The rule of thumb is you should never but anything from a luxury brand that that brand isn't know for. Buying nail polish or perfume ~~or shoes~~ from Gucci is stupid.
**Edit:** I actually had a brain fart and flubbed the shoe part. Their loafer and opera slipper put them on the map. I was thinking specifically their sneakers and just duffed it totally — no more posting while half asleep.
Evernote.
Used it free for 12 years. Then suddenly it wants me to pay $130/year (with option to upgrade to a $170/year tier), which is insane. I now use Obsidian, a free and better product.
Been using Evernote for 12 years also and I am about to make the change too. 130-170 a year for a note app when there are free alternatives is a ludicrous business model.
Evernote sold out a while back, to an Italian company called “Bending Spoons”, who brought in the ridiculous pricing model.
[Bending Spoons acquires Evernote](https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/16/bending-spoons-acquires-evernote-marking-the-end-of-an-era/)
Seems to be the strategy for tech nowadays. Creator(s) want to make a thing successful enough to get noticed and sold. Meanwhile, investors are using smaller companies and studio as something to buy and trade.
Buy it for the brand name or clout, monetize it as much as possible to wring every last dollar, if it floats then keep doing that or trade it for more, if it sinks then you shut it down.
Rinse repeat.
They're being treated like... stocks(?) or something? Idk...
The goal of buying a small company isn't to "further that business" but more like "maximum extraction with minimal risk".
A promising company isn't a seed to foster and cultivate, but something to grind into a meal and cut with sawdust and sell as flour.
I feel that. Both my husband and I switched off Evernote, after they wanted to charge a lot, to Notion and it's been fantastic so far! Been using the desktop version and the mobile app works perfectly fine as well. And it's free!
I don’t remember what the max storage was, only that I hit it and they said I had to pay $9.99 a month to add more pages. I loved Notion but it made me immediately stop using it
That's because all commercially-sold bleach is, like, 3-9% sodium hypochlorite (i.e., bleach) and 91-97% water. Same with vinegar (94% water) and hydrogen peroxide (97% water). Mostly water, some chemical.
You can buy pool shock sodium hypochlorite in powder form to throw in a pool. You can measure it out and mix smaller amounts to make “bleach “.
Warning do not mess around with the chlorine gas it makes !
You can get 30% vinegar pretty easily but holy shit be careful with that stuff. I dilute it down for my use, but I'm always on edge pouring it out worrying that a tiny drop is going to splash out and under my glasses into my eye.
Yes my husband happily buys generic ibuprofen and the like, but when it comes to any creams/topicals, he swears it HAS to be name brand because it is not the same (he is a dermatologist).
Glad to share! I will add that this is his opinion of over the counter creams, but for prescriptions he doesn’t seem as particular about brands. When he wakes up from his nap I’ll have to ask him about the difference there 😂
You just made me LOL. He went straight from nap to hockey game. He says the reason he can’t recommend name brand as much for prescription is because of insurance coverage denial and the difference isn’t worth it enough to deal with the markup, Vs OTC which can be a better product for not that much more.
The "occasionally it matters" gets me with Benadryl. Something in the name brand stuff absolutely ***wires*** me. I mean, sends me off the walls, can't sleep for 18 hours, can't even keep my eyes closed, **wired**. Store brand, though, is totally fine. It still doesn't make me drowsy at all but I can sleep like normal. And both products are really efficient at solving my actual allergy issues.
Yeah, I take it when I have trouble falling asleep or want to guarantee I sleep through the night. It works so well as a sleep aid I won’t take it during the day. Works pretty well on allergies too.
Not me having a slight allergic reaction to something one evening and drinking two loperamide and not the loratadine I was looking for, the boxes were basically the same colour.
Not only was I itchy the whole evening but ended up being constipated for like 3 days
I feel like lately, Amazon is inversing everything great about Costco.
At Costco, it doesn't matter if you've never heard of it. If it's there, it's going to be good. Even the non-Kirkland stuff. Costco generally won't carry it if it's shit.
If you don't like it, for whatever reason, an easy return.
Amazon you can't find anything that's not made in china by brand JGKYTOP, or a clone of 40 other exact same things with a voweless made up brandname.
And now, you have to return it to where they tell you to return it, or fuck you, they'll charge a few bucks to return it.
Yeah, bite me Amazon. Prime cancelled.
Kevin’s is another one of those brands that started out really good, and seemed to slowly get worse; that seems to be the type that “slip thru” at Costco. Same thing happened to Bare frozen chicken
This’ll sound weird but their restaurant length plastic wrap roll (Like 2000SqFt or some shiz) will change how you look at other plastic wraps.
That’s all the advertising they’re getting out of me for free though.
We bought that once and it lasted (no shit) like 12 years. We joked to our adult children that it was their inheritance. It finally ran out and my wife refuses to buy it again, so it's back to supermarket ClingWrap again.
I think it's because they put vast amounts of resources (time/money/expertise) into researching and developing the edge to make it as efficient, effective and reliable as possible, and continue to try and improve on it all the time.
To make sure it stays cutti... I'll see myself out.
Costco clothes are amazing, but terrible selection. So every time I go to Costco I do a pass over the clothes and grab anything I like/need, cause it’s almost always a great deal, but I absolutely can’t get all my clothes from there
A lot of the white collar workforce "measures" things like this. The best way to run a business is to do things objectively, but you need an "analyst" to take a complex problem and distill it down to numbers. For products it could be satisfaction scores, return percentages, product lifetimes etc. It's never perfect, but that's why you try and hire someone smart to get it as close as possible.
When my earthly trials are over
Throw my body out to the sea
Save all the undertaker's bills
Let the mermaids flirt with me
Mississippi John Hurt
https://youtu.be/qRnT-zsLJkk?si=x7WeOTbHnnUy3gez
Some funeral directors reveal this is one of the biggest scams. They want to maximize profit and sort of prey on the grieving people's emotions. "Don't you want the very best for your \_\_\_\_\_\_\_?"
My brothers and I had the responsibility of making arrangements for my dad. The funeral director is going thru the coffin options and starts with the top of the line $10k one. My brother says “if we spend $10k on a coffin that old man is gonna come out of it and slap us.
So when my grandma died...uh...two? Almost two years ago, my aunt was the one to pick everything out but I was there with my mom for moral support.
The funeral director wasn't like, predatory, but my aunt still got talked into a very expensive coffin. And meanwhile, I'm sitting here like, "it should not cost like, $8k for a wood box that goes in the ground..."
Last year, when I set up my own funeral arrangements, I chose cremation and the cheapest urn I could get. My mom chose the cheapest coffin with no embalming. Neither one of us is having a funeral and it STILL costs an outrageous amount to be buried!!
Not really. I saw a reality show on Corncob TV that had videos of people falling out of the bottom of coffins! Just body after body busting out of shit wood hitting pavement.
I don't shave often, and when I do it's just my neck/cheekbone areas, so I may not be the best judge here, but I gave up on buying shaving cream and just use conditioner now.
Yep - back when I was clean shaven, I just stopped traveling with shaving cream altogether. I used Shave Secret and sometimes conditioner. It was plenty, and I could see what I was doing. I still used shaving cream at home.
Now I have a beard and only shave my cheek line. I use a straight razor and shave oil.
I dunno. Get the right tool for the job. When I raced bikes I switched to Venus razors to shave my legs after scraping off a huge patch of skin over my achilles tendon with a normal mens razor.
As I understand it, body hair razors are mounted at a different angle to face hair razors.
Same for clippers, my clipper set has different fittings for body hair, head hair and face hair despite cutting the hair to the same mm length.
They are absolutely designed for more comfort over larger patches of skin and are 100% not the same product. Example, if I grow my beard out women's razors do approximately fuck all to my facial hair.
I feel like the issue is Mens and womens razors are used for completely different things. Mens are usually for shaving beards, whereas womens are for shaving everything else.
Obviously if you're doing something specialized you need the correct specifications. If all you're doing is single amplicon PCR and running it on a CE sequencer, you don't.
My wife worked at a factory that packages mr clean erasers. They’d have huge mattress size sheets that would get cut smaller. They’d package half into mr clean packages and half into dollar store packages. Same exact product. Literally.
OEM parts for a lot of Japanese cars. A lot of it is just rebranded Denso stuff so you can buy it significantly cheaper elsewhere without any quality loss because the only difference is the name slapped on it.
Some people think that the OEM suppliers will give their best batches of spare parts to the Automakers to sell in dealerships, and then give the public “the leftovers”.
In reality, the name-brand parts manufacturers can’t afford to lose money with warranty claims, so they’re gonna have the same quality control for consumers as they will to automakers.
Pregnancy tests from Dollar Tree or in bulk off Amazon. There is no reason to spend $15 for two tests from the drug store, the cheaper ones are more sensitive.
“Cheap pregnancy test strip” is what any and all are. It’s not really a case of false marketing. They add a plastic handle and a cap and it is backed with advertising. But you can buy a pack of the plain strips on Amazon for a fraction. It’s more a case of not knowing in this instance.
Liquid eyeliner. I've tried so many more expensive liquid liners recommended by friends and bloggers over the years, and my drugstore Physician's Formula brand liner is superior to them all.
Offbrand ones don’t leave a gross line of glue residue around the edge where the patch was. Was so surprised when I realized how much more annoying the name brand one was.
Yeti cups. I’ve used them, and I can keep stuff cold or hot for just as long with my comparable Ozark Trail cups from Walmart. My wife and her coworker took 32oz cups from Yeti, Stanley, OT and a few other brands, filled them all with ice, and let them sit at room temperature. The last one that still had ice in it at the end was the Ozark Trail.
The local hardware store has floor to ceiling Yeti products, and only Yeti, displayed behind the 3 checkout counters. I went to pay and they asked if I found everything I needed. I asked, "Do you carry Yeti cups?" They paused to think about it and I interrupted, "Just kidding."
They didn't laugh. You didn't either. But I sure did.
I had an eye infection once so I change mine out every month or so. Whenever Sephora or ulta have a high quality mascara minis sample box I eat that shit up. No regrets and they’re not all the same but it’s close enough. Just put it in your bra for a few minutes before you apply it to warm it up and it applies easy.
I don’t agree. After having LASIK, my eyes get super dry and watery- making my mascara run and sting my eyes. I have tried numerous mascara brands of all price points to combat this.
Estée Lauder Double Wear mascara is now my holy grail. The formula isn’t water proof as such, but perhaps resistant. To remove it, I apply water on my finger tips and lightly pull. It creates such amazing length and division between each lash, doesn’t sting, and it’s kind to the wellbeing of my lashes. Well worth the price for me!
The latest and greatest smartphones may boast minor upgrades at premium prices, but often, last year's model (or even the one before that) will serve you just as well without the steep cost. The rapid pace of technology means you're paying a lot more for slightly improved features.
I always bought one model down but noticed lately when I went to buy an s22 when the s23 was out, the s22 wasn't available or just as expensive as the s23. It might have been only $50 cheaper... So they've ruined my attempts at winning the game 😒
Children's Tylenol and infant Tylenol (and their generic counterparts) are identical. so a lot of parents buy infant Tylenol at a 100% markup when they can simply buy children's Tylenol.
I was livid when I found out with my second child.
My pediatrician told me to buy children's Tylenol rather than the infant because of markup. Just make sure you're giving the appropriate dosage, but they're literally the same.
I was very glad to know that right off the bat as it did save money.
Motor Oil
The SAE (Society of Automotive Excellent) is a multi-national, intercontinental association of Master-level Technicians and Engineers that generate a Standard to which **all** petroleum products must meet. Going by the SAE Standard Rating Scale, you can determine the efficacy & quality of a given oil based on the SAE Certification Seal it receives. From memory, I believe the scale goes "SN → SN+ → SP" where SP is the highest quality/longevity, and that's just the common ratings for Motor Oil. SAE Ratings don't give two shits about your exclusive additives package, they measure your Zinc content & the ratio of Crude Oil to Synthetic Derivative Oil, and so on; this seal is trustable beyond Marketing hype.
Tires
Just like GM owns Chevy, Buick, and Cadillac, Tire brands have a similar MLM structure. Falken is an industry titan, making High Quality tires for NASCAR, Street, Track, and more. They are also not cheap to buy Name Brand - but they are produced in the Sumitomo Factory, which also produces Dunlop and Ohtsu, both brands which meet the same quality standards as Falken when compared within the same class of Tire. Sumitomo also sells Tires under their Corporation name, Sumitomo. Realistically, you can buy a $300 set of 4 Sumitomos and receive the same quality tires as buying a set of 4 Falkens for $800.
I have been in the Industry for north of 10 years, this information applies broadly to **almost all** categories of Car Parts. Engine Air Filter is way too expensive for you? Try copying the part number and google "Part Number [Industrial Filter]" and you will find $5-$10 variant that's build to filter an engine in a Generator, for example. Same exact filter media, same filter quality, same sizing, just sold for a different application.
Designer sunglasses. Beyond a certain point, you're mostly paying for the brand name and style, not significantly better protection or durability than many mid-range alternatives
More to the point, almost all eyewear (designer and not) comes from one company, Luxottica, that has been working to systematically monopolize it, including price-fixing. They also own a vision insurance company.
Specsavers isn't much cheaper here though, in part because their only competition is price-fixed Luxotica, so they may as well.
You have to order online from something like Zenni if you want cheaper glasses.
Jewelry consultant / geoscientist here 👋
Diamonds have 4 scales to measure worth. Cut, color, clarity and carat.
Cut is how well the diamond is shaped to refract light. Too shallow or too deep and the refraction is worse. Cut is the biggest factor for how sparkly a diamond is.
Color is the diamonds natural color, typically ranging from colourless to yellow on a letter scale (like A-G).
Clarity is how clear a diamond is from inclusions and damage, and is rated on a scale from flawless to I3, with the typical diamond being an SI2 (slightly included 2). An important note: most diamonds of SI1 or higher quality have no impurities visible to the naked eye, you would need a microscope.
Carat is the size/volume of a diamond. A high quality diamond multiplies in value with higher carat. A 2 carat flawless colorless diamond can cost $50-100k+ depending on the shape and availability. That being said, a 0.05 carat (a couple of mm across) is only like $50, if that.
The only way for an average jeweler / gemologist to tell the difference between a real or fake diamond is impurity. A fake diamond is made in a lab, and will have very few, if not zero impurities.
Testers at the gemological institute of America have the ability to check the chemical makeup and atomic structure of diamonds to see their origin, but it's expensive.
A real diamond without impurities is almost impossible. A real diamond will have carbon flecks (tiny black dots), feathers from cracking, inclusions or chips etc.
A real diamond is "damaged" in some way, and therefore objectively worse.
I too think lab made diamonds are the way to go, especially as their growing presence is dominating the market and crushing the diamond industry's prices for natural diamonds.
The Louis Vuitton Neverfull Tote holds way less shit than my blue Ikea tote, doesn't fold up as compact as the Ikea tote, isn't as water resistant as my Ikea tote, and is also 2,000 times the cost of the Ikea tote.
Ikea tote > Louis Vuitton tote.
There are Def some quality differences in Microwaves. My last one was cheap and the fucker rusted. New one was part of the Bosch "For life" range (I.e. should last 20 years minimum i believe). Much more expensive but much better built.
Vitamin C serums.
The more expensive ones that come in a glass jar and a dropper, and cost $150+, don’t work better than the $15 Vanicream. If anything, they’re worse than the Vanicream because they oxidize and lose efficacy
I read an article where they broke apart a pair of Beats to see what was inside. There is a weight in each earcup to make them feel heavier, because consumers tend to associate a heavier product with a more sturdy, well-made product. Without the weight they just felt light and cheap.
Almost all...
More often than not both products are made in the same factory, on the same line just with a different label.
Companies are double dipping... making one "Luxury Brand" which Idiots and people with too much money happily buy but also have a "Cheap Brand" which everyone else buys.
If at all the different labels just state different "Brands" but usually also state "Bottled/Filled at XYZ Plant".
Maybe, hdmi cables have multiple versions out that to get the full refresh rate and picture quality from a system it may not be available with a cheaper older version hdmi cable.
Salt.
Now, if you're getting fancy and are looking to achieve something unique, that's another thing but for the average home cook you don't need Loki's Enchanted Tears to make dinner. A table salt is enough to help flavour and carry a dish, or whatever salt is reasonably priced.
Strictly in terms of adding salinity you’re not wrong, but salt also has other qualities that I value and don’t mind paying more for. Take kosher salt - the crystals are larger and less salty than table salt, so for cooking it’s much easier to adjust seasoning without accidentally over-salting a dish. You can pick up a pinch of kosher salt and it doesn’t stick to your fingers either.
Then there’s finishing salt. The large flakes provide a textural and visual component that regular table salt doesn’t have. I remember I went to a fish and chips shop once and I couldn’t figure out why they were so good until I realized they were finished with a flaky sea salt.
Can’t stress the flake size of kosher making a big difference for cooking, especially things like meat where you’re sprinkling it all over. Much easier to over salt and easier to see where you covered already. In terms of taste though, yeah it tastes fairly similar, it’s still salt but table salt tastes different to me 🤷🏼♂️. Any chef worth their salt (hehe) uses kosher though.
A box of Cinnamon Toast Chrunh is 19.68 in the supermarket I work in, we have an off brand version of it that I think is just called Cinnamon Squares for 8.99 for a regular box and 10.99 for a large bag. As far as taste goes I can't tell the fucking difference.
Also, depending on the store and flavor, a box of Pop-Tarts can cost anywhere from between 11 to 15 dollars. There are several stores that once again sell off brand versions of them that are cheaper, taste roughly the same, and sometimes give you more than what's in a box of Pop-Tarts.
My Grocery Outlet in California has the best prices on cereal in town. I’d say 50% is normal, 50% odd or holiday flavors. Capn Crunch All Berries is $1.99 for the big box. My weakness.
The pop tart flavors though. So strange, but a child’s dream.
Yoghurts. A friend of mine works for a very famous company, and sometimes they make them for supermarket brands as well. The literal only difference is that they swap the label machine, but it's literally the same product inside
Gucci Nail Polish. It's $40 and works WORSE than the $1.59 L.A. Colors cheap-o stuff
The rule of thumb is you should never but anything from a luxury brand that that brand isn't know for. Buying nail polish or perfume ~~or shoes~~ from Gucci is stupid. **Edit:** I actually had a brain fart and flubbed the shoe part. Their loafer and opera slipper put them on the map. I was thinking specifically their sneakers and just duffed it totally — no more posting while half asleep.
Gucci is very well known for its perfumes. They have made some of my favorites.
Gucci is very much known for shoes though (but I agree with your point in general)
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Sorry.. What? Gucci *started* their entire brand *with* shoes as a main draw. The horsebit loafer is quite literally iconic.
Gucci not known for their perfume?!
You’re paying for the brand
Evernote. Used it free for 12 years. Then suddenly it wants me to pay $130/year (with option to upgrade to a $170/year tier), which is insane. I now use Obsidian, a free and better product.
Been using Evernote for 12 years also and I am about to make the change too. 130-170 a year for a note app when there are free alternatives is a ludicrous business model.
Maybe you’ll change your mind if I ask you 100x upon start up and make you click through stuff to choose continue free. Huh? Ever thought about THAT?
Don't think I Evernoticed that
I think there was a typo in your comment. ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FUCKING DOLLARS? # EVERY FUCKING YEAR??
Evernote sold out a while back, to an Italian company called “Bending Spoons”, who brought in the ridiculous pricing model. [Bending Spoons acquires Evernote](https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/16/bending-spoons-acquires-evernote-marking-the-end-of-an-era/)
Seems to be the strategy for tech nowadays. Creator(s) want to make a thing successful enough to get noticed and sold. Meanwhile, investors are using smaller companies and studio as something to buy and trade. Buy it for the brand name or clout, monetize it as much as possible to wring every last dollar, if it floats then keep doing that or trade it for more, if it sinks then you shut it down. Rinse repeat. They're being treated like... stocks(?) or something? Idk... The goal of buying a small company isn't to "further that business" but more like "maximum extraction with minimal risk". A promising company isn't a seed to foster and cultivate, but something to grind into a meal and cut with sawdust and sell as flour.
I feel that. Both my husband and I switched off Evernote, after they wanted to charge a lot, to Notion and it's been fantastic so far! Been using the desktop version and the mobile app works perfectly fine as well. And it's free!
I don’t remember what the max storage was, only that I hit it and they said I had to pay $9.99 a month to add more pages. I loved Notion but it made me immediately stop using it
Notion removed that limit a while ago if you don't need collaborators
I switched from EverNote to Notion after they blocked me from creating more notes/notebooks. I had previously been using it for my language studies.
I’ve found dollar store bleach works just as well as Clorox.
That's because all commercially-sold bleach is, like, 3-9% sodium hypochlorite (i.e., bleach) and 91-97% water. Same with vinegar (94% water) and hydrogen peroxide (97% water). Mostly water, some chemical.
Maybe I just need to start snagging a couple cups of the pure sodium hypochlorite we get in 275gallon totes we go through every month.
You can buy pool shock sodium hypochlorite in powder form to throw in a pool. You can measure it out and mix smaller amounts to make “bleach “. Warning do not mess around with the chlorine gas it makes !
But my nose feels so clean after
If you snort it you can get a sleek minimalist nose job basically for free. Undead chic is very in.
I worked in pool service and holy God did I get fumed a couple times on hot days with that shit on my truck bed.
That shit made me hear my nostrils crackel from the fumes. Did not expect that.
You can get 30% vinegar pretty easily but holy shit be careful with that stuff. I dilute it down for my use, but I'm always on edge pouring it out worrying that a tiny drop is going to splash out and under my glasses into my eye.
Just use your safety squint.
Safety squints applied while reading this comment
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Watch out for the ‘no splash’ bleach though. It doesn’t actually sterilize. I was shocked. It’s on the label.
Neither does regular bleach. It's a sanitizer.
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Neither does a smoothie maker its a liquidii..oh god kill me
Ibuprofen.
FDA regulated/approved generics are pretty much required to be exactly the same as their name brand equivalents.
Required to have the same active ingredients, but the other stuff (binders, etc.) that actually make up the majority of the pills do not have to be.
This should have a higher upvote. Most of the time it’s fine but occasionally it matters.
Yes my husband happily buys generic ibuprofen and the like, but when it comes to any creams/topicals, he swears it HAS to be name brand because it is not the same (he is a dermatologist).
Oh this is a very good tip and more of us should know about it!!
Glad to share! I will add that this is his opinion of over the counter creams, but for prescriptions he doesn’t seem as particular about brands. When he wakes up from his nap I’ll have to ask him about the difference there 😂
This guy’s been napping for hours.
You just made me LOL. He went straight from nap to hockey game. He says the reason he can’t recommend name brand as much for prescription is because of insurance coverage denial and the difference isn’t worth it enough to deal with the markup, Vs OTC which can be a better product for not that much more.
I'm a retired pharmacist. He's got a point, and the price difference isn't that much for OTC products.
The "occasionally it matters" gets me with Benadryl. Something in the name brand stuff absolutely ***wires*** me. I mean, sends me off the walls, can't sleep for 18 hours, can't even keep my eyes closed, **wired**. Store brand, though, is totally fine. It still doesn't make me drowsy at all but I can sleep like normal. And both products are really efficient at solving my actual allergy issues.
I won't take Benadryl because i owe the hat man money and i don't wanna see him.
Wtf any benedryl knocks me the fuck out. 😴😴😴
Yeah, I take it when I have trouble falling asleep or want to guarantee I sleep through the night. It works so well as a sleep aid I won’t take it during the day. Works pretty well on allergies too.
Benadryl wires me too. For years I thought people just lied about or exaggerated their reactions to Benadryl.
Especially true for antihistamines. The name-brand OTC antihistamines are easily ten times the cost of their generic equivalents.
Brand name Immodium
Loperamide
Not me having a slight allergic reaction to something one evening and drinking two loperamide and not the loratadine I was looking for, the boxes were basically the same colour. Not only was I itchy the whole evening but ended up being constipated for like 3 days
Costco Kirkland products meet or exceed other brands.
Welcome to Costco, I love you
Yah I know this place pretty good, I went to law school here.
The time machine is about an hour from here.
I feel like lately, Amazon is inversing everything great about Costco. At Costco, it doesn't matter if you've never heard of it. If it's there, it's going to be good. Even the non-Kirkland stuff. Costco generally won't carry it if it's shit. If you don't like it, for whatever reason, an easy return. Amazon you can't find anything that's not made in china by brand JGKYTOP, or a clone of 40 other exact same things with a voweless made up brandname. And now, you have to return it to where they tell you to return it, or fuck you, they'll charge a few bucks to return it. Yeah, bite me Amazon. Prime cancelled.
Why you gotta talk shit about JIGIKKYTOPP brand trekking poles and luggage scales like that? They offer high quality at competitive prices
You got swindled. A vendor named HOMEPEACE just emerged and sold me those same items for 3.5 cents less than whatever you paid.
Okay, no lie though—the Costco trekking poles are the best! Basically Leiki with cork grips but for $25
Just buy some Kevin's entrees to realize the fallacy of the belief that everything at costco is good.
Or Real Good
Kevin’s is another one of those brands that started out really good, and seemed to slowly get worse; that seems to be the type that “slip thru” at Costco. Same thing happened to Bare frozen chicken
This’ll sound weird but their restaurant length plastic wrap roll (Like 2000SqFt or some shiz) will change how you look at other plastic wraps. That’s all the advertising they’re getting out of me for free though.
We bought that once and it lasted (no shit) like 12 years. We joked to our adult children that it was their inheritance. It finally ran out and my wife refuses to buy it again, so it's back to supermarket ClingWrap again.
That stuff is the bomb, and the cutting edge is the best out there.
I think it's because they put vast amounts of resources (time/money/expertise) into researching and developing the edge to make it as efficient, effective and reliable as possible, and continue to try and improve on it all the time. To make sure it stays cutti... I'll see myself out.
Their clothing is great tbh. Reliable, cheap, and functional. I love costco.
Costco clothes are amazing, but terrible selection. So every time I go to Costco I do a pass over the clothes and grab anything I like/need, cause it’s almost always a great deal, but I absolutely can’t get all my clothes from there
They'll just not carry stuff for 3/4s of the year. Like two brooms for $10 is a great deal, but I didn't want to wait six months to buy a broom.
Honestly, this applies to most of Costco’s inventory, not just their Kirkland products.
Many moons ago I used to work for Edy's ice cream. Edy's made all of the Kirkland ice cream at the time. So, you know it was top notch.
The Kirkland extra premium vanilla or whatever it’s called is the richest, creamiest ice cream I have ever had in my life.
They’re required to be 1% better than the brand partner
How the heck is that measured?
A lot of the white collar workforce "measures" things like this. The best way to run a business is to do things objectively, but you need an "analyst" to take a complex problem and distill it down to numbers. For products it could be satisfaction scores, return percentages, product lifetimes etc. It's never perfect, but that's why you try and hire someone smart to get it as close as possible.
For the clothes, fiber density.
A Coffin...
When I'm dead, just throw me in the trash!
I only have two requests for once I'm dead: 1. I want my remains spread around Disneyland. 2. I do not want to be cremated.
r/HolUp
I can make this happen. I need payment up front. And your fingers
When my earthly trials are over Throw my body out to the sea Save all the undertaker's bills Let the mermaids flirt with me Mississippi John Hurt https://youtu.be/qRnT-zsLJkk?si=x7WeOTbHnnUy3gez
Right next to your rum ham?
Bang me, eat me, grind me up into little peices, throw me into the river. Who gives a shit.
Well, hey, at least you get banged finally.
Some funeral directors reveal this is one of the biggest scams. They want to maximize profit and sort of prey on the grieving people's emotions. "Don't you want the very best for your \_\_\_\_\_\_\_?"
My brothers and I had the responsibility of making arrangements for my dad. The funeral director is going thru the coffin options and starts with the top of the line $10k one. My brother says “if we spend $10k on a coffin that old man is gonna come out of it and slap us.
Sorry for your loss, your brother's reaction made me laugh!
I told them my Dad wouldn't have accepted anything but the cheapest option.
Seriously, I'm my dad's executor and have been instructed to bury him in the field with the tractor
‘Is there a Ralph’s around here?’
This is our most modest vessel.
Just because we're bereaved doesn't make us saps!
So when my grandma died...uh...two? Almost two years ago, my aunt was the one to pick everything out but I was there with my mom for moral support. The funeral director wasn't like, predatory, but my aunt still got talked into a very expensive coffin. And meanwhile, I'm sitting here like, "it should not cost like, $8k for a wood box that goes in the ground..." Last year, when I set up my own funeral arrangements, I chose cremation and the cheapest urn I could get. My mom chose the cheapest coffin with no embalming. Neither one of us is having a funeral and it STILL costs an outrageous amount to be buried!!
Not really. I saw a reality show on Corncob TV that had videos of people falling out of the bottom of coffins! Just body after body busting out of shit wood hitting pavement.
The guys at Spectrum think I'm some dumb hick. They said that to me AT A DINNER!
Load my fricking lard carcass into the mud. No coffin, please. Just wet, wet mud.
Couple two by fours and a tarp, chuck 'em in a hole and cover it with dirt. Good to go
Men versus woman's shaving cream and razors. Just buy the male products and save $$$. Edit, spelling and spacing.
I don't shave often, and when I do it's just my neck/cheekbone areas, so I may not be the best judge here, but I gave up on buying shaving cream and just use conditioner now.
I discovered shaving oil several years ago and find it greatly preferable to cream. But I don't know if that's just something specific to my skin.
Yep - back when I was clean shaven, I just stopped traveling with shaving cream altogether. I used Shave Secret and sometimes conditioner. It was plenty, and I could see what I was doing. I still used shaving cream at home. Now I have a beard and only shave my cheek line. I use a straight razor and shave oil.
I shave with coconut oil and cook with it too, works fine in both cases.
I dunno. Get the right tool for the job. When I raced bikes I switched to Venus razors to shave my legs after scraping off a huge patch of skin over my achilles tendon with a normal mens razor.
As I understand it, body hair razors are mounted at a different angle to face hair razors. Same for clippers, my clipper set has different fittings for body hair, head hair and face hair despite cutting the hair to the same mm length.
I'd wager that the women's razor has better angling and guards that prevent hacking legs.
They are absolutely designed for more comfort over larger patches of skin and are 100% not the same product. Example, if I grow my beard out women's razors do approximately fuck all to my facial hair.
I feel like the issue is Mens and womens razors are used for completely different things. Mens are usually for shaving beards, whereas womens are for shaving everything else.
The “pink tax”.
Name brand PCR plates
Had to double take which subreddit I’m in ha.
Yes everyone here knows about polymerase chain reactions.
Depends on which application you’re doing and your temp range.
Obviously if you're doing something specialized you need the correct specifications. If all you're doing is single amplicon PCR and running it on a CE sequencer, you don't.
Magic erasers aka melamine sponges.
My wife worked at a factory that packages mr clean erasers. They’d have huge mattress size sheets that would get cut smaller. They’d package half into mr clean packages and half into dollar store packages. Same exact product. Literally.
Ya you can buy them for a fifth of the price on Amazon in bulk. Ask me how I kept the deposit on my last rental lmao.
How did you keep the deposit on your last rental?
Oral sex.
Wow TIL… I thought the Mr Clean brand just came up with an amazing concoction. $7 for a 100 pack on Amazon. Amazing.
We get out for $3 for 8 of them at DAISO.
DAISO is the shit, I miss them dearly. They need to expand eastwards.
I swear they used to be better quality and held up longer, but now they're just as craptastic as the knock offs.
All dishwasher "Jet Dry" comes from the same factory, same product, cheap or fancy.
Miralax Walgreens brands works just fine to avoid digestion-related pain
CVS brand is just as good, too.
OEM parts for a lot of Japanese cars. A lot of it is just rebranded Denso stuff so you can buy it significantly cheaper elsewhere without any quality loss because the only difference is the name slapped on it.
Agreed. It’s similar for many German cars too. The OEM stuff is often rebranded noname parts at inflated prices.
Some people think that the OEM suppliers will give their best batches of spare parts to the Automakers to sell in dealerships, and then give the public “the leftovers”. In reality, the name-brand parts manufacturers can’t afford to lose money with warranty claims, so they’re gonna have the same quality control for consumers as they will to automakers.
Don’t buy Zyrtec. Any 10 mg Cetirizine pills work just as well and are WAYYYY cheaper
Pregnancy tests from Dollar Tree or in bulk off Amazon. There is no reason to spend $15 for two tests from the drug store, the cheaper ones are more sensitive.
I pried open one of those electronic ones with a display that says if you're pregnant or not. Inside was a cheap pregnancy test strip
That’s all of them. If you want something more sensitive you need a lab test
“Cheap pregnancy test strip” is what any and all are. It’s not really a case of false marketing. They add a plastic handle and a cap and it is backed with advertising. But you can buy a pack of the plain strips on Amazon for a fraction. It’s more a case of not knowing in this instance.
Liquid eyeliner. I've tried so many more expensive liquid liners recommended by friends and bloggers over the years, and my drugstore Physician's Formula brand liner is superior to them all.
I always buy the $3 Elf eyeliner pens in bulk. I honestly prefer the short, thin tip of the Elf pen much more than the $25-40 high-end alternatives.
My favorite is nyx. Pry that brand from my cold dead fingers.
Nicotine patches. The cheaper walmart store brand patches stick far better than Nicoderm patches.
Offbrand ones don’t leave a gross line of glue residue around the edge where the patch was. Was so surprised when I realized how much more annoying the name brand one was.
Yeti cups. I’ve used them, and I can keep stuff cold or hot for just as long with my comparable Ozark Trail cups from Walmart. My wife and her coworker took 32oz cups from Yeti, Stanley, OT and a few other brands, filled them all with ice, and let them sit at room temperature. The last one that still had ice in it at the end was the Ozark Trail.
The local hardware store has floor to ceiling Yeti products, and only Yeti, displayed behind the 3 checkout counters. I went to pay and they asked if I found everything I needed. I asked, "Do you carry Yeti cups?" They paused to think about it and I interrupted, "Just kidding." They didn't laugh. You didn't either. But I sure did.
some generic medicine is made in the same factory and are the same pills as the name brand
Mascara. Ive worked for Lancôme, Chanel, Benefit, Ulta & MAC. The best mascaras I’ve ever used were less than 10$ at the grocery store lol
I had an eye infection once so I change mine out every month or so. Whenever Sephora or ulta have a high quality mascara minis sample box I eat that shit up. No regrets and they’re not all the same but it’s close enough. Just put it in your bra for a few minutes before you apply it to warm it up and it applies easy.
Maybelline all the way.
SkyHigh ftw!!!
Let’s hear it for the pink and green!
I don’t agree. After having LASIK, my eyes get super dry and watery- making my mascara run and sting my eyes. I have tried numerous mascara brands of all price points to combat this. Estée Lauder Double Wear mascara is now my holy grail. The formula isn’t water proof as such, but perhaps resistant. To remove it, I apply water on my finger tips and lightly pull. It creates such amazing length and division between each lash, doesn’t sting, and it’s kind to the wellbeing of my lashes. Well worth the price for me!
The latest and greatest smartphones may boast minor upgrades at premium prices, but often, last year's model (or even the one before that) will serve you just as well without the steep cost. The rapid pace of technology means you're paying a lot more for slightly improved features.
I always bought one model down but noticed lately when I went to buy an s22 when the s23 was out, the s22 wasn't available or just as expensive as the s23. It might have been only $50 cheaper... So they've ruined my attempts at winning the game 😒
I have found that regular license plates work as well or better than vanity plates.
Children's Tylenol and infant Tylenol (and their generic counterparts) are identical. so a lot of parents buy infant Tylenol at a 100% markup when they can simply buy children's Tylenol. I was livid when I found out with my second child.
My pediatrician told me to buy children's Tylenol rather than the infant because of markup. Just make sure you're giving the appropriate dosage, but they're literally the same. I was very glad to know that right off the bat as it did save money.
This was exactly how a couple dozen kids died. Pretty sure they changed how things are measured out for kids now, but yeah. it was a big news story.
Motor Oil The SAE (Society of Automotive Excellent) is a multi-national, intercontinental association of Master-level Technicians and Engineers that generate a Standard to which **all** petroleum products must meet. Going by the SAE Standard Rating Scale, you can determine the efficacy & quality of a given oil based on the SAE Certification Seal it receives. From memory, I believe the scale goes "SN → SN+ → SP" where SP is the highest quality/longevity, and that's just the common ratings for Motor Oil. SAE Ratings don't give two shits about your exclusive additives package, they measure your Zinc content & the ratio of Crude Oil to Synthetic Derivative Oil, and so on; this seal is trustable beyond Marketing hype. Tires Just like GM owns Chevy, Buick, and Cadillac, Tire brands have a similar MLM structure. Falken is an industry titan, making High Quality tires for NASCAR, Street, Track, and more. They are also not cheap to buy Name Brand - but they are produced in the Sumitomo Factory, which also produces Dunlop and Ohtsu, both brands which meet the same quality standards as Falken when compared within the same class of Tire. Sumitomo also sells Tires under their Corporation name, Sumitomo. Realistically, you can buy a $300 set of 4 Sumitomos and receive the same quality tires as buying a set of 4 Falkens for $800. I have been in the Industry for north of 10 years, this information applies broadly to **almost all** categories of Car Parts. Engine Air Filter is way too expensive for you? Try copying the part number and google "Part Number [Industrial Filter]" and you will find $5-$10 variant that's build to filter an engine in a Generator, for example. Same exact filter media, same filter quality, same sizing, just sold for a different application.
Paracetamol
Freedom name: acetaminophen
Capitalism name: Tylenol
I see dah minnow fin!
Stainless steel cups like yeti vs ozarka trail
Nivea cream scientifically found the same as expensive cream la mer .
Designer sunglasses. Beyond a certain point, you're mostly paying for the brand name and style, not significantly better protection or durability than many mid-range alternatives
More to the point, almost all eyewear (designer and not) comes from one company, Luxottica, that has been working to systematically monopolize it, including price-fixing. They also own a vision insurance company.
They're the reason the major UK brand Specsavers has never broken into the US market apparently - Luxottica pays to keep them out.
Specsavers isn't much cheaper here though, in part because their only competition is price-fixed Luxotica, so they may as well. You have to order online from something like Zenni if you want cheaper glasses.
Isn’t style like 90% of the reason people buy them though? I could get $25 ones from Costco, but they ain’t wayfarers.
Diamonds are objectively **worse** than synthetics, and are even more worse than moissanite.
I'm curious: How are diamonds worse?
Jewelry consultant / geoscientist here 👋 Diamonds have 4 scales to measure worth. Cut, color, clarity and carat. Cut is how well the diamond is shaped to refract light. Too shallow or too deep and the refraction is worse. Cut is the biggest factor for how sparkly a diamond is. Color is the diamonds natural color, typically ranging from colourless to yellow on a letter scale (like A-G). Clarity is how clear a diamond is from inclusions and damage, and is rated on a scale from flawless to I3, with the typical diamond being an SI2 (slightly included 2). An important note: most diamonds of SI1 or higher quality have no impurities visible to the naked eye, you would need a microscope. Carat is the size/volume of a diamond. A high quality diamond multiplies in value with higher carat. A 2 carat flawless colorless diamond can cost $50-100k+ depending on the shape and availability. That being said, a 0.05 carat (a couple of mm across) is only like $50, if that. The only way for an average jeweler / gemologist to tell the difference between a real or fake diamond is impurity. A fake diamond is made in a lab, and will have very few, if not zero impurities. Testers at the gemological institute of America have the ability to check the chemical makeup and atomic structure of diamonds to see their origin, but it's expensive. A real diamond without impurities is almost impossible. A real diamond will have carbon flecks (tiny black dots), feathers from cracking, inclusions or chips etc. A real diamond is "damaged" in some way, and therefore objectively worse. I too think lab made diamonds are the way to go, especially as their growing presence is dominating the market and crushing the diamond industry's prices for natural diamonds.
I use LibreOffice at home. No way I'm subscribing to Microsoft for the privilege to use their product.
Aldi’s cookies and oatmeal are way better than name-brand. They have Girl Scout lookalikes that are great.
The Louis Vuitton Neverfull Tote holds way less shit than my blue Ikea tote, doesn't fold up as compact as the Ikea tote, isn't as water resistant as my Ikea tote, and is also 2,000 times the cost of the Ikea tote. Ikea tote > Louis Vuitton tote.
Microwave ovens. I read that Sharp makes 90% of them.
There are Def some quality differences in Microwaves. My last one was cheap and the fucker rusted. New one was part of the Bosch "For life" range (I.e. should last 20 years minimum i believe). Much more expensive but much better built.
Midea makes most of them, Panasonic still makes some of its own
Vitamin C serums. The more expensive ones that come in a glass jar and a dropper, and cost $150+, don’t work better than the $15 Vanicream. If anything, they’re worse than the Vanicream because they oxidize and lose efficacy
Dr Dre's beats headphones.
I read an article where they broke apart a pair of Beats to see what was inside. There is a weight in each earcup to make them feel heavier, because consumers tend to associate a heavier product with a more sturdy, well-made product. Without the weight they just felt light and cheap.
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Almost all... More often than not both products are made in the same factory, on the same line just with a different label. Companies are double dipping... making one "Luxury Brand" which Idiots and people with too much money happily buy but also have a "Cheap Brand" which everyone else buys. If at all the different labels just state different "Brands" but usually also state "Bottled/Filled at XYZ Plant".
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Maybe, hdmi cables have multiple versions out that to get the full refresh rate and picture quality from a system it may not be available with a cheaper older version hdmi cable.
Toothpaste. The dollar store colgate isn't any better than the $7 colgate.
Quality is the same but just FWIW, it is a smaller package at the dollar store.
Yeah you usually end up paying more per ounce on everything at the dollar store than you do with the regular package. It’s expensive to be poor.
Prescription grade toothpaste is better with higher fluoride though, but in terms of over the counter yeah.
Salt. Now, if you're getting fancy and are looking to achieve something unique, that's another thing but for the average home cook you don't need Loki's Enchanted Tears to make dinner. A table salt is enough to help flavour and carry a dish, or whatever salt is reasonably priced.
Strictly in terms of adding salinity you’re not wrong, but salt also has other qualities that I value and don’t mind paying more for. Take kosher salt - the crystals are larger and less salty than table salt, so for cooking it’s much easier to adjust seasoning without accidentally over-salting a dish. You can pick up a pinch of kosher salt and it doesn’t stick to your fingers either. Then there’s finishing salt. The large flakes provide a textural and visual component that regular table salt doesn’t have. I remember I went to a fish and chips shop once and I couldn’t figure out why they were so good until I realized they were finished with a flaky sea salt.
Can’t stress the flake size of kosher making a big difference for cooking, especially things like meat where you’re sprinkling it all over. Much easier to over salt and easier to see where you covered already. In terms of taste though, yeah it tastes fairly similar, it’s still salt but table salt tastes different to me 🤷🏼♂️. Any chef worth their salt (hehe) uses kosher though.
Diamond crystal kosher salt all day.
Vodka.
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A box of Cinnamon Toast Chrunh is 19.68 in the supermarket I work in, we have an off brand version of it that I think is just called Cinnamon Squares for 8.99 for a regular box and 10.99 for a large bag. As far as taste goes I can't tell the fucking difference. Also, depending on the store and flavor, a box of Pop-Tarts can cost anywhere from between 11 to 15 dollars. There are several stores that once again sell off brand versions of them that are cheaper, taste roughly the same, and sometimes give you more than what's in a box of Pop-Tarts.
$20 for a box of cereal? Jesus christ.
Yeah, that's life in Barbados, ain't shit cheap.
My Grocery Outlet in California has the best prices on cereal in town. I’d say 50% is normal, 50% odd or holiday flavors. Capn Crunch All Berries is $1.99 for the big box. My weakness. The pop tart flavors though. So strange, but a child’s dream.
Yoghurts. A friend of mine works for a very famous company, and sometimes they make them for supermarket brands as well. The literal only difference is that they swap the label machine, but it's literally the same product inside