Or refuse to buy

  • ElectricMachman@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    24·
    5 days ago

    SD cards. Used to be able to get 32 or even 64GB cards for basically pocket money, and now it’s something you’d have to save for

    • njordomir@lemmy.world
      4·
      5 days ago

      Yeah, I sure could use some cheap SD cards now. I feel like a lot of the more privacy conscious gadgets use SD cards to save you from the menace of manufacturer-controlled cloud storage, rightly so!

      I remember USB thumb drives hitting crazy lows at one point too, to the point where I was getting some decently sized drives as promo items. I think I paid $40 or so for my very first 250MB USB stick, maybe it was even smaller than that. I also distinctly remember buying a 128GB USB stick for a very similar price in the last decade or two and seeing them even cheaper than that. You do notice a build quality difference between them when you hold them side by side. The old Sandisk feels solid, the led, the cap, the enclosure are all solid and feel super sturdy and like they’re one single piece. The newer 128GB PNY is cheap, rattly, trashy plastic wrapped around a circuit board with a goofy retractable usb connector, but obviously outperforms the old one by miles. Would love to have cheap and quality. :-)

  • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
    16·
    5 days ago

    I don’t know but in general I’ve just stopped consumering. I get what I need and that’s about it. It’s my way of protesting not just prices but just how shit everything is today.

    • Gorgritch_Umie_Killa@aussie.zone
      7·
      4 days ago

      I buy independent media now, thats still cheap. I can pay the monthly subs for two indie news orgs for the same price I pay for four beers.

      Note: I’m Australian, yeah beers a bit expensive here, but come on, value for money!

  • Professorozone@lemmy.world
    32·
    5 days ago

    Drinks in a restaurant. I always order water. One day I was in the mood for tea until I looked down at the $4.99 price. Strangely, soft drinks we’re $3.99. I guess many of you aren’t surprised, but like I said, I never really order drinks with a meal so it had been a while since I had seen the price.

    • FatVegan@leminal.space
      6·
      5 days ago

      I honestly just finds it absurd that soda is usually as expensive as water. Or water is a few cents cheaper. I mean i drink water anyway, but still.

    • HerbGrower@slrpnk.net
      4·
      5 days ago

      Depends where it is. Wetherspoons still does £1.99 a pint. I also found a place recently that I can abuse their system to get double my drinks order but even with that little cheat its still like £3.50/pint so I don’t go there much. Its mostly a human engineering attack combined with a little bit of knowledge of POS systems.

  • Crozekiel@lemmy.zipEnglish
    431·
    5 days ago

    Fast Food. Went in to Subway yesterday and got a single sandwich meal and it was 25 bucks. Hell, McDonalds isn’t even really cheap, the sandwiches that used to be on the dollar menu are like 4 bucks a pop now.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    14·
    5 days ago

    Everyone’s talking tech, but I’ll add car parts.

    Everything from aftermarket parts to basic things like filters or even windhsield wipers.

    $25/blade. If you have a 3-blade car, that’s $75.

    Had to replace a battery. They used to be $100-125 for a good one. Nope. $200 for a mid grade replacement.

    It wasn’t cheap, but they were affordable. Not so much anymore.

  • Mantzy81@aussie.zoneEnglish
    77·
    6 days ago

    More drives for my NAS - 16tb was about A$250 4 years ago. Same drives are now nearly A$1200.

    • bizarroland@lemmy.worldEnglish
      24·
      6 days ago

      In 2024, I bought 5 14 terabyte hard drives for about $600 for my NAS.

      Thank God I have gotten nowhere near close to filling those up yet.

      Just one additional drive is like 350 bucks now.

      • zarathustrad@lemmy.world
        10·
        4 days ago

        I’m limping along with one surviving 10tb, it’s twin mirror is dead. All non media data is backed up across smaller drives that still have pools/mirrors, but TB* of media is living on the edge untill something changes.

        Edit, T not G

      • Mantzy81@aussie.zoneEnglish
        6·
        6 days ago

        I’m contemplating actually deleting shit. Or, if not that, storing offsite (deep storage) and then deleting, ready for that mythical time when drives become more affordable.

    • pHr34kY@lemmy.world
      1·
      6 days ago

      I would buy a drive with the expectation of being able to buy another drive twice the size for the same price by the time I could fill it.

      A 4TB drive in 2026 costs more than it did in 2016.

  • bizarroland@lemmy.worldEnglish
    651·
    6 days ago

    I refuse to purchase anything from Amazon. Bezos is not getting any of my money.

    I feel like I should stop buying on eBay.

    Actually, I kind of want to see a price fixing lawsuit against eBay now. They are explicitly telling sellers what price to list their items at, raising the prices of goods sold on eBay to the detriment of buyers so that they can get more money out of the commission fees.

    The funny thing is my income has risen dramatically in the last few years, but I’m still approximately at the same level of purchasing power that I was six years ago.

    If you had told me in 2012 I would be making low-mid six figures and still feel poor, I would have laughed at you.

    • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
      13·
      6 days ago

      I just bought some things on ebay to avoid Amazon. They dropshipped Amazon to me, individual packages and all, for nearly 100% markup. I don’t know how to avoid that and find “real” sellers dropshipping non-branded warehoused Chinese goods like the good old days.

      • sandwich@lemmy.zip
        23·
        6 days ago
        • sponsored posts are usually drop shippers
        • free returns are usually drop shippers
        • check reviews and search for amazon or usps or post office to see if anyone mentions how they ship
        • be wary of sellers with tens of thousands of feedback

        If you get drop shipped, report a problem say it’s damaged or whatever, and don’t let them send you the Amazon return - use the eBay generated label. Then they have to pay for it and returns absolutely destroy drop shippers. Then leave feedback saying they just drop ship from Amazon

        • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
          4·
          5 days ago

          Thanks for the actual tips. It feels like this will just kill my hobby/craft desires if I have to do all this vetting for basic shit to avoid Amazon but not pay extra for poor selection from the local store. I’ll see, I guess. I suppose I could just braid my own weeds instead of crafting big things. That’s still free and local, right?

      • The Postminimalist@sh.itjust.works
        51·
        6 days ago

        You went to one giant corporation to avoid another giant corporation. Buy directly from sellers, ideally locally. Find their own actual websites. Ask word of mouth for recommendations.

        • gastroglizzy@piefed.socialEnglish
          15·
          6 days ago

          This only works if you don’t live in the middle of fucking nowhere. Buying directly from a local seller for me means Walmart or Dollar General. After a 25-minute one-way drive, I can choose from a few more big chain stores. If I’m lucky, there’s a private business that sells what I need 9a-4p, Mon-Fri for 1.5x the price anywhere else IF it’s in stock.

          Recently, I needed a network switch. Walmart didn’t have any in stock, but I could order ome online and have it in 5-7 business days and pay $15 for shipping. Best Buy said they could order one and have it for me in 7-10 business days, then I could make the 50-minute round trip to pick it up. There are no other stores within a two-hour drive that might even have one in stock. Amazon had it for $10 less than WM and BB and had free shipping in 2-3 days without Prime.

          I needed a switch. I can’t build one. I can’t do my job without it. I can’t afford to wait for one to appear on Craigslist. I don’t want to support any of those companies; they’re all union busters and Trump donors. What’s a person to do in that situation?

          • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
            2·
            5 days ago

            Even if you live somewhere dense, there’s so many niche things, no brick and mortar place stocks it. For my own router, I had to find one recommended by forum users a decade ago for a specific disconnect issue within the Xbox One’s internal 360 emulator. BB and WM didn’t have the known-good options. In my recent case here, it was hobby stuff that my local craft store doesn’t have at all, despite carrying similar items. And I mean my classic example is I used to dabble in LEDs before everyone was just buying mains bulbs and 12v strips. The price of a single blue 5mm LED in the hobby electronic store was the same as 100 on ebay.

          • obviouspornalt@fedinsfw.appEnglish
            1·
            6 days ago

            newegg or something other than Amazon / Walmart. at least that’s what I try to do. find a company whose leadership is furthest away from being oligarchic shitheads (even if that’s what they aspire to be)

            • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              6 days ago

              Newegg is just as bad as Amazon, or were the last time I bothered to try them to avoid Amazon. They burned all the good will they had with me over a decade ago.

        • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
          2·
          5 days ago

          That typically doesn’t work well for hobby and craft supplies. Limited selection at the physical stores, if there’s any at all, and there’s no individuals selling raw supplies.

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      6 days ago

      The funny thing is my income has risen dramatically in the last few years, but I’m still approximately at the same level of purchasing power that I was six years ago.

      Fucking same. I basically doubled my salary a couple of years ago and it seems like I’m not getting anywhere…

    • HerbGrower@slrpnk.net
      2·
      5 days ago

      Making low 5 figure £ and don’t really know what to spend it on. A lot of things people are listing I don’t buy not because I couldn’t afford it, but it doesn’t seem worth it.

      I could probably afford most things listed in the comments here, but my main reaction to most of them is why would I want to? Doesn’t seem worth it to me.

      Never learnt to drive because I couldn’t afford it. Now I probably could afford it. At a push even around £500/month exploitative loan used by multiple people I know, would only cause minor financial issues. But I don’t want it. My bike is doing fine.

      Wtf do you spend money on when you are doing fine and happy as you are with £100s extra a month than you know what to do with, despite earning only a bit over minimum wage?

      Only thing I can really think of is save it and eventually pay off the mortgage early then work part time.

    • Leigh Weigh@lemmy.world
      6·
      6 days ago

      I went on eBay for the first time in years the other cat looking for a few cookbooks. Holy fuck. No thanks. I’m not paying retail plus shipping on the cheapest USED book. Get the fuck out.

      Where are you shopping these days? My area has a Walmart and a dollar general. Love the mega corps…

          • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
            3·
            5 days ago

            Glad to hear it!

            I scored the $50 premium hardback of ‘World of Ice and Fire’ for $11 off TB earlier this year. It also has a really cool inscription on the inside cover from the previous owner. I love used books.

            • Leigh Weigh@lemmy.world
              3·
              5 days ago

              Yeah I have a couple I’m still watching over there because they’re still out of my price range (I’m broke lol) but we’ll see 🤞

    • jode@pawb.social
      3·
      5 days ago

      I’m in the same boat with Amazon. Doubly irritating that sometimes I’ll buy an item from eBay and it’s just drop shipped Amazon shit. Also I can’t count the amount of times I’ve ordered something that is advertised as “fast 2-4 day shipping” and the seller immediately creates a label only for the status to sit at “label created” for 6 days.

        • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
          4·
          6 days ago

          Hi there!

          SlickDeals isn’t actually a retailer, but a community for bargain hunters. Basically someone sees a good deal and posts about it, and the community sees these posts and upvotes the best deals, but the best thing about it is you can create an email alert to yourself and add keywords, so you get an email when someone posts a deal matching that keyword. If you have a regular shopping list you use or staple products you know you’ll need interminably, like toilet paper (or for me, crew neck t shirts) it’s a really great way to get around price gouging or find a good bulk purchase to stock up.

          I’m guessing there’s a non US equivalent if it doesn’t work in your country, since price gouging’s happening everywhere, but I can’t say for sure what it might be.

  • gastroglizzy@piefed.socialEnglish
    52·
    6 days ago

    Brisket

    Fast food

    Fast casual food

    Applebee’s-tier restaurants

    Japanese cars

    Used cars, motorcycles, ATVs, boats

    Camping

    Skiing

    Taxi rides

    Corn mazes

    Pumpkin patches

    Escape rooms

    Concerts

    Bars/Clubs

    Retro video games and consoles

    Thrift stores

    Storage units

    Apartments in the bad part of town