@kittykat9180 well thats frustrating. I dont seem to have that issue and quality wise do not see a difference. I dont see the point in paying more for a name.
once an HVAC guy told me that the really crappy paper furnace filters were the best of all. not sure if that’s true but I’m running with the excuse to cheap out on them.
@jouest Yes. Same here. Those thick, expensive filters cut the air flow and put more strain on the furnace. The thin ones are good enough at trapping crap as long as they are changed regularly. After I switched to the cheap ones (on the advice of the guy servicing the furnace) the air quality actually improved and the room air purifiers cycled on a lot less.
@jouest Flip side: A cheap filter will pass particles that will deposit themselves on the evaporator coil’s fins, eventually restricting the air flow and compromising the heat transfer capabilities. If you want to use good filters, the trick is to split the intake path into several ducts with a separate filter register on each, so that there is more than minimum-spec air flow capacity even when the filters start to fill up. Also, for systems which employ one of the high-MERV four-inch-thick filters at the inlet of the furnace, those prefilters at the split intakes will greatly extend the life of that thick one. When my new HVAC system was installed, we added a third intake path and register; there are two 20x20 registers plus a 16x20. I check the pressure drop in the system every once in a while, and there’s near zero loss through the thick filter because almost nothing gets to it. The system that was in this house when i bought it had been run with the cheapest 16x25x1 filter panels available, and the evap core was desperately in need of cleaning out; I salvaged it via cleaning well enough to last another 22 years, but I knew I hadn’t removed all of the crap from deep in the middle, and eventually it had to go.
@chienfou@jouest It would have been much more efficient if the evap coil hadn’t been so gunked up. The cheap filters for its first ten years were the real false economy.
@chienfou@jouest@werehatrack Our new furnace (2-3 years old) uses thick high efficiency filters. We don’t need to dust much anymore. The only downside is they only last 2-3 months, depending on the season, but that’s a fair trade.
Expensive Irish butter for places where any old butter is going to do the job just fine. There are more of those than one might think. My partner regularly makes large batches of caramelized onions using Costco Kirkland butter and we really can’t tell the difference between that and kerrygold.
I feel like this is the unpopular opinion thread because I disagree with most all of this Heh.
Cheap zip top bags can fail. Not a fan of refrigerator overhauls when poultry leaks.
I’m ok with cheap foil.
Off brand sugar is fine depending on the application but I do need a solid kosher salt. And I’ll go overboard on flaked sea salt. Maldon’s is like the low bar on that for me.
I’m middle of the road on air filters. I spent too much on replacing a furnace to try and save a dollar a month on filters.
I do like a big truck, but they’ve gotten stupid expensive. And don’t be judging my peepee @cerridwyn And I don’t need six wheels
Fancy Irish butter? My daughter bakes a LOT so it’s normally Wegman’s butter. But I’m married to an Irish woman who does like it when I bring home the good stuff for the scones I make
Premium fuel? Well, I did a dumb thing and bought a German vehicle that requires it. There is a discernable difference when you use 87 octane. That kind of sucks
But… for this thread, I suppose I need to proffer my own opinion. So I’m going to say range ammo.
If you are just at a gun range plinking for target practice, cheap stuff is fine. If you are out on a hunt and only get one shot, make sure the expensive one is in the chamber.
I seem to be on a bit of a ramble. I’ll see myself to the exit
@capnjb
how ta Pontiac vibe for a while that required high octane fuel. That was a bit of a PITA.
Sugar is sugar. Not sure Domino’s taste any different than Walmart great value.
FWIW I was referring to plain salt (i.e. Morton’s versus generic Walmart plain salt.) Personally I’m a fan of Himalayan pink salt. I also use kosher salt in my baking as a rule.
And any bag can fail depending on what you put in it. I’ve had no more failures with the Dollar tree or great value version than I have with branded glad bags or ziplocs. TBH we don’t use ziplocs that much. I use generic roll vacuum pack bags in my FoodSaver (bought here) then generally store things in washable reusable plastic tubs… Typically the ones from the Dollar tree that are supposedly “disposable” but have been going strong for 5+ years now. I bought two different size tubs that use the same lids and threw away all the assortment of weird crap I had stored from old margarine tabs, yogurt tubs etc etc . Certainly made my life a lot easier.
@capnjb
That’s true. But there’s nothing wrong with a little iron oxide in your diet! It was stupid expensive for a while but now it’s gotten not much more expensive than regular salt.
@stinks I should clarify. I don’t want to use premium rounds at the range, but I also don’t buy cheapo ammo. Mid-range Remmington or Winchester is what I was talking about. Even the expensive rounds are cheap compared to the cost of replacing a barrel. I’m not going to try to put garbage through my rifle.
@capnjb@chienfou ?? My wife had a 2008 Pontiac Vibe (actually a re-badged Toyota Matrix) and it ran fine on regular gas. (My daughter is still driving it, with ~150K miles on it. It was/is a great car.)
Was yours a GT model?
@capnjb@macromeh
Yes, and as such it did require the premium grade gas (91+). A few times I didn’t put it in it made a noticeable difference, unfortunately. Thankfully it got great mileage and we have a Sam’s and a Costco membership…
And yes, it was probably the best car I ever had as far as overall practicality and reliability. We both loved that car and kept it for 275k+ miles.
A brand new car, usually, but when I was looking for a Honda Fit in 2012 the AAA guy told me that used ones were in such high demand that they were going for nearly the same price as new. And I looked around and he was right. So I got my first ever brand new car.
@chienfou It suits me! I love how much room it has for a small car; I’ve transported things like an antique 5 drawer wood dresser in it. I don’t drive a lot and not very long distances either.
@Kyeh
I’m currently driving numbers 19 and 20 if I counted correctly.
I put together a list (best I could remember) while I was goat 5 years ago. I’ve added a RAV4 and a Ford Focus to those on that list.
@Kyeh
Yep. But I encouraged my folks to change their car during “cash for clunkers”. Their 15 yr old car had about 30k miles and ran great. Always garaged so pristine looking. Trouble was the belts and hoses were 15 yrs old and I didn’t want them struck in a parking lot on a grocery run at Aldi.
@chienfou Mine hasn’t been garaged, so not pristine. But that’s the reason I gave up on my previous car - it was so old that you couldn’t get parts for it anymore. I loved it, too - a Honda Civic station wagon.
@Kyeh when I bought my mustang in 2008 I was looking for used. I bought a new one for thousands less than used.
I bought it at a time when car dealerships were closing like crazy and manufacturers were getting government bailouts. There were so many rebates I ended up paying $14k when the MSRP was $21k. Three years later I looked up the KBB and could have sold it private party for more than I paid for it.
Seventeen years later I still have that car.
@chienfou@Kyeh My minivan is 16 years old and the low maintenance costs I have had over the years will more than save me money when something bigger breaks. In the long run it is usually cheaper to hang on to a highly rated car and maintain it than keep buying new.
The Ghetto Van (aka Dodge Grand Caravan from the era of the peeling paint and transmission issues - my kid named it that) died at 25 years and 3 months (blew an engine bearing). I kept track of costs of what I had spent so far and the cost of new. Even with replacing the transmission more than once I saved money in the long run.
Likely I should have dumped it about 18 mo before it died but I really, really, really wanted an antique auto plate for it. Got to enjoy having one of those on it (and the disbelief/looks I got ) for 3.5 months. And I was making enough money back then to afford those last 18 months. And kid was learning how to drive so I figured if she was going to wreck something let it be this and not a good one. She did add some dents which just added to it’s, um, charm.
====
Of course my sister has my dad’s 1940 Packard (he bought it as a 13 year old used car only “driven on Sunday’s by the proverbial little old lady”, it broke down when he was driving my mom to the hospital when she was in labor shortly after he bought it) that still runs, although it is not used on a regular basis. Getting parts is a big issue. Lots of family and extended family with photos driving away from the church after they get married looking out the small rear window with “just married” hanging off the back.
It has two six volt batteries instead of a 12 volt. Dad would trickle charge it but it would still need to be driven to keep the oil distributed, not flatten the tires, etc. As a young adult I was trilled when I was deemed responsible enough to drive it up and down the highway for that purpose.
No turn signals and most people have no clue about hand signals so I had to be really careful. Old folks would wave. Lots of people would stare and parallel me in the lane to my left (I stayed in the slow lane as I knew it would be considered justifiable homicide if I got into a wreck with it). And I did discover it was a guy magnet - for the wrong kind of guy (at least from my point of view)
Storage bags ie zipolc bags
@tinamarie1974
I’d even expand that to aluminum foil.
@chienfou agree
@tinamarie1974 cheap ones rarely seal properly for me.
@kittykat9180 well thats frustrating. I dont seem to have that issue and quality wise do not see a difference. I dont see the point in paying more for a name.
Sugar and regular (plain) salt.
Canned items for the most part.
once an HVAC guy told me that the really crappy paper furnace filters were the best of all. not sure if that’s true but I’m running with the excuse to cheap out on them.
@jouest Yes. Same here. Those thick, expensive filters cut the air flow and put more strain on the furnace. The thin ones are good enough at trapping crap as long as they are changed regularly. After I switched to the cheap ones (on the advice of the guy servicing the furnace) the air quality actually improved and the room air purifiers cycled on a lot less.
@jouest Flip side: A cheap filter will pass particles that will deposit themselves on the evaporator coil’s fins, eventually restricting the air flow and compromising the heat transfer capabilities. If you want to use good filters, the trick is to split the intake path into several ducts with a separate filter register on each, so that there is more than minimum-spec air flow capacity even when the filters start to fill up. Also, for systems which employ one of the high-MERV four-inch-thick filters at the inlet of the furnace, those prefilters at the split intakes will greatly extend the life of that thick one. When my new HVAC system was installed, we added a third intake path and register; there are two 20x20 registers plus a 16x20. I check the pressure drop in the system every once in a while, and there’s near zero loss through the thick filter because almost nothing gets to it. The system that was in this house when i bought it had been run with the cheapest 16x25x1 filter panels available, and the evap core was desperately in need of cleaning out; I salvaged it via cleaning well enough to last another 22 years, but I knew I hadn’t removed all of the crap from deep in the middle, and eventually it had to go.
@jouest @werehatrack
given the advances in the energy efficiency specs, beating an extra 22 years out of that first may have been a false economy…
@chienfou @jouest It would have been much more efficient if the evap coil hadn’t been so gunked up. The cheap filters for its first ten years were the real false economy.
@jouest @werehatrack
True enough…
@chienfou @jouest @werehatrack Our new furnace (2-3 years old) uses thick high efficiency filters. We don’t need to dust much anymore. The only downside is they only last 2-3 months, depending on the season, but that’s a fair trade.
A big fucking truck (for those with a small peepee )
https://www.boomplay.com/lyrics/93781628?srModel=COPYLINK&srList=WEB
@Cerridwyn
@Cerridwyn
But really any car that’s not at least ten years old.
Expensive Irish butter for places where any old butter is going to do the job just fine. There are more of those than one might think. My partner regularly makes large batches of caramelized onions using Costco Kirkland butter and we really can’t tell the difference between that and kerrygold.
@werehatrack
If you can’t tell the difference between caramelized onions and kerrygold butter…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Premium grade fuel in a vehicle that’s rated for 87 octane.
@werehatrack I tried higher octane fuel once in my old truck and the exhaust smell was so strong. Now I stick to what the vehicle is designed for.
I feel like this is the unpopular opinion thread because I disagree with most all of this
Heh.
Cheap zip top bags can fail. Not a fan of refrigerator overhauls when poultry leaks.
I’m ok with cheap foil.
Off brand sugar is fine depending on the application but I do need a solid kosher salt. And I’ll go overboard on flaked sea salt. Maldon’s is like the low bar on that for me.
I’m middle of the road on air filters. I spent too much on replacing a furnace to try and save a dollar a month on filters.
I do like a big truck, but they’ve gotten stupid expensive. And don’t be judging my peepee @cerridwyn
And I don’t need six wheels 
Fancy Irish butter? My daughter bakes a LOT so it’s normally Wegman’s butter. But I’m married to an Irish woman who does like it when I bring home the good stuff for the scones I make
Premium fuel? Well, I did a dumb thing and bought a German vehicle that requires it. There is a discernable difference when you use 87 octane. That kind of sucks
But… for this thread, I suppose I need to proffer my own opinion. So I’m going to say range ammo.
If you are just at a gun range plinking for target practice, cheap stuff is fine. If you are out on a hunt and only get one shot, make sure the expensive one is in the chamber.
I seem to be on a bit of a ramble. I’ll see myself to the exit
@capnjb
how ta Pontiac vibe for a while that required high octane fuel. That was a bit of a PITA.
Sugar is sugar. Not sure Domino’s taste any different than Walmart great value.
FWIW I was referring to plain salt (i.e. Morton’s versus generic Walmart plain salt.) Personally I’m a fan of Himalayan pink salt. I also use kosher salt in my baking as a rule.
And any bag can fail depending on what you put in it. I’ve had no more failures with the Dollar tree or great value version than I have with branded glad bags or ziplocs. TBH we don’t use ziplocs that much. I use generic roll vacuum pack bags in my FoodSaver (bought here) then generally store things in washable reusable plastic tubs… Typically the ones from the Dollar tree that are supposedly “disposable” but have been going strong for 5+ years now. I bought two different size tubs that use the same lids and threw away all the assortment of weird crap I had stored from old margarine tabs, yogurt tubs etc etc . Certainly made my life a lot easier.
@chienfou My turn to espouse
Himalayan pink salt is just normal salt with rust in it
It’s pink because it’s full of iron oxide 
Not sure I’ve bought table salt in the last 30 years 
edit - I do like my salts.
I’d be surprised if I didn’t have a dozen different types in this house 
@capnjb
That’s true. But there’s nothing wrong with a little iron oxide in your diet! It was stupid expensive for a while but now it’s gotten not much more expensive than regular salt.
@chienfou I am not someone to argue with a nurse
You can drop that stuff in my IV and I’ll be happy with it 
edit - I actually have licorice rock salt I’m trying figure out something to do with… I leaning dessert. Like in a caramel or something
@capnjb
That’s intriguing… If nothing else can salt the rims of your ouzo glasses
@capnjb
False. I got ammo on sale at a big store in two 100 round boxes and 10% of it misfired.
Got 100 rounds from the local gun store and it all flew right through.
Pay the extra or enjoy collecting unspent rounds and depositing them in the ranger box under some confused glares.
@stinks I should clarify. I don’t want to use premium rounds at the range, but I also don’t buy cheapo ammo. Mid-range Remmington or Winchester is what I was talking about. Even the expensive rounds are cheap compared to the cost of replacing a barrel. I’m not going to try to put garbage through my rifle.
@capnjb @chienfou ?? My wife had a 2008 Pontiac Vibe (actually a re-badged Toyota Matrix) and it ran fine on regular gas. (My daughter is still driving it, with ~150K miles on it. It was/is a great car.)
Was yours a GT model?
@capnjb @macromeh
Yes, and as such it did require the premium grade gas (91+). A few times I didn’t put it in it made a noticeable difference, unfortunately. Thankfully it got great mileage and we have a Sam’s and a Costco membership…
And yes, it was probably the best car I ever had as far as overall practicality and reliability. We both loved that car and kept it for 275k+ miles.
A brand new car, usually, but when I was looking for a Honda Fit in 2012 the AAA guy told me that used ones were in such high demand that they were going for nearly the same price as new. And I looked around and he was right. So I got my first ever brand new car.
@Kyeh
Glad that worked for you. We bought a used Fit at one point and it was an okay vehicle but certainly not one of my best ones.
@chienfou It suits me! I love how much room it has for a small car; I’ve transported things like an antique 5 drawer wood dresser in it. I don’t drive a lot and not very long distances either.
@Kyeh
For a smallish car it had a lot of room. I liked okay, it’s just not my favorite. My favorite was probably our Pontiac vibe (AKA Toyota matrix)
@chienfou Well, it’s only the 3rd car I’ve had! So not much to compare it to.
@Kyeh
I’m currently driving numbers 19 and 20 if I counted correctly.
I put together a list (best I could remember) while I was goat 5 years ago. I’ve added a RAV4 and a Ford Focus to those on that list.
@chienfou My car’s 13 years old and has 17,078 miles on it right now. I think I’ll probably have it a while longer.
@Kyeh
Yep. But I encouraged my folks to change their car during “cash for clunkers”. Their 15 yr old car had about 30k miles and ran great. Always garaged so pristine looking. Trouble was the belts and hoses were 15 yrs old and I didn’t want them struck in a parking lot on a grocery run at Aldi.
@chienfou Mine hasn’t been garaged, so not pristine. But that’s the reason I gave up on my previous car - it was so old that you couldn’t get parts for it anymore. I loved it, too - a Honda Civic station wagon.
@Kyeh when I bought my mustang in 2008 I was looking for used. I bought a new one for thousands less than used.
I bought it at a time when car dealerships were closing like crazy and manufacturers were getting government bailouts. There were so many rebates I ended up paying $14k when the MSRP was $21k. Three years later I looked up the KBB and could have sold it private party for more than I paid for it.
Seventeen years later I still have that car.
@kittykat9180 Wow! Lucky!
@chienfou @Kyeh My minivan is 16 years old and the low maintenance costs I have had over the years will more than save me money when something bigger breaks. In the long run it is usually cheaper to hang on to a highly rated car and maintain it than keep buying new.
The Ghetto Van (aka Dodge Grand Caravan from the era of the peeling paint and transmission issues - my kid named it that) died at 25 years and 3 months (blew an engine bearing). I kept track of costs of what I had spent so far and the cost of new. Even with replacing the transmission more than once I saved money in the long run.
Likely I should have dumped it about 18 mo before it died but I really, really, really wanted an antique auto plate for it. Got to enjoy having one of those on it (and the disbelief/looks I got
) for 3.5 months. And I was making enough money back then to afford those last 18 months. And kid was learning how to drive so I figured if she was going to wreck something let it be this and not a good one. She did add some dents which just added to it’s, um, charm.
====
Of course my sister has my dad’s 1940 Packard (he bought it as a 13 year old used car only “driven on Sunday’s by the proverbial little old lady”, it broke down when he was driving my mom to the hospital when she was in labor shortly after he bought it) that still runs, although it is not used on a regular basis. Getting parts is a big issue. Lots of family and extended family with photos driving away from the church after they get married looking out the small rear window with “just married” hanging off the back.
It has two six volt batteries instead of a 12 volt. Dad would trickle charge it but it would still need to be driven to keep the oil distributed, not flatten the tires, etc. As a young adult I was trilled when I was deemed responsible enough to drive it up and down the highway for that purpose.
No turn signals and most people have no clue about hand signals so I had to be really careful. Old folks would wave. Lots of people would stare and parallel me in the lane to my left (I stayed in the slow lane as I knew it would be considered justifiable homicide if I got into a wreck with it). And I did discover it was a guy magnet - for the wrong kind of guy (at least from my point of view)
{Vmod edit: formatting fixed.}