For example, if you insist on buying Advil instead of store brand ibuprofen. I mean, you’d be wasting your money in that example, but you do you
SD cards, SSD, USB drives, any form of computer memory really and replacement batteries too eg for cameras. I suck up the cost and buy directly from a reputable manufacturer.
There’s nothing quite as frustrating as loosing photos and footage before it’s been ingested. Always use name brand media and always duplicate it asap. Ask me how I know.
Oh no, whose wedding shoot did you lose? 😄
*whose
Alright alright, I corrected it 😅 thanks haha
It was a cousin’s wedding. Fortunately I had two cards, filled the first and the second one bit the dust. The ceremony survived but most of the reception pictures are lost. Not the worst case but they were not happy with me. Mem cards were a lot smaller back then.
Glad you survived the bride and groom’s wrath! 😄
Huh, I’ve never had any problems going bottom of the barrel on anything PC related besides micro SD cards for home security and dashcams.
Most power supplies that aren’t just ripped out of some unknown piece of tech are great these days too.
That is very highly dependent on your definition of great. Compared to cheap ass shit 20 years ago, sure. But compared to quality today, no.
Mine is Q-tips…. Let’s just say you shouldn’t put a flimsy cotton stick in your ear unless you trust it’ll come out in one piece
You shouldn’t put cotton buds in your ears at all, honestly I don’t know how an industry managed to trick so many people into doing something so potentially hazardous.
Let’s just say you shouldn’t put a flimsy cotton stick in your ear
unless you trust it’ll come out in one piece. Just don’t.I have daily for decades and have never had a problem
I’m glad it’s worked out for you so far, but you really should stop. Your ears probably don’t need to be cleaned at all. You could end up damaging your ears at worst, and at best you’re just pushing ear wax deeper into your ears, possibly creating a clog that might not have happened otherwise.
Anecdotally, I stopped cleaning my ears 15-20 years ago, and not once have I had ears clogged due to earwax.
That’s not at all true for everyone. My ears 1000% need to be cleaned, unfortunately. My ears will periodically get physically clogged with wax and it will both impair my hearing and feel gross/uncomfortable. My brothers all have this issue as well, so maybe I am just genetically predisposed to create too much earwax or something.
I don’t use a Q tip though. That can’t at all unclog a wax impaction. Instead, I use something called an “ear syringe” (there’s no needle don’t worry lol). You fill it with water from the sink and squirt it into your ear. Cheap, reusable, and will get rid of wax clogs. You can pick one up cheap at any drug store.
The wax impactions could be from things like in ear headphones, but I very rarely use in ears to begin with. It will happen even during long periods of not using them.
It’s really easy and quick to use, and creates minimal mess. Whenever I start to feel a clog coming on, I just use it for a few minutes over the sink and I’m good to go. I’d highly recommend it to anyone with wax issues. The chemical wax softeners like Debrox (or even hydrogen peroxide) cost too much and are really not very effective compared to simple mechanical removal.
Irish butter, in particularly Kerrygold, are so much better than american butter.
Yes, once I tried kerrygold, I never went back.
What’s different about it?
It’s deeper and richer. Sauteed onions in irish butter soften easier and taste more flavorful.
Kerrygold (and other imported-to-US/European, “fancy,” etc.) butter just tastes better. It has more fat content than land o lakes, for example, which contributes. The unsalted version is also cultured, and that makes a difference too. It’s definitely worth the price in any use where the butter flavor is important. In baking, maybe it’s not as worth it, but even then I’d still use it over a US brand.
It’s got a bit o the Irish in it
Ireland gets a ton of rain, and all of our cattle is grass fed. Turns out, cows that eat organic grass from rainy parts of the world make great milk and butter.
I’m from Ireland and our milk, butter, cream and even yogurt is fantastic.
I’m 26 but will literally have bread and butter with a glass of milk as a bed time snack.
There are some iffy brands locally, but Kerrygold is god tier.
I’ve been toying with the idea of going full vegan now that there are good plant based alternatives. But I will always miss Irish dairy.
Irish are so much better than American. Word.
Irish butter is a generic category. Kerrygold is an irish butter name brand
Garbage bags. I don’t particularly care WHICH brand, but I won’t do generic. The consequences if the bag rips open are horrifying.
Debian. All those off-brand derivatives just add cruft and instability.
But debian is the generic.
Zoop zoop!
Q-Tips. Paper shafts, plenty of fuzz on the ends.
Victorinox Swiss Army knives. If you want a tiny, multipurpose pocketknife, they cannot be beat.
And they’re cheap enough from TSA eBay sales, why would you accept a crappy knockoff?!
Removed by mod
Their also (or at least used to) honor their warranty. I had problems with one of their knives several years after I bought it. It got replaced without a major hassle. Haven’t had to use the warranty again in decades though, so it could be different now.
I can’t agree with you more on this. I have used them for years, most recently got one with a scalloped side that fits in your hand so nicely. My son is a cub scout and just got one too, his first pocketknife.
Kraft mac and cheese, all the store brands are superficially similar but taste bland and or have weird textures.
Epicurious put out a fun video last week having a few chefs compare boxed mac and cheese products. You might find it interesting https://youtu.be/uambW2W6zmQ
I prefer Velveeta shells and cheese to all the other boxed Mac and cheese dinners. That said, if I have someone to act as a dishwasher, I will make a banging baked Mac and cheese that blows any box out of the water. I don’t mind the cooking, or prep. Cleanup is always a chore.
No doubt. Homemade is infinitely superior. Almost a different kind of food. Just comparing it to generic store brands.
I honestly can’t think of anything. I own many “name brand” products but it’s usually a pay-once-cry-once situation. It’s not like I keep buying more of the same product after I already have one.
For consumables pretty much every product I use is the generic version of some well known one. I’m not paying double the price for something that’s 20% better. For example the generic version of my favourite cookies is 95 cents and the name brand is 3.4€. It’s not that much better.
For consumables, I agree that generic almost always tastes nearly the same.
However, there are some snacks that the generic brands can’t seem to get right for some reason. Generic Oreos? They taste great and almost exactly the same. Generic sour cream and cheddar potato chips? They taste like shit for some reason and I’m not sure why.
Wildly disagree about Oreos
pay-once-cry-once situation
I’ve never heard this phrase, and I’m struggling to figure it out from context. Does it mean that you regret the purchase after finding out it’s not as good as you thought, but then don’t replace it with something better because you don’t want to spend more?
I’ve only ever heard buy-once-cry-once and it’s usually in the context of eating the bullet and paying more out of the gate for a good product that you know will last you years and years. Like a Miele vacuum or a kitchen aid dishwasher or something. Premium prices, but hopefully the only one you’ll ever need for decades if you take care of it.
That is how it is with many products. If you pay twice as much for wine it does not taste twice as good - but still noticably better.
Spam, off brand spam just isn’t worth it
There’s off-brand SPAM?
ＬＵＮＣＨＥＯＮ ＭＥＡＴ
SMEET.
SCHMEEAT
Quite a lot, actually.
My dad always bought the no-name cookies for us, according to him every major brand had a deal with discount supermarkets to sell their brand name product under a cheaper no-name alias.
That might be true in some cases but the stuff he bought was mostly just cheap knock-offs that didn’t even come close to the original.
This is true for household appliances, rather than letting the factories go idle during slow sales they pump out the same machine under “generic” brand names. QC isn’t as stringent I suppose.
Coffee. I found a coffee shop I loved 20 years ago and have been buying beans from them ever since. Sure, it’s 2x-3x times more expensive, but it’s worth it to me.
Toothpaste. I have sensitive teeth and the off brands just don’t cut it. Heck, some of the name brands don’t.
3d printing filament. Printed Solid named their line after their dog, so I have to. I will still branch out for stuff on sale, but the majority of my stock is Printed Solid.
Upgrades to a pei bed. We ran 5 printers 20 hours per day for 3 months and the bed upgrade literally changed our lives.
Heinz ketchup, everything else is garbage in a bottle!
I was going to say Heinz beans, but yeah, the ketchup too.
Oreos
Contact lens solution (any name brand)
Fun fact: Oreos are the knock-off brand. Hydrox was the original.
TBD, Hydrox is a pretty bad name and Oreo definitely had the better marketing team.
It’s because of the time. The owner wanted to imply cleanliness in production, chemistry was pretty new, and what could be cleaner than water? Hence Hydrox
“A lot of people worked really hard on this.”
“Why?”
Really? I think the Great Value knockoff Oreos taste fantastic.
Tried buying some organic Oreos once.
They were quickly referred to as “punishment cookies”.
That one box lasted almost 3 months rather than the 3day lifespan of a normal Oreo.
I wear dailies now but when I didn’t I used just generic saline solution and never felt any difference from the fancy stuff.
Netherlands represent!
Coca Cola
Hela curry ketchup
Albert Heijn frikadelbroodje
Ben & Jerry’s ice creamZeisner curry ketchup is the best though! Don’t know if you can buy it in the Netherlands.
I’m definitely trying the frikandelbroodje next time I’m at Albert Heijn. Don’t know if the Belgian one has all the same products.
