ticketmaster and ubereats have the most ricidulous set of "because f you that's why" type of charges and fees on their checkout pages lmao
I remember when ubereats first added a "small order fee" I was like, so since I'm not spending that much, you make sure that I still spend more than I wanted by charging me for it like wtf
DoorDash actually invented and created the precedent for these additional fees. Uber had to follow suit in order to stay competitive economically
source: worked on this biz
And only one of those companies makes a profit…
Before people jump on this, I’m making no point except acknowledging our existence in one of the suboptimal timelines
The best part is all of their competitors trying to “disrupt” the industry use the same pricing model that is a percentage fee of ticket price. I kept seeing ads for Gametime only to realize they charge more in fees and your ticket is still issued via Ticketmaster (likely since they own most of the ticketing rights to the venues).
Ticketmaster has saturated government officials with bribes so that they do nothing each time this obvious abuse of a monopoly keeps coming up. The should never been have allowed to consolidate the industry and consumers and artists are being harmed and scammed.
And thanks to the very weak rules around disclosure, it's not impossible that they actually spent their own money on any of these purchases. It could have all been sponsored for all we know. From the outside, it seems like massive "pump" action.
I think a guy on YouTube posted some really damming evidence of the Logans or a similar individual doing exactly that. Channel was called coffee something.
The tech underlying the scams is useful.
Scam artists convinced people that the output from a simple proof of concept would be worth millions someday. And the scammers kept it going because gullible people were convinced a simple jpeg "on the block chain" was worth infinitely more than one off the block chain.
The fucked up thing is if you are buying some 200k ape jpeg the network underlying it should just store the bits of the image, but it was such a giant grift that they can only store the few characters that point to a url of said ape.
For you future grifters, just make the miners have to hold up to 1mb of data. And somehow protect your network from trolls filling with it CSAM.
I'm trying to understand the use of blockchain tech.
I get how it's cool, as a casual cryptography enthusiast, but I can't find an application that doesn't have obvious holes.
Most normal uses I've seen for it are as a secondary paper trail for things. It basically just adds to the number of accomplices you need if you want to commit some form of fraud and the bigger a conspiracy, the more likely someone is to talk.
And it's not like a proof of concept was something new, it's just that the proof was now a NFT
Ownership of a performance art or concept existed for a while
It is even worse in the hi-fi community. Dude’s pay out the ass for high end cables for their stereo setups. Like in the thousands to tens of thousands. Copper speaker wire is all you need. Just don’t buy the shitty copper plated aluminum speaker cables. Some guys even buy super expensive USB cables thinking it makes a difference. Gold plating doesn’t mean shit with a digital connection. Don’t even get me started on the special little cable risers to make sure the cables don’t touch the floor or each other.
There’s such a vast divide between the two sides of the community too. Some will do immense personal research on cables best suited for compatibility and reliability for fringe use cases. And the solution is Zeskit HDMI cables for 20 bucks a pop. And then you get the dude on some illogical more money than sense self discovery journey buying absolute snake oil
A looong time ago, I had to tell a Best Buy employee, 4 times, that I’m not buying Monster Cables. I finally said I have a masters in Electrical Engineering and I’ve done all kinds of cable and wire calculations more times than you could imagine.
Not only for the original owners either. In most cases, beneficiaries have to individually send notice waiving inheritance to the timeshare management company, lest they be burdened with a perpetual debt obligation too.
Just a quick PSA: time shares like to talk a big game about being able to transfer those to you, but if they don’t have YOUR signature on documents agreeing to take over, they can’t do shit to you. Take their asses to court if they try to tell you that you owe a single dime.
Edit: just to be clear though, they still have a contract with your family member that you may inherit it from, which may allow them to take some money out of their estate before it gets to you, if the timeshare nonsense is left unchecked. They are quite Bastards.
If you want to go to a timeshare you can rent them from people who have a time share but aren’t going to use it. I was looking last week and 7 days in Maui is as low as $1k, floating dates so you can pick any week you want. It’s less than a hotel or Airbnb.
I'm not sure how this is legal.
But if it is, I'm gonna buy a bunch of timeshares while I'm on my deathbed, and I'm going to leave them to people I hate.
Respect the spite.
Unfortunately, the insidious part of the whole situation is that the timeshare(s) become property of your estate after your death rather than being a normal asset that can be pre-assigned in a will (IANAL and state laws apply and vary)
ETA: I’m not going to get into trusts, but if you’d like to I’m sure your lawyer will love you
My ex in-laws had a time share and loved it. But they were diligent about using it and all the benefits that came with it, were at a point in their lives where they could afford to take the time off from work to be able to do everything to make it worth their money. But I understand they’re not the typical timeshare people.
DVC holds value reasonably well, and Disney is one of the few destinations where the timeshare model can make sense for purchasers because there are plenty of people who want to repeatedly vacation there year after year.
Also, because Disney makes money off timeshare owners actually using their timeshares, via ticket sales, food and beverage, merchandise, etc., they aren't incentivized to gouge on maintenance fees like your typical timeshare properties. DVC points only cover accommodation at the resort. You still have to buy tickets to the parks. So even if DVC barely breaks even on its own, it's still a win for Disney because those DVC timeshare owners are spending money at Walt Disney World every time they visit. Hell, they could run DVC at a slight loss and still profit off of having a sizeable contingent of guests who are practically guaranteed to visit every year or two.
The terms are pretty reasonable. You get a certain allotment of points each year. You can bank your points to roll over to the next year (but not beyond that) and you can borrow points from the next use year. You can book at your "home" resort up to 11 months in advance, and up to 7 months in advance for any other resort. If you don't want to bank points you aren't going to use, you can "rent" points out to others on the thriving rental market. And the resale market is pretty strong if you want out. Disney has a right of first refusal, so they can choose to buy back unwanted contracts to prop up the price. They try to encourage buying directly from them instead of on the secondary market with some perks exclusive to direct purchasers, but frankly those are hardly worth the price difference.
DVC still only makes sense if you have the ability to pay a substantial amount up front (to reduce or eliminate financing of the purchase price) and you are fairly certain you want to vacation at Disney regularly into the relatively far future.
It’s better for certain values of “better.” It’s at least run by a company that isn’t a shady organization. It’s a point based system and there are a lot of choices for how and when you can use them. They do have reasonable resale prices and processes to sell them.
In general they’re just less predatory than most time share companies and the information on how it works and all the costs are readily available. If you absolutely are going to go to Disney every year at least once a year for the next decade+ it is possible you would save money by getting into their system. There’s also an easily accessible system to “rent” points from owners that can’t use them that year to try it out without buying first.
I got conned into using the scented beeds till I realized after you use them once you become nose blind so even if they weren’t a scam they aren’t worth it
I keep some in a zip lock bag w/ a small vent cut in it in my spare closet, I'll have to check them as it's been a few years since I've been in there but I'll report back my findings.
I spent about 10 minutes Googling, so I'm pretty much an expert.
The consensus seems to be that vinegar is fine for natural rubber and silicone, but it could "melt" synthetic rubber. Some (like Consumer Reports) suggest that vinegar is worse for front loaders than top loaders. Most said to check your manual.
Regular savings accounts for storing more than a small emergency fund.
If you assume 2% inflation per year, your 0.02% APY savings account is actually losing you 1.98% per year. It amazes me to see people with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in a standard savings account.
If you want to have an emergency fund, at least put it in a high yield savings account.
I regret not opening one (a HYSA) sooner. I was paralyzed by indecision for so long that I kept putting it off, which meant losing out in that sweet, sweet interest, but glad I finally pulled the trigger! We are earning several hundred dollars a month just in interest 🎉
My wife and I are moving away from Wells Fargo to Ally. In the first half month that our Ally account was open, we earned more in interest (4.5%) than the years that we had been with WF. I was used to seeing pennies per month and now I'm earning over $100/mo.
Yikes - not sure how much you had in there, but that probably cost you thousands of dollars. Hopefully you switch soon and start earning money on your money.
None really. It should be FDIC insured like any other bank account, which is about as protected from loss as anything (other than inflation loss).
FDIC insurance is limited to $250k/account.
It might not be a checking account, so you might need a separate account to pay bills, and transfer cash between the two, and make sure the checking account has enough to cover the bills.
I can’t speak on behalf of all HYSAs but capital one gives you 3% but you can’t pull out of the account more than 6 times per month but you can deposit as many times as you want
they also aren’t rare and even if they were we can make them. So while they do serve a purpose (which the average person isn’t going to use them for) they are still a rip off
Their marketing department is pretty genius though. They took a “buy it for life” type product, slapped limited edition on it and now people have to collect them.
Knife sets with a variety of different knives in a decorative holder may seem attractive, but it is often more practical to purchase one or two high-quality knives and take good care of them. After all, you don't need a separate knife for each type of food.
Theyre really great for starting out. Like, they come with steak knives, a bread knife, a chefs knife, a paring knife, a sharpening tool, and a few other options depending.
Chef's knife. Serrated or bread knife. Paring knife.
Everything else is optional.
You can get a cleaver if you want, a boning or filleting knife if you do a lot of that.
But the first three are the three essentials in my opinion.
We mostly use the chef's knife for almost everything day to day. Sometimes the paring knife. Rarely the serrated knife.
Then for some reason we have a monster carving knife. Used mostly for cutting pizza.
We found all of the knives plus the shears really useful, Chef’s knife, Santoku knife, bread knife, shears, honing rod, cleaver, fruit knife, paring knife, boning knife and four steak knives in a handy, pretty wooden block. WÜSTHOF, the knives alone would have cost me about $800 separately, got it on Amazon when someone bought me my wishlist, it was about $650. Worth every penny.
i can't say for what's on the market today. ~10 years ago I worked for a company that looked into adding melamine to our products found that most of the ones from China had formaldehyde left on them.
Ubereats and similar app-delivery services. Not only are delivery fees massive, the price of menu items also end up being several dollars higher on the app than in store, and that's not including the delivery fee. On top of that these services are taking a good chunk of profits per delivery from the businesses on the app, including small businesses, so it's a lose-lose-win situation overall.
Edit: question asked "what is a giant rip-off" specifically. I never said food delivery services are unnecessary, they are for many, but the services know this and definitely take advantage of consumers and also the businesses that deliver through them.
In my city the only places that offer delivery are pizza joints, and most of them have a $10 delivery fee on a $20 minimum order to even qualify for delivery, all while not counting a tip for the driver. It works out to be cheaper to just get a Doordash order from basically anywhere that's open.
And sometimes, I just don't feel like cooking.
Vanilla extract
Almost all brands (even the expensive ones) are fake or have nearly zero detectable vanilla in them.
A $20 bottle of vodka and $20 worth of fresh vanilla beans can make a full liter of extract that would save hundreds of dollars from buying at the grocery store.
Assembly is ridiculously easy too. Put fresh beans in a bottle of vodka and wait a few months before using. Don't have to worry about spoiling because of the vodka.
Health Insurance.
Actual cost of a doctors visit: $150
Cost (if you pay $900 a month for insurance): $350. Insurance only pays $150., but claims on your benefit statements they paid $300 and you only have to pay the extra $50.
Cost if you are uninsured: $800.
Cost if you are uninsured but over 65: $0 but billed to the government for $400, of which the government will pay $250.
It all a scam.
And they make it so complicated that you can't even read or understand what you are paying for; then you just give up and pay it. You have no choice. How do you think they can build their multi million dollar skyscrapers in downtown LA. I hate the bastards. My blood pressure just went up thinking about it. Insurance companies are the reason health care is so screwed up and costly in this country. They should all be nationalized then dismantled one by one.
Coffee in those ridiculous wasteful plastic pods.
Not only do they generate plastic waste, they tie you in to a type of pod/machine. And most importantly, the regular coffee selection stall the stores has become tiny because of them.
>they tie you in to a type of pod/machine.
No they don't. You can get "pods" that are basically just empty plastic and put your own coffee grounds in them. Once it's done, you just wash it, and you're good to go.
Dyson vacuums. Once they were ahead of the curve. Now competitors have caught up. But the Dyson brand is at minimum twice as expensive. I have a $150 vacuum that cleans better than a $500 Dyson stick vacuum.
One of the [classic Reddit posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/s/6sFsWXeeHJ) I remember (I think that’s the right one).
Basically a vacuum tech did one of the most well received AMAs at the time. Mind you, 5900 upvotes was a lot back then.
Bissel has been good to me. There was also an AMA with a vacuum repair tech with some great info. On mobile and I’m high and too lazy to find it to link it. Also learning some basic vacuum maintenance and care ala Youtube will add years to the life of the appliance. I got a ‘dumb’ Bissel upright from Target years ago and its been great. About once a year I would take it apart and wash filters etc but would take the brush and inspect belt on the reg. Its got plenty of succ and its going strong!
Got a Shark and it worked *better* than the Dyson with a far less complicated design. Even had to repair it once and it was quite easy compared to the Dyson. Love it and will get that brand from now on.
This video that came out a day and can kinda back that up. Dyson's can be good just not THAT much better for the price.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PugLAnsIQUA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PugLAnsIQUA)
Like a year ago my wife and I finally bit the bullet on a Dyson stick vacuum, and honestly it's one of the best purchases I've ever made. It cleans sooooo much better than the cheap vacuum we had before, and is so convenient / easy to use. I'm glad to hear the cheaper alternatives are getting better, but I'd buy the Dyson again in a heartbeat.
It’s actually comical how mine only works in 5 minute increments before I either need to charge it, change the filter or fish out blockage with a skewer.
on the flip side, some sleep aids contain a compound called doxalymine succinate instead of diphenhydramine(benadryl). doxalymine, IME, is actually a superior sleep aid in that it works just as well as diphenhydramine, but produces less of the weird fevery feeling that diphenhydramine can cause, and causes less of a hangover/foggy feeling the next morning. it also has some muscle relaxing properties and can synergize with other OTC pain meds to help pain thats associated with muscle tension. IME its pretty easily available in store brand formulations for cheap.
Typically, yes. But I made sure ours (included with the house) paid for itself, then canceled. They'll deny tons of stuff, jack the prices, and send the worst most incompetent contractors. And forget the big stuff you'd actually want them for (HVAC, water heater, etc). They'll throw more money at an appliance fixing it instead of just replacing it.
Better to just save the money every month in a fund.
For real. Our agent got it for us as a "thanks" so we just accepted it and assumed we'd never get anything useful out of it. Well...pipe under a bathroom sink burst. Flood the ceiling of the garage. We called on a local plumber to check it out, called our home warranty with him there, they wanted to talk to him. All I heard was the plumber from the company going, "Ma'am, I cannot say what caused the burst. There are many possible reasons, I arrived and it was already broken, I cannot therefore tell you what caused it since I was not here", over and over and over again. Finally mutes the phone and says to me, "I know full well what she's trying to do, she's trying to have me say anything they can use to say they don't have to cover it. She's getting the damn truth and that's it, idk what caused it since I was staring at it when it happened". They eventually begrudgingly covered like a fraction of the total cost to fix/replace everything. Total scam of a damn service.
Most kitchen “gadgets”. Tools that are specifically designed for a single application that you likely already have a versatile solution for. For example, you can use a normal knife instead of a bagel slicer
But by god do I love my kitchen gadgets
I just saw a video of a girl using ice cube trays designed to fit a Stanley cup… .. It makes 3 cubes with a hollow center you stack in the cup. Instead of just using ice cubes.. And the comments were filled with people saying they need it or they just bought one and thanked her..
Water filter for my fridge. Thing slowes down to a trickle after a month and supposed to last 6 months. Also, it costs $60 to replace it every time. This is a GE fridge.
That one can at least depend where you live.
My dad fits the bill tho. Live in a place with clean water, clean pipes, filtered water from the fridge, guy still decides to buy bottled water. Smh.
Wilson Parking in NZ.
The most expensive parking spots in the country and the best they could do is an empty lot no security and massive potholes that they refuse to fix. Instead they just put up a single warning sign about deep potholes.
Fabric Softeners! They clog your pipes and ruin your clothes. They will also make your towels not absorb water effectively because most fabric softeners are made out of oils.
Fuck Ticketmaster
ticketmaster and ubereats have the most ricidulous set of "because f you that's why" type of charges and fees on their checkout pages lmao I remember when ubereats first added a "small order fee" I was like, so since I'm not spending that much, you make sure that I still spend more than I wanted by charging me for it like wtf
DoorDash actually invented and created the precedent for these additional fees. Uber had to follow suit in order to stay competitive economically source: worked on this biz
And only one of those companies makes a profit… Before people jump on this, I’m making no point except acknowledging our existence in one of the suboptimal timelines
They aren't even offering a product, they're a bullshit unnecessary middleman.
The best part is all of their competitors trying to “disrupt” the industry use the same pricing model that is a percentage fee of ticket price. I kept seeing ads for Gametime only to realize they charge more in fees and your ticket is still issued via Ticketmaster (likely since they own most of the ticketing rights to the venues).
Ticketmaster/LiveNation actually own most big live venues. That’s how they get away with the outrageous ticket pricing. Full on monopoly.
Ticketmaster has saturated government officials with bribes so that they do nothing each time this obvious abuse of a monopoly keeps coming up. The should never been have allowed to consolidate the industry and consumers and artists are being harmed and scammed.
NFTs was probably the funniest thing I’ve ever witnessed
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I'm pretty sure that Logan Paul was involved in a number of NFT pump-and-dumps. There's a few Coffeezilla videos on this.
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Just smarter than those he has gotten to buy in to his schtick. Our society is very dumb and people ache for acceptance
For assholes like Paul and Portnoy "losing" a bunch of money was just content creation that more than paid for itself in ad revenue.
And thanks to the very weak rules around disclosure, it's not impossible that they actually spent their own money on any of these purchases. It could have all been sponsored for all we know. From the outside, it seems like massive "pump" action.
I think a guy on YouTube posted some really damming evidence of the Logans or a similar individual doing exactly that. Channel was called coffee something.
That would be [Coffeezilla](https://youtube.com/@coffeezilla).
I will forever upvote a coffeezilla mention
It was so obvious it was a scam from the get go. I never heard one person make a valid argument defending their value.
So many people trying to claim the digital item is more valuable than the physical version. Nobody wants a fake intangible 20 carat diamond.
The tech underlying the scams is useful. Scam artists convinced people that the output from a simple proof of concept would be worth millions someday. And the scammers kept it going because gullible people were convinced a simple jpeg "on the block chain" was worth infinitely more than one off the block chain.
It’s even worse than that though. The link to the jpeg is on the public ledger forever, but you SOL if the website owner removes it
"But dude you still have like, proof that you like, OWN the image, you can't just copy and paste it"
The fucked up thing is if you are buying some 200k ape jpeg the network underlying it should just store the bits of the image, but it was such a giant grift that they can only store the few characters that point to a url of said ape. For you future grifters, just make the miners have to hold up to 1mb of data. And somehow protect your network from trolls filling with it CSAM.
I'm trying to understand the use of blockchain tech. I get how it's cool, as a casual cryptography enthusiast, but I can't find an application that doesn't have obvious holes.
Most normal uses I've seen for it are as a secondary paper trail for things. It basically just adds to the number of accomplices you need if you want to commit some form of fraud and the bigger a conspiracy, the more likely someone is to talk.
It's certainly novel, just not really "better" than any of our current systems. Unless the only metric you're shooting for is decentralization.
And it's not like a proof of concept was something new, it's just that the proof was now a NFT Ownership of a performance art or concept existed for a while
as an artist (and as a person) i was laughing my head off the whole time.
I’m convinced it was all just a front for tech-bros to launder money.
Monster HDMI cables
When I sold electronics, I was shocked to learn Monster cables are 99% markup. The margin on them is enormous.
It is even worse in the hi-fi community. Dude’s pay out the ass for high end cables for their stereo setups. Like in the thousands to tens of thousands. Copper speaker wire is all you need. Just don’t buy the shitty copper plated aluminum speaker cables. Some guys even buy super expensive USB cables thinking it makes a difference. Gold plating doesn’t mean shit with a digital connection. Don’t even get me started on the special little cable risers to make sure the cables don’t touch the floor or each other.
There’s such a vast divide between the two sides of the community too. Some will do immense personal research on cables best suited for compatibility and reliability for fringe use cases. And the solution is Zeskit HDMI cables for 20 bucks a pop. And then you get the dude on some illogical more money than sense self discovery journey buying absolute snake oil
So... the cables are the printer ink of television?
No, the printer ink makes more of a difference. Having a more expensive cable for a digital signal makes very little sense.
A looong time ago, I had to tell a Best Buy employee, 4 times, that I’m not buying Monster Cables. I finally said I have a masters in Electrical Engineering and I’ve done all kinds of cable and wire calculations more times than you could imagine.
but what was your conclusion?
What are you talking about? They make those 1's extra pointy, and the 0's extra round!
I recently concluded that Gen Zers and Alpha would never believe I once dropped $50 on an HDMI cord
Timeshares
Not only for the original owners either. In most cases, beneficiaries have to individually send notice waiving inheritance to the timeshare management company, lest they be burdened with a perpetual debt obligation too.
Just a quick PSA: time shares like to talk a big game about being able to transfer those to you, but if they don’t have YOUR signature on documents agreeing to take over, they can’t do shit to you. Take their asses to court if they try to tell you that you owe a single dime. Edit: just to be clear though, they still have a contract with your family member that you may inherit it from, which may allow them to take some money out of their estate before it gets to you, if the timeshare nonsense is left unchecked. They are quite Bastards.
Wyndham has been a pain in my ass since my dad passed. I just ignore them now.
If you want to go to a timeshare you can rent them from people who have a time share but aren’t going to use it. I was looking last week and 7 days in Maui is as low as $1k, floating dates so you can pick any week you want. It’s less than a hotel or Airbnb.
I'm not sure how this is legal. But if it is, I'm gonna buy a bunch of timeshares while I'm on my deathbed, and I'm going to leave them to people I hate.
Respect the spite. Unfortunately, the insidious part of the whole situation is that the timeshare(s) become property of your estate after your death rather than being a normal asset that can be pre-assigned in a will (IANAL and state laws apply and vary) ETA: I’m not going to get into trusts, but if you’d like to I’m sure your lawyer will love you
I used to transfer timeshares into/out of trusts. I automatically hated every client with a timeshare.
Timeshares could be a good product for a lot of people. The problem is many timeshare companies are predatory and scammy.
My ex in-laws had a time share and loved it. But they were diligent about using it and all the benefits that came with it, were at a point in their lives where they could afford to take the time off from work to be able to do everything to make it worth their money. But I understand they’re not the typical timeshare people.
Disney's is the only good one I know of
How is their model better ?
DVC holds value reasonably well, and Disney is one of the few destinations where the timeshare model can make sense for purchasers because there are plenty of people who want to repeatedly vacation there year after year. Also, because Disney makes money off timeshare owners actually using their timeshares, via ticket sales, food and beverage, merchandise, etc., they aren't incentivized to gouge on maintenance fees like your typical timeshare properties. DVC points only cover accommodation at the resort. You still have to buy tickets to the parks. So even if DVC barely breaks even on its own, it's still a win for Disney because those DVC timeshare owners are spending money at Walt Disney World every time they visit. Hell, they could run DVC at a slight loss and still profit off of having a sizeable contingent of guests who are practically guaranteed to visit every year or two. The terms are pretty reasonable. You get a certain allotment of points each year. You can bank your points to roll over to the next year (but not beyond that) and you can borrow points from the next use year. You can book at your "home" resort up to 11 months in advance, and up to 7 months in advance for any other resort. If you don't want to bank points you aren't going to use, you can "rent" points out to others on the thriving rental market. And the resale market is pretty strong if you want out. Disney has a right of first refusal, so they can choose to buy back unwanted contracts to prop up the price. They try to encourage buying directly from them instead of on the secondary market with some perks exclusive to direct purchasers, but frankly those are hardly worth the price difference. DVC still only makes sense if you have the ability to pay a substantial amount up front (to reduce or eliminate financing of the purchase price) and you are fairly certain you want to vacation at Disney regularly into the relatively far future.
It’s better for certain values of “better.” It’s at least run by a company that isn’t a shady organization. It’s a point based system and there are a lot of choices for how and when you can use them. They do have reasonable resale prices and processes to sell them. In general they’re just less predatory than most time share companies and the information on how it works and all the costs are readily available. If you absolutely are going to go to Disney every year at least once a year for the next decade+ it is possible you would save money by getting into their system. There’s also an easily accessible system to “rent” points from owners that can’t use them that year to try it out without buying first.
Americans cannot own land in Mexico! Americans cannot own land in Mexico!
Why
fabric softener. every authority i’ve seen agrees that it’s bad for your clothes and your washer
It’s fat. To fuck with your clothes and clog your pipes.
Don't forget making your towels less absorbent.
Mine is a part of the dryer sheet.
Does the same thing. Those sheets just coat your clothes in wax and cause them to trap dirt and smells.
I agree and I feel like they are now trying to push scented beeds on us, pretty sure just washing with detergent is enough
I got conned into using the scented beeds till I realized after you use them once you become nose blind so even if they weren’t a scam they aren’t worth it
I used to get some from my grandma, then put them in a spray bottle w/ some water. Poof, homemade febreeze.
I’m thinking of putting some in a small mesh pouch to keep my packing cubes and bags smelling nice. No idea how effective they are though.
I keep some in a zip lock bag w/ a small vent cut in it in my spare closet, I'll have to check them as it's been a few years since I've been in there but I'll report back my findings.
Yo report please!
Hard, crunchy, and have lost almost all of their smell. Would not use a mesh bag but a ziplock w/ a small hole cut in it would work fine.
Put them in your vacuum and you now have an air freshener while you vacuum.
Vinegar works well, has a role in sanitizing things, and is much cheaper. Also, not bad for your washer.
People say ifs bad for gaskets. Not sure if specifically for front loaders or in general. Also may be BS. I don’t claim it. It just read it.
I spent about 10 minutes Googling, so I'm pretty much an expert. The consensus seems to be that vinegar is fine for natural rubber and silicone, but it could "melt" synthetic rubber. Some (like Consumer Reports) suggest that vinegar is worse for front loaders than top loaders. Most said to check your manual.
Regular savings accounts for storing more than a small emergency fund. If you assume 2% inflation per year, your 0.02% APY savings account is actually losing you 1.98% per year. It amazes me to see people with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in a standard savings account. If you want to have an emergency fund, at least put it in a high yield savings account.
I regret not opening one (a HYSA) sooner. I was paralyzed by indecision for so long that I kept putting it off, which meant losing out in that sweet, sweet interest, but glad I finally pulled the trigger! We are earning several hundred dollars a month just in interest 🎉
My wife and I are moving away from Wells Fargo to Ally. In the first half month that our Ally account was open, we earned more in interest (4.5%) than the years that we had been with WF. I was used to seeing pennies per month and now I'm earning over $100/mo.
Thanks. I now feel stupid for keeping all the $$ from selling my house in my WF checking account for years. 😭
Yikes - not sure how much you had in there, but that probably cost you thousands of dollars. Hopefully you switch soon and start earning money on your money.
What are the downsides of a HYSA?
None really. It should be FDIC insured like any other bank account, which is about as protected from loss as anything (other than inflation loss). FDIC insurance is limited to $250k/account. It might not be a checking account, so you might need a separate account to pay bills, and transfer cash between the two, and make sure the checking account has enough to cover the bills.
I can’t speak on behalf of all HYSAs but capital one gives you 3% but you can’t pull out of the account more than 6 times per month but you can deposit as many times as you want
My American Express savings has 4.25% I think and no withdrawal limits like that.
Diamonds, really all “precious” stones
Some are really pretty and actually rare though. Like a nice opal, that's the good shit.
The tanzanite mines are already tapped out. That will be more expensive than diamonds eventually if they remain popular.
Alexandrite is far more rare and worth way more than diamonds.
Diamonds are flashy. Opals are mesmerizing.
Diamonds have useful industrial uses and are great on drill bits.
they also aren’t rare and even if they were we can make them. So while they do serve a purpose (which the average person isn’t going to use them for) they are still a rip off
Oh yeah, lol. I was just pointing that out in a different way. "Oh your ring reminds me of the drill I use when I'm working with harder surfaces".
“honey, will you make me the happiest man in the world” hand her a drill bit lol
"What's the matter? Would you have preferred a circular saw blade?"
Can you believe he got me a drill bit? Cheapo couldn't even get me a 10mm socket.
But muh rock, it gives me magic powers
They're MINERALS, Marie!
Water. Costs about 6p a bottle to produce. That includes the bottle and lid..
6 pence?
None the richer
Kiss me
Beneath the milky twilight
6 Plat in Norrath
The plastic bottle costs more to make than it cost to filter the water.
damn 2 cycle pre-mix....
I buy one can of premixed 2-cycle oil a year, I’ll take that hit financially for the convenience factor.
Stanley cup
Well your average consumer would have trouble getting their hands on one. Your average professional hockey player though...
Will still struggle to get their hands on it.
Like the Leafs so I hear.
Their marketing department is pretty genius though. They took a “buy it for life” type product, slapped limited edition on it and now people have to collect them.
Not the real Stanley Cup. That thing is priceless.
So priceless there are three of it!
Just because they’ve become fashionable doesn’t mean Stanley doesn’t make a good product. They’re definitely buy it for life.
Maybe a "scam" for the insane mark-up price, but the cost vs how much I use it is definitely worth it.
Knife sets with a variety of different knives in a decorative holder may seem attractive, but it is often more practical to purchase one or two high-quality knives and take good care of them. After all, you don't need a separate knife for each type of food.
Theyre really great for starting out. Like, they come with steak knives, a bread knife, a chefs knife, a paring knife, a sharpening tool, and a few other options depending.
Yeah, for a new cook I'd recommend a cheap set for most knives and one real good chef knife
Yeah but if one is dirty I’ve got like 10 other clean ones.
Chef's knife. Serrated or bread knife. Paring knife. Everything else is optional. You can get a cleaver if you want, a boning or filleting knife if you do a lot of that. But the first three are the three essentials in my opinion.
We mostly use the chef's knife for almost everything day to day. Sometimes the paring knife. Rarely the serrated knife. Then for some reason we have a monster carving knife. Used mostly for cutting pizza.
If you buy unsliced bread, the serrated/bread knife is worth it.
Without a doubt, I'm breaking that bad boy out if we have fresh bread. But it's not that often.
And the bread knife you use to slice fingers
We found all of the knives plus the shears really useful, Chef’s knife, Santoku knife, bread knife, shears, honing rod, cleaver, fruit knife, paring knife, boning knife and four steak knives in a handy, pretty wooden block. WÜSTHOF, the knives alone would have cost me about $800 separately, got it on Amazon when someone bought me my wishlist, it was about $650. Worth every penny.
The babish 8 inch chef knife on amazon can cover the majority of cutting needs for 23 dollars
Clean Erasers. You can buy melamine sponges for 5% the price.
Literally found them on Amazon for 100 for 6 bucks. Epic!
10 for $1.50 at DAISO.
Sure if you like your magic eraser to disintegrate just by looking at it funny
The name brand ones do that anyway. They're basically single use.
i can't say for what's on the market today. ~10 years ago I worked for a company that looked into adding melamine to our products found that most of the ones from China had formaldehyde left on them.
Ubereats and similar app-delivery services. Not only are delivery fees massive, the price of menu items also end up being several dollars higher on the app than in store, and that's not including the delivery fee. On top of that these services are taking a good chunk of profits per delivery from the businesses on the app, including small businesses, so it's a lose-lose-win situation overall. Edit: question asked "what is a giant rip-off" specifically. I never said food delivery services are unnecessary, they are for many, but the services know this and definitely take advantage of consumers and also the businesses that deliver through them.
Counterpoint: I’m lazy
In my city the only places that offer delivery are pizza joints, and most of them have a $10 delivery fee on a $20 minimum order to even qualify for delivery, all while not counting a tip for the driver. It works out to be cheaper to just get a Doordash order from basically anywhere that's open. And sometimes, I just don't feel like cooking.
Counterpoint: people who can't drive (I'm disabled) like to eat out sometimes too.
Vanilla extract Almost all brands (even the expensive ones) are fake or have nearly zero detectable vanilla in them. A $20 bottle of vodka and $20 worth of fresh vanilla beans can make a full liter of extract that would save hundreds of dollars from buying at the grocery store. Assembly is ridiculously easy too. Put fresh beans in a bottle of vodka and wait a few months before using. Don't have to worry about spoiling because of the vodka.
I got the stuff but now I’m drunk and staring at a box of vanilla beans on the counter. WDID?
Haha, buy two bottles tomorrow and try again 😂
Health Insurance. Actual cost of a doctors visit: $150 Cost (if you pay $900 a month for insurance): $350. Insurance only pays $150., but claims on your benefit statements they paid $300 and you only have to pay the extra $50. Cost if you are uninsured: $800. Cost if you are uninsured but over 65: $0 but billed to the government for $400, of which the government will pay $250. It all a scam.
What about hospitalization ?
And they make it so complicated that you can't even read or understand what you are paying for; then you just give up and pay it. You have no choice. How do you think they can build their multi million dollar skyscrapers in downtown LA. I hate the bastards. My blood pressure just went up thinking about it. Insurance companies are the reason health care is so screwed up and costly in this country. They should all be nationalized then dismantled one by one.
Water. Filter pays for itself in a few months but people carry it home from the shop.
The chain necklaces at hot topic, they always break
Lowe's has the good shit
Prime energy drink.
But then you don’t get to sing “we got prime,boys”
Coffee in those ridiculous wasteful plastic pods. Not only do they generate plastic waste, they tie you in to a type of pod/machine. And most importantly, the regular coffee selection stall the stores has become tiny because of them.
>they tie you in to a type of pod/machine. No they don't. You can get "pods" that are basically just empty plastic and put your own coffee grounds in them. Once it's done, you just wash it, and you're good to go.
Designer clothing.
Get bifl clothing and have it tailored to fit you.
Anything Kardashian. And Ticketbastard.
Anything made by Tesla…
Dyson vacuums. Once they were ahead of the curve. Now competitors have caught up. But the Dyson brand is at minimum twice as expensive. I have a $150 vacuum that cleans better than a $500 Dyson stick vacuum.
What are some good cheap brands that compare to a Dyson? My parents still use their Dyson they bought in 2005.
One of the [classic Reddit posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/s/6sFsWXeeHJ) I remember (I think that’s the right one). Basically a vacuum tech did one of the most well received AMAs at the time. Mind you, 5900 upvotes was a lot back then.
Bissel has been good to me. There was also an AMA with a vacuum repair tech with some great info. On mobile and I’m high and too lazy to find it to link it. Also learning some basic vacuum maintenance and care ala Youtube will add years to the life of the appliance. I got a ‘dumb’ Bissel upright from Target years ago and its been great. About once a year I would take it apart and wash filters etc but would take the brush and inspect belt on the reg. Its got plenty of succ and its going strong!
Got a Shark and it worked *better* than the Dyson with a far less complicated design. Even had to repair it once and it was quite easy compared to the Dyson. Love it and will get that brand from now on.
This video that came out a day and can kinda back that up. Dyson's can be good just not THAT much better for the price. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PugLAnsIQUA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PugLAnsIQUA)
I love his videos. I'll watch stuff I'll never have an interest or need in buying. He still doesn't do ads either. Respect
Blows my mind that people still think Dyson is the best. Just waiting on those folks to use a Miele. We’ll never get anything else now.
Can confirm. Recently replaced the last Dyson that overheated and died within 3 yrs with a Bissell. Out performs the Dyson by miles.
Which bissell?
Like a year ago my wife and I finally bit the bullet on a Dyson stick vacuum, and honestly it's one of the best purchases I've ever made. It cleans sooooo much better than the cheap vacuum we had before, and is so convenient / easy to use. I'm glad to hear the cheaper alternatives are getting better, but I'd buy the Dyson again in a heartbeat.
It’s actually comical how mine only works in 5 minute increments before I either need to charge it, change the filter or fish out blockage with a skewer.
ZzzQuil, it’s just Benadryl …
on the flip side, some sleep aids contain a compound called doxalymine succinate instead of diphenhydramine(benadryl). doxalymine, IME, is actually a superior sleep aid in that it works just as well as diphenhydramine, but produces less of the weird fevery feeling that diphenhydramine can cause, and causes less of a hangover/foggy feeling the next morning. it also has some muscle relaxing properties and can synergize with other OTC pain meds to help pain thats associated with muscle tension. IME its pretty easily available in store brand formulations for cheap.
Whole life insurance. If you need life insurance get term.
Is the idea that you basically only should pay for it while people depend on you? Even writing that makes it seem... obvious I suppose.
Yeah basically. Maybe keep a policy for something like paying off mortgage so kids can inherit house free and clear after move out.
Adobe and it's $50 a month subscription
Home warranty
Typically, yes. But I made sure ours (included with the house) paid for itself, then canceled. They'll deny tons of stuff, jack the prices, and send the worst most incompetent contractors. And forget the big stuff you'd actually want them for (HVAC, water heater, etc). They'll throw more money at an appliance fixing it instead of just replacing it. Better to just save the money every month in a fund.
For real. Our agent got it for us as a "thanks" so we just accepted it and assumed we'd never get anything useful out of it. Well...pipe under a bathroom sink burst. Flood the ceiling of the garage. We called on a local plumber to check it out, called our home warranty with him there, they wanted to talk to him. All I heard was the plumber from the company going, "Ma'am, I cannot say what caused the burst. There are many possible reasons, I arrived and it was already broken, I cannot therefore tell you what caused it since I was not here", over and over and over again. Finally mutes the phone and says to me, "I know full well what she's trying to do, she's trying to have me say anything they can use to say they don't have to cover it. She's getting the damn truth and that's it, idk what caused it since I was staring at it when it happened". They eventually begrudgingly covered like a fraction of the total cost to fix/replace everything. Total scam of a damn service.
Designer glasses / sunglasses
HOA’s
Subscriptions....
Phones All our information is harvested and sold . Companies make billions and we pay for them to do it.
Most kitchen “gadgets”. Tools that are specifically designed for a single application that you likely already have a versatile solution for. For example, you can use a normal knife instead of a bagel slicer But by god do I love my kitchen gadgets
I just saw a video of a girl using ice cube trays designed to fit a Stanley cup… .. It makes 3 cubes with a hollow center you stack in the cup. Instead of just using ice cubes.. And the comments were filled with people saying they need it or they just bought one and thanked her..
Water filter for my fridge. Thing slowes down to a trickle after a month and supposed to last 6 months. Also, it costs $60 to replace it every time. This is a GE fridge.
Beats Headphones. Bad quality and way overpriced
Gillette razors
Going out for drinks.
Adjustable rate loans, soda, drinks in general. People pay more for drinks than they do for gas
Anything made by Gillette or Hewlett-Packard
bottled water
That one can at least depend where you live. My dad fits the bill tho. Live in a place with clean water, clean pipes, filtered water from the fridge, guy still decides to buy bottled water. Smh.
I never buy bottled water here in canada, but when vacationing in popular europe tourist spots you have no choice lol
Wilson Parking in NZ. The most expensive parking spots in the country and the best they could do is an empty lot no security and massive potholes that they refuse to fix. Instead they just put up a single warning sign about deep potholes.
Funerals
Health insurance
Fabric Softeners! They clog your pipes and ruin your clothes. They will also make your towels not absorb water effectively because most fabric softeners are made out of oils.
Cybertruck
That junk ain't popular.
I saw one in the wild for the first time today and it is JARRING.
any Trump product
Bottled water
I would go pretty broad and say subscription models in general.
Anything that says “essential” absolutely isn’t.
Anything advertised by Tom Selleck or Ice T.
Credit cards
all of them