bunch of data each month and as someone who’s chronically online it’s been such an awesome luxury after growing up with crummy dialup and DSL
Also picking an ISP that actually has a reliable connection even if everything else about their service sucks, including the price.
I wish I could get symmetrical gigabit. I’m stuck with Comcrap: gigabit down, 40 MBPS up with a datacap. My apartment complex has a deal with Comcrap, even though they just installed fiber down the street from us.
AT&T bogged down my neighborhood for 6 months running fiber and I can finally have it, I just have to sell my house and move across the street because the 16 houses on this side are just a gap too far.
Contractors
How much do they charge and how much would you rather be paying? Asking as a contractor.
I know you’re being somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but being an honest, trustworthy, and genuinely pleasant person to deal with will let you get away with at least a 10-25% premium in my opinion (depending on project size). More importantly, if you can deliver that service without charging too much of a premium, you’ll be the first, and maybe only, person I call or recommend for the next project.
No, I’m actually being very serious. I’m self-employed and started my business 2 years ago from scratch with nobody to ask advice from. Everything I do is based on my own judgement, not on a “this is how others do it too” mindset - including my pricing. That’s why I’m asking; I’m curious to hear about people’s expectations. I don’t have any peers to compare my practices to, so I’m only relying on customer feedback. Close to half of them have called me back to do another job, so I guess I’m at least doing something right. I just want to make it a win-win situation as much as possible. I know from personal experience what a nightmare it can be to try and find a quality contractor, so that’s the niche I’m trying to fill.
Enough to make it feel like a punch in the gut. And then they schedule months out. Why do I do this? Two reasons, one i know they have already priced in all the headaches that they deal with on a daily instead of bullshitters who act like it is no big deal and two because once they start I know they will stand by their work and resolve any reasonable unforeseen/ concerns for the price they quoted. Real talk? Im a little lazy trying to get multiple people out and try to price around. If they show up for a quote when we scheduled it and know what they are talking about I pay.
The cheapest contractor usually does the lowest quality of work. Same thing with availability, if they have openings today, there’s a reason for it.
In my experience paying a cheaper contractor just compounds expenses in the future, because you then have to pay what you should have paid to get their mistakes repaired.
screens.
i used to buy cheap monitors, tvs, phones. but now I’d rather pay way more because it’s so much nicer to look at and easier on my eyes. everything i buy now is high end. i don’t care about the specs, but i care about how nice and relaxing the image quality is.
a $600 monitor isn’t functionally better than a $150 one, but man it’s so much easier to look at.
Avoiding the usual toilet paper and paper towel answers, Bluetooth speakers.
Decent sounding ones can be had dirt cheap, but I’ve found that ones made by power tool brands tend to last longer and be more reliable when abused. I’m more than happy to pay double price if it will last me 4 times as long before it fails on me. I haven’t had my current one very long, but the last one lasted almost 6 years of genuine abuse before it died after falling into a vat of used motor oil. The usual life span for bluetooth speakers is about 6 months (general abuse) to a year or two (battery failure). I’m a bit rough on my kit.
High quality Greek yogurt. The flavor and texture is very much noticeable.
I’m starting to realize high quality organic coffee is a thing too.
High quality Greek yogurt + high quality honey!!!
really good yogurt goes bad after like a day though.
everytime i get the really good local yogurt… it’s like sour after 2 days. and i’m not eating a 2lb of yogurt in two days. and you can only buy 2lb amounts.
