Art supplies at art stores
I bought an exacto knife with no extra blades for 14 dollars at my local art store just to stop in a discount auto parts store a week later and find a three knife kit with 10 extra replacement blades for 4 dollars.
For an added kick in the pants the cheaper blades are sharper and last twice as long.
I got my yardstick for free. A bank was giving them away in the 1950s and when my grandma passed away, no one wanted the yardstick, so I took it with me.
Spoilers: you can sharpen your own exacto blades. You don't have to throw them away. Just use whatever handle that gives you the mobility you need for the project.
/Cries in the corner with my $40 tiny tube of paint.
I have an irresistible wish to buy a £30 (plus postage which does not take into account how small the thing is) tiny little water colour pan of paint.
It's traditional lapis lazuli. And I know it will look pretty much exactly like a less consistent synthetic aquamarine. But I often use paint like ink to colour in things I draw in my notebooks and I just love the idea of knowing it's painted with semi-precious stone. (And it was a paint that was once pretty much as valuable as gold and only used for painting the Virgin Mary).
I'm a hoarder and have a terrible habit of wanting art stuff just to have the stuff. Fetishizing the art materials is the opposite of actual art (and you can be more creative with less stuff sometimes).
I'm still having that lapis lazuli though.
From memory, I think lapis lazuli is one of those pigments that rewets really poorly. I suggest you get it in a tube and use it fresh when you want it. Daniel Smith make a lapis lazuli genuine in their primatek range
I went to the pet store to buy a silicone mat to put under the cat bowls. It cost 35€. Not even 30 minutes later I saw the exact same mat at the home improvement store for only 7€. I was so pissed.
By design. They learned that customers were stupid. They would buy the cheapest printer and not investigate the cost of ink. Shifting profit from printer to ink allows the manufacturer to have the minimum printer cost and sell more. And their sales patterns proved them right.
It’s standard service profitability model. I work in service sales and the margins are made after sales, not on the initial equipment. Works all the way up to massive wind turbines, jet engines and locomotives. Sell the equipment nearly at cost (1%) and sell services at huge margin once they’re locked in (50%).
Buy a color laser printer. Ink doesn’t dry up and is much cheaper per impression. And they print better. Life hack.
Edit: some excellent comments below… don’t need color? B/W laser is great too and saves a lot of up front cost. Print a lot of photos? Better quality photo printing available professionally for very low cost these days.
It's crazy how one day everything shifted and people started buying those Brother printers. Laser ones. They're fairly cheap and are laser printers. Not sure if there's any other comparable brands or not.
I wouldn't ever think of buying an inkjet printer. The cost is absurd. They do weird ass tricks to make people buy more.
I fully agree.
Bought a brother laser printer a few years ago, after having so many angry and frustrating experiences with inkjet printers (Ink dried up, not working, printing stripes, awfully expensive to print larger documents, ...).
One of the best investments I ever made. It just simply works.
If I could pass one life advice to my grandchildren, it much likely would be that. Don't buy that stupid inkjet crap.
One of the reasons the Portland airport keeps winning “Best Airport” awards is that PDX requires street pricing, so food, books, gifts or whatever must cost the same as anywhere else in the city.
The reason goes deeper than you think. Leasing prices for the stores is very high. Many companies like Hudson News have to bid for the retail spaces and it is a competitive market. Some airports have rules in the retail leasing contract that a portion of every sale (gum, magazines, water, etc) goes to the airport. Also some of the best retail wages in town are in airports due to unions. Add all of that to the fact traveling customers are a 'captive group' and it explains the prices.
The worst is the fact they won't let you bring in outside beverages (U.S. at least). If you are thirsty, you are forced to pay their extortion prices.
Other items like gums, snacks, books, etc...they can mark up at will since a traveler can prepare those ahead of time. But to force people to dispose of their beverages during security and marking up beverages at the terminals seems like a dick move. At the very least, do not mark up bottled water.
Yeah exactly. Bring a refillable bottle. Or wash out a Gatorade bottle for travel, whatever. Most major airports have water bottle filling stations all over.
$20 if they'll buy it back... Threw more than one into a school trashcan because there was "a new edition" and the old one was worthless.
I had one professor issue 60+ page handouts per class rather than require multiple books. He was determined to destroy the departments copy paper budget "because".
try Zenni. I am practically blind and can get blue blocking transition lenses for ~$50. I can’t see any quality difference between those and the ones from my optician’s shop.
Yeah Zenni Optical is where I get my glasses. I got my latest pair for less than 20 with no extras or anything because I'm broke but you can get them made any way even fancier lenses and you can even etch words into the frames. Anyways, what I did was call my eye doctor and asked him to tell me my prescription over the phone. He was like, let me guess you're not coming back and I was like I will come back just not to buy my glasses. Fuck that they want hundreds for them and they are the same as what I can get online.
That explains why the eyemed insurance is so weird. It is like designed to make you spend way more rather than reduce the overall expense. What a scummy combo.
I got four pairs with my prescription from EyeBuyDirect for less than $85 total. They always have deals, that time it was buy one get one free, so I did two separate orders to get the best deal!
Company: Yo you look like you'd look fresh as hell in some nike glasses for only $159.99
Me: Damn wth? You got any cheaper options
C: Ah you're a broke bitch huh? Dumb little loser. Try these $20 ones on since you're so poor and pathetic.
M: Nothing changed it's literally the same design and same glass except without the nike logo.
C: Bruh fym those shits were worth every penny you poor bitch.
M: Is it at least a better plastic
C: Doesn't need to be
M: Does it also do the thing where it can bend in both directions to avoid breaks
C: Yeah cuz it's goated
M: So you're telling me the only difference is the nike logo on it
C: If you're poor as fuck and a little bitch you can just say that
I'm a Type 1 and I am so thankful I get an exemption here for prescriptions! I couldn't imagine the stress of if or not you can afford insulin to survive. Sickening.
My cousin moved to Canada specifically to stock up on inexpensive insulin to bring back to her mom in Washington when they meet once a month for dinner.
She actually spent 2020 in Canada with my cousin. Being the parent of a Canadian national, she easily got permission from their government for an extended stay.
Yeah I always wondered how Americans deal with this in Europe especially france it’s basically free and if it’s not at least 70% is taken care of by the government and u pay crumbs from ur pocket.
A lot of people take half doses, skip doses and eventually die trying to stretch the insulin supply they have because the prices are idiotically high, they cannot afford rent, food, a job, transportation and Insulin.
When my wife & I were looking for a wedding venue, there was a place we called and they quoted us $200 a day. When I made the mistake of saying it was for a wedding they said “oh for a wedding it’s $800 a day.”
No reason. If I hadn’t told them, we could have rented it for $200 and done everything the same.
For my first wedding, the place we got our cake from charged $800 for a wedding cake that served 100 people. So instead we got 10 different "non-wedding" cakes from the same place, that each served 10 people, for $300. Bonus that if you didn't like one of the cakes, you'd probably like another.
Quite frankly I've heard enough horror stories from service industry people working at weddings that I'm willing to accept that extra $600 as a "dealing with the drama shit" fee.
Yep. So many people have such higher standards for weddings as well, that they realistically incur more costs. More employees. More cleanup. Higher priority. Etc.
Nah it’s just like that for wedding stuff.
“We need X amount of flowers”
“Oh ok that’ll be $350”
“It’s for our wedding”
“Oh shit why didn’t you say so? It’ll be $700”
Vendors would argue that they treat wedding clients differently. Weddings have more last minute changes, can need more planning services, require higher service reliability/timing
Not sure where you're from or how long ago that was, but as someone currently wedding planning the absolute cheapest venues we've found so far are still 2-3k.
My relationship with Comcast is love hate. I fucking hate them for their lousy service and inflated prices. I love them for offering service in my area, which keeps the Verizon prices down so they don't do the same thing to me that Comcast did.
Anything you pay them is too much.
It's so stupid how dental care isn't treated like any other form of medical care. Like how do you expect people to maintain their health if they can't chew anything??
I am a dentist. I can’t believe the price of care. My office is average in price compared to the region and whole US. I choke asking patients to spend 5 k to replace a tooth
The saddest part for me as a patient is I couldn’t afford a filling when that’s all it was I busted my ass deteriorated my health working and saving to make enough and by the time I could finally go in for that filling it was already a root canal…which I then Couldn’t afford again. And then the dentist judges me for “letting it get this bad” As if I wouldn’t have got it done on the day I learned about it if I could have. So I just left the dentists in tears without a clue what to do next knowing damned well that the decay will spread I will lose this tooth and there will likely be a hole in the ones around it soon.
Being poor comes with interest and dental is a great example of it.
I'm in the same boat.
Had to have one pulled already because I couldn't afford a root canal.
Now I need two root canals on the other side.
I've had to go in multiple times to get amoxicillin because of infection.
It's pretty frustrating when I keep getting chastised for not taking care of it.
"You really need to get a root canal done soon"
I know, but I can't afford it.
"Well it'll cost more if you don't take care of it soon".
Telling me it's going to cost more in the future isn't going to magically make money appear in my pocket now.
They gave me the address to a place they said would take me without insurance and give me a payment plan. So I went out there, only to be told by the receptionist that they aren't taking people without insurance.
I was like, aight, guess I'll just go die slowly then.
Serious question; Why do you need to charge the same as your competitors? I'd imagine you'd be drowning in clients if you charged even 10% less than dentists in your area.
Probably because:
There are only so many hours in a day, at least around here most dental offices have fairly full schedules even at ridiculous prices, to the point they couldnt make it up with volume.
The other employees (dental hygienists, etc) still expect to be paid what they could make at the competition.
I asked the same to an apartment complex manager while apartment hunting with a friend (because rent is too damn high) and they said it was to "stay "competitive "". Which makes no sense at all.
Funerals
Why must we pay tens of thousands for family who died, ~~we don't even get to choose not to have one.~~
Big ol' fat tax if I ever seen one
EDIT: Apparently you can choose but it's still expensive AF
I mean, technically you can deny claim of the body and the burden will fall on the state. But you don’t get any say in the details and their ashes will be put into a mass indigent/unclaimed gravesite.
Also, the carrier customer serivce/support you guys have a horrifically bad. I work in IT and I dread the days I get tickets for Canadian carriers. Telus, Primus, Bell Canada…. Ugh. Usually 30-45 minute wait on hold just to get transferred and wait another 30. And the guy I end up with might give me straight up false information.
My mom cried one day cause she had to call Rogers for customer service. Like she was having a rough day, and just dialling the number broke her. They’re so fucking incompetent it doesn’t make any sense. The only thing I hate more than Rogers is Bell.
Eyewear. You can buy a cellphone for the same price, yet the price of the material is just a small fraction and ghr expertise to make them is not close either.
And yes, you can buy glasses at a reasonable price, but that is only since recently and not often available in the shops.
Diamonds. A few companies own nearly all the world’s diamonds and they purposely make the price high so they make more profits and the consumers cant go anywhere else.
Edit: my notifications have been blown up lol
Resale value is shit as well. Bought some diamond jewellery in India for £550 (bargain), insurance value was £3000 (this would be the cost of replacing them, including workmanship etc), but I've just been quoted an auction estimate at £120 to sell them.
Diamonds are like cars, they do not hold their value unless they are a particularly fine example. Conclusion: don't buy diamonds.
Some video games that aren't really that rare are super expensive now as of the past few years. When I was working and stuff I could find anything like Pokemon games for super cheap used and now when I look up games I want to play they're a hundred dollars or more. Sucks.
I went to a retro game store and some games like Kirby: crystal shard were 130$.
My gf took a picture of one of the games her brother liked as a kid and the dude told us to leave. It was so weird.
You're not crippling the government. If they cared, they'd bother to enforce any of the like dozen anti-trust and competition laws that pharma companies violate by keeping insulin prices so damn needlessly, artificially high.
For real. I have a beard but I still shave my neck and clean up the lines on my cheeks. I bought a big pack of blades about 3 years ago and I still have a ton left.
Weirdly enough, Supreme was created as a parody of all of those high fashion companies like gucci and what crap else, then it caught on and they just rolled with it, and now they sell a friggin brick and a crowbar with their name plastered on it. Its kinda hilarious watching rich dumbasses eat that shit up for the 'clout' or whatever
Funny enough, it's probably a bigger "luxury" for others that I'm not bleeding everywhere. I guarantee other people would mind a lot more than me if I (or other women) started free bleeding lmao
Not that I'd prefer to not wear pads. Just that I'm pretty sure other people would be more upset than the amount of shits I give about it at this point lmao.
Apparently that's what it's actually called and there are people who do it as their main period management thing (assumably just when they're home? Idk)
Worked for a movie theater, and they get next to nothing from ticket sales. Concessions makes up basically all of theater profit. You don’t have to buy food and drinks to watch a movie, so it always baffled me how mad customers would get as they willfully handed over their cash and complained about prices. Just make an effort to sneak in your snacks… us minimum wage employees didn’t care enough to stop you… unless you tried to walk in like you owned the place. Any other time we just looked the other way.
My wife and I would walk in and they would never check her purse…which had a couple bottles of Gatorade which were actually filled with booze. No one ever gave a shit.
When I “caught” people, I actively encouraged them to actually make an effort. Use a purse or wrap everything in a hoodie—do *something*. We stop you when food is in plain sight just so we don’t get in trouble.
The one thing thing I wished I had stopped was the cucumbers left behind by middle-aged women in *50 Shades of Grey*
I hated my job.
Pretty much anything out of a cinema. I remember a joke my dad told me a few days ago, “three robbers stole £20,000 worth of goods in a cinema and were never caught. They stole 10 buckets of popcorn and 2 drinks.” A bad joke but it is pretty much the truth
Apartments/rent. Why the fuck is the cost of housing getting so outrageous? A one-bedroom run-down apartment on the 3rd floor with no utilities included should not be $900/month.
I’m in metro Atlanta, and yeah, I can’t get anywhere decent for under $1300 for a one bedroom. The ones that are a little nicer are going for $1500+.
What’s worse is trying to rent a house. There is no reason why a 3 bedroom house 25 miles away from downtown Atlanta costs almost $3000 a month to rent.
900? Those are rookie numbers. I’m paying 1175 with no utilities included, 25 dollar car port fee and a 25 dollar mandatory valet trash fee ( people come around between 7-9 to grab our trash outside our door). Bringing my actual rent to 1225 a month before utilities.
> The patent in the US ended so the company that bought it raised the price to $900.
When patents end it goes into the open domain. The patent was just sold.
the patent ends in 2025
They approved generic ones; that's what I have.
I got something in the mail about an EpiPen lawsuit the other day. Damn right I should get something; how long was I carrying an expired one until generics came out?
Indeed! Every so many years (7? or so, I think) the diamond cartels all come together to renegotiate how many diamonds are going to be released for sell to retailers from the VAST supply kept locked away so as not to flood the market and cause massive price drops. Diamonds (along with gold, other “precious” gems, etc.) are expensive because they’re supposed to be rare. Diamonds are NOT rare anymore.
I drove myself to the ER last month when I was in agonizing pain from a kidney stone. Probably shouldn't have, because I had passed out from the pain earlier in the day, but no way was I paying thousands of dollars for an ambulance ride.
I was once on a hike with a friend and a life-flight helicopter was landing at the top of the trail. I don’t know what happened but I did see someone on a stretcher get put on the helicopter. My friend and I promised each other that if anything were to
Happen to either of us, we’d do our best to carry the other or scoot down the mountain and back to the car to avoid the
Bill for a helicopter or even an ambulance down the canyon. I’m certain it’d be thousands of dollars.
I drove to my home from my HS after a full 1.5 hour football practice with a kidney stone. I had never been in so much pain hut I somehow got through practice. Ended up getting no sleep that night and puking the water I drank before my dad drove me to the hospital. Good times.
Prescription drugs.
EDIT: I should say that this is a problem in the US. I can't speak for other countries. Pharmaceutical reps are absolutely ruthless when it comes to shilling their stuff. They bribe healthcare providers with free lunches and lots of swag to persuade them to prescribe X drug instead of Y drug, even if Y drug is safer, more effective, better for the patient, etc. It's disgusting.
Housing. My apartment complex is charging over $2,000 for a 2 bedroom because of "high demand". Meanwhile 3 apartments near me sat vacant for months until they found people willing to rent them for that much.
I recall reading an article that for the first time in decades, people are moving away from the coasts instead of toward them. The cost of rent/real estate in California, NY and the like has gotten ridiculous. I'm from NY and don't know a single person in my age group who can afford to live alone.
Where I am in Tennessee, my two bedroom apartment is $675 and includes water. It's not a high quality apartment, but it's not crap either. Even though my rent is reasonable, I still see many people trapped living with abusive parents or SOs just because they can't afford to live without them. I can only imagine how much worse it is in areas where rent is so much more expensive.
This is partly because salmon loses a lot of water weight after being smoked. So it takes a lot more raw salmon to make an equivalent weight of smoked salmon.
Make it yourself and you'll quickly understand. 1lb of jerky takes 2-3lbs to make. Top Round is ~$6 a pound, so a pound of homemade jerky is ~$15-18 just for the meat. You can get really good jerky for $20 a pound with shipping included.
Art supplies at art stores I bought an exacto knife with no extra blades for 14 dollars at my local art store just to stop in a discount auto parts store a week later and find a three knife kit with 10 extra replacement blades for 4 dollars. For an added kick in the pants the cheaper blades are sharper and last twice as long.
You're not wrong! A yard stick at joann's was $15... Uuuh I can get one for $1 at like home Depot or something.. it's ridiculous really.
I got my yardstick for free. A bank was giving them away in the 1950s and when my grandma passed away, no one wanted the yardstick, so I took it with me.
That's a good thing. I hear they're not making them any longer.
r/dadjokes is leaking.
6:30 is my favorite time of day, hands down.
Spoilers: you can sharpen your own exacto blades. You don't have to throw them away. Just use whatever handle that gives you the mobility you need for the project. /Cries in the corner with my $40 tiny tube of paint.
I have an irresistible wish to buy a £30 (plus postage which does not take into account how small the thing is) tiny little water colour pan of paint. It's traditional lapis lazuli. And I know it will look pretty much exactly like a less consistent synthetic aquamarine. But I often use paint like ink to colour in things I draw in my notebooks and I just love the idea of knowing it's painted with semi-precious stone. (And it was a paint that was once pretty much as valuable as gold and only used for painting the Virgin Mary). I'm a hoarder and have a terrible habit of wanting art stuff just to have the stuff. Fetishizing the art materials is the opposite of actual art (and you can be more creative with less stuff sometimes). I'm still having that lapis lazuli though.
From memory, I think lapis lazuli is one of those pigments that rewets really poorly. I suggest you get it in a tube and use it fresh when you want it. Daniel Smith make a lapis lazuli genuine in their primatek range
I went to the pet store to buy a silicone mat to put under the cat bowls. It cost 35€. Not even 30 minutes later I saw the exact same mat at the home improvement store for only 7€. I was so pissed.
Printer ink
Cost per milliliter is unbelievable
[It costs more than blood](https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/economy/ink-costs-more-human-blood)
Print in blood. Got it.
All this time I've only been printing legal contracts with it.
Devil has entered the chat.
You mean the guy who lost a fiddle contest to some hillbilly in Georgia? That guy's a dork!
Thats why I have been using blood for centuries
To be fair, there is a lot more blood in the world.
Also significantly less people are buying blood.
Nobody makes money selling printers. They make money selling ink.
By design. They learned that customers were stupid. They would buy the cheapest printer and not investigate the cost of ink. Shifting profit from printer to ink allows the manufacturer to have the minimum printer cost and sell more. And their sales patterns proved them right.
It’s standard service profitability model. I work in service sales and the margins are made after sales, not on the initial equipment. Works all the way up to massive wind turbines, jet engines and locomotives. Sell the equipment nearly at cost (1%) and sell services at huge margin once they’re locked in (50%).
Buy a color laser printer. Ink doesn’t dry up and is much cheaper per impression. And they print better. Life hack. Edit: some excellent comments below… don’t need color? B/W laser is great too and saves a lot of up front cost. Print a lot of photos? Better quality photo printing available professionally for very low cost these days.
It's crazy how one day everything shifted and people started buying those Brother printers. Laser ones. They're fairly cheap and are laser printers. Not sure if there's any other comparable brands or not. I wouldn't ever think of buying an inkjet printer. The cost is absurd. They do weird ass tricks to make people buy more.
I fully agree. Bought a brother laser printer a few years ago, after having so many angry and frustrating experiences with inkjet printers (Ink dried up, not working, printing stripes, awfully expensive to print larger documents, ...). One of the best investments I ever made. It just simply works. If I could pass one life advice to my grandchildren, it much likely would be that. Don't buy that stupid inkjet crap.
Anything in an airport.
One of the reasons the Portland airport keeps winning “Best Airport” awards is that PDX requires street pricing, so food, books, gifts or whatever must cost the same as anywhere else in the city.
Was gonna mention this. PDX is a great airport.
It’s so nice to actually show up early and eat breakfast before a flight and not worry about getting gouged.
The reason goes deeper than you think. Leasing prices for the stores is very high. Many companies like Hudson News have to bid for the retail spaces and it is a competitive market. Some airports have rules in the retail leasing contract that a portion of every sale (gum, magazines, water, etc) goes to the airport. Also some of the best retail wages in town are in airports due to unions. Add all of that to the fact traveling customers are a 'captive group' and it explains the prices.
The worst is the fact they won't let you bring in outside beverages (U.S. at least). If you are thirsty, you are forced to pay their extortion prices. Other items like gums, snacks, books, etc...they can mark up at will since a traveler can prepare those ahead of time. But to force people to dispose of their beverages during security and marking up beverages at the terminals seems like a dick move. At the very least, do not mark up bottled water.
In the US at least every airport has water bottle filling stations.
Yep, a refillable bottle is something I always pack when I travel.
Yeah exactly. Bring a refillable bottle. Or wash out a Gatorade bottle for travel, whatever. Most major airports have water bottle filling stations all over.
When I flew a few weeks ago they had closed the bottle filling stations due to COVID concerns.
You can bring an empty container and fill it after security. Most airports have water bottle filling stations, even.
Bring an empty refillable bottle. Drinking fountains are free.
>What is expensive for no reason at all? sounds like a joke but it's true
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College textbooks I mean why you have to buy a book when you have internet shouldn’t be mandatory
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$20 if they'll buy it back... Threw more than one into a school trashcan because there was "a new edition" and the old one was worthless. I had one professor issue 60+ page handouts per class rather than require multiple books. He was determined to destroy the departments copy paper budget "because".
Glasses. This industry's a joke.
try Zenni. I am practically blind and can get blue blocking transition lenses for ~$50. I can’t see any quality difference between those and the ones from my optician’s shop.
Well of course you can't see any difference, your vision is garbage.
even I can see what you did there.
But can you see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
Yeah Zenni Optical is where I get my glasses. I got my latest pair for less than 20 with no extras or anything because I'm broke but you can get them made any way even fancier lenses and you can even etch words into the frames. Anyways, what I did was call my eye doctor and asked him to tell me my prescription over the phone. He was like, let me guess you're not coming back and I was like I will come back just not to buy my glasses. Fuck that they want hundreds for them and they are the same as what I can get online.
Zenni is actually cheaper than getting from most insurance claims. It shows just how much they are marked up.
Can confirm, Zenni is fantastic. I have 2 pairs!
Luxoticca is a conglomerate that owns the vast majority of the brands we all know. So they just jack up the prices. It's pretty ridiculous
They also own EyeMed "insurance", Pearle Vision, and Target Optical.
That explains why the eyemed insurance is so weird. It is like designed to make you spend way more rather than reduce the overall expense. What a scummy combo.
It's less of an insurance and more of a discount plan, but they're offering a discount on a product they've jacked the price up on, so why bother?
It's not a conglomerate. It's a criminal enterprise.
I saw a short documentary a few years ago about how its all the fault of one company, if I remember correctly it is called Luxottica
Yup that's the company. They own everything.
I work for them and they brag about this shit in orientation
It's Luxoticca's effective monopoly on the industry.
I got four pairs with my prescription from EyeBuyDirect for less than $85 total. They always have deals, that time it was buy one get one free, so I did two separate orders to get the best deal!
Company: Yo you look like you'd look fresh as hell in some nike glasses for only $159.99 Me: Damn wth? You got any cheaper options C: Ah you're a broke bitch huh? Dumb little loser. Try these $20 ones on since you're so poor and pathetic. M: Nothing changed it's literally the same design and same glass except without the nike logo. C: Bruh fym those shits were worth every penny you poor bitch. M: Is it at least a better plastic C: Doesn't need to be M: Does it also do the thing where it can bend in both directions to avoid breaks C: Yeah cuz it's goated M: So you're telling me the only difference is the nike logo on it C: If you're poor as fuck and a little bitch you can just say that
Insulin
I'm a Type 1 and I am so thankful I get an exemption here for prescriptions! I couldn't imagine the stress of if or not you can afford insulin to survive. Sickening.
My cousin moved to Canada specifically to stock up on inexpensive insulin to bring back to her mom in Washington when they meet once a month for dinner.
Pandemic border closure must have been a b****
She actually spent 2020 in Canada with my cousin. Being the parent of a Canadian national, she easily got permission from their government for an extended stay.
Sad she's essentially a medical refugee...
Hero
if i ever meet a friend who needs it, i'll make sure to tell them about this so they can save some money
Yeah I always wondered how Americans deal with this in Europe especially france it’s basically free and if it’s not at least 70% is taken care of by the government and u pay crumbs from ur pocket.
Some dont deal well with it at all unfortunately, there's quite a few stories online about it sadly
A lot of people take half doses, skip doses and eventually die trying to stretch the insulin supply they have because the prices are idiotically high, they cannot afford rent, food, a job, transportation and Insulin.
Its a disgrace. The insulin patent from the University of Toronto was sold for $1 with the understanding that cheap insulin would become available.
This should be the top reply. The stuff is extremely cheap to produce, but someone decided it should turn a bigger profit and so here we are.
In the US.
Anything wedding related.
When my wife & I were looking for a wedding venue, there was a place we called and they quoted us $200 a day. When I made the mistake of saying it was for a wedding they said “oh for a wedding it’s $800 a day.” No reason. If I hadn’t told them, we could have rented it for $200 and done everything the same.
For my first wedding, the place we got our cake from charged $800 for a wedding cake that served 100 people. So instead we got 10 different "non-wedding" cakes from the same place, that each served 10 people, for $300. Bonus that if you didn't like one of the cakes, you'd probably like another.
Quite frankly I've heard enough horror stories from service industry people working at weddings that I'm willing to accept that extra $600 as a "dealing with the drama shit" fee.
Yep. So many people have such higher standards for weddings as well, that they realistically incur more costs. More employees. More cleanup. Higher priority. Etc.
Maybe they are used to drunk people breaking things and puking
Nah it’s just like that for wedding stuff. “We need X amount of flowers” “Oh ok that’ll be $350” “It’s for our wedding” “Oh shit why didn’t you say so? It’ll be $700”
Vendors would argue that they treat wedding clients differently. Weddings have more last minute changes, can need more planning services, require higher service reliability/timing
Not sure where you're from or how long ago that was, but as someone currently wedding planning the absolute cheapest venues we've found so far are still 2-3k.
Comcast. They've jacked my bill up for at least the last 2 months.
My relationship with Comcast is love hate. I fucking hate them for their lousy service and inflated prices. I love them for offering service in my area, which keeps the Verizon prices down so they don't do the same thing to me that Comcast did. Anything you pay them is too much.
Seeing someone describe their relationship with Comcast as “love hate” is actually the most positive comment I’ve ever heard about Comcast.
All my homies hate comcast
Internet and data services in Canada
God, don’t get me started on the monopoly that is Canadian phone providers.
Outdoor furniture
Dentists. (Not free in my country)
It's so stupid how dental care isn't treated like any other form of medical care. Like how do you expect people to maintain their health if they can't chew anything??
I am a dentist. I can’t believe the price of care. My office is average in price compared to the region and whole US. I choke asking patients to spend 5 k to replace a tooth
The saddest part for me as a patient is I couldn’t afford a filling when that’s all it was I busted my ass deteriorated my health working and saving to make enough and by the time I could finally go in for that filling it was already a root canal…which I then Couldn’t afford again. And then the dentist judges me for “letting it get this bad” As if I wouldn’t have got it done on the day I learned about it if I could have. So I just left the dentists in tears without a clue what to do next knowing damned well that the decay will spread I will lose this tooth and there will likely be a hole in the ones around it soon. Being poor comes with interest and dental is a great example of it.
I'm in the same boat. Had to have one pulled already because I couldn't afford a root canal. Now I need two root canals on the other side. I've had to go in multiple times to get amoxicillin because of infection. It's pretty frustrating when I keep getting chastised for not taking care of it. "You really need to get a root canal done soon" I know, but I can't afford it. "Well it'll cost more if you don't take care of it soon". Telling me it's going to cost more in the future isn't going to magically make money appear in my pocket now.
Yes I hate that! It’ll cost you even more if it gets worse…yeah I know but I can’t afford it NOW so give me options! This isn’t a matter of choice!
They gave me the address to a place they said would take me without insurance and give me a payment plan. So I went out there, only to be told by the receptionist that they aren't taking people without insurance. I was like, aight, guess I'll just go die slowly then.
Serious question; Why do you need to charge the same as your competitors? I'd imagine you'd be drowning in clients if you charged even 10% less than dentists in your area.
Probably because: There are only so many hours in a day, at least around here most dental offices have fairly full schedules even at ridiculous prices, to the point they couldnt make it up with volume. The other employees (dental hygienists, etc) still expect to be paid what they could make at the competition.
I asked the same to an apartment complex manager while apartment hunting with a friend (because rent is too damn high) and they said it was to "stay "competitive "". Which makes no sense at all.
Well that’s the dumb shit I expect from an apt manager
Funerals Why must we pay tens of thousands for family who died, ~~we don't even get to choose not to have one.~~ Big ol' fat tax if I ever seen one EDIT: Apparently you can choose but it's still expensive AF
“Just because we’re bereaved doesn’t make us saps!”
Its their most modestly priced receptacle
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I mean, technically you can deny claim of the body and the burden will fall on the state. But you don’t get any say in the details and their ashes will be put into a mass indigent/unclaimed gravesite.
Now THAT is how I want to go!
Dig a hole and toss me in when I die. I would like to be worm food.
Data fees. I'm Canadian, so we have first world infrastructure and yet we pay the same rates as they do in the less well off countries in Africa
Also, the carrier customer serivce/support you guys have a horrifically bad. I work in IT and I dread the days I get tickets for Canadian carriers. Telus, Primus, Bell Canada…. Ugh. Usually 30-45 minute wait on hold just to get transferred and wait another 30. And the guy I end up with might give me straight up false information.
My mom cried one day cause she had to call Rogers for customer service. Like she was having a rough day, and just dialling the number broke her. They’re so fucking incompetent it doesn’t make any sense. The only thing I hate more than Rogers is Bell.
Eyewear. You can buy a cellphone for the same price, yet the price of the material is just a small fraction and ghr expertise to make them is not close either. And yes, you can buy glasses at a reasonable price, but that is only since recently and not often available in the shops.
Diamonds. A few companies own nearly all the world’s diamonds and they purposely make the price high so they make more profits and the consumers cant go anywhere else. Edit: my notifications have been blown up lol
That's why I don't buy diamonds. I buy cubic zirconia. It sparkles, looks nice and my tennis bracelet cost NZ$150 instead of 5k.
Moissanite here (for my wedding/engagement ring at least).
Resale value is shit as well. Bought some diamond jewellery in India for £550 (bargain), insurance value was £3000 (this would be the cost of replacing them, including workmanship etc), but I've just been quoted an auction estimate at £120 to sell them. Diamonds are like cars, they do not hold their value unless they are a particularly fine example. Conclusion: don't buy diamonds.
Some video games that aren't really that rare are super expensive now as of the past few years. When I was working and stuff I could find anything like Pokemon games for super cheap used and now when I look up games I want to play they're a hundred dollars or more. Sucks.
I went to a retro game store and some games like Kirby: crystal shard were 130$. My gf took a picture of one of the games her brother liked as a kid and the dude told us to leave. It was so weird.
Or games for obsolete devices still being the original price! Why is Melee $60 now when the GameCube is DECADES old at this point?!
That is why you softmod your gamecube/wii and boot ISOs or burn your own game DVDs
Melee's been 60 bucks for like a decade now. It'a more amazing that it hasn't increased in price IMO.
Art equipment
Insulin… sorry I cripple the government cause they have to buy me expensive insulin
You're not crippling the government. If they cared, they'd bother to enforce any of the like dozen anti-trust and competition laws that pharma companies violate by keeping insulin prices so damn needlessly, artificially high.
Razors....just like printer ink.
Gotta get into shaving with double edged safety razors my dude. Can get 100 blades for $7
For real. I have a beard but I still shave my neck and clean up the lines on my cheeks. I bought a big pack of blades about 3 years ago and I still have a ton left.
Satellite Television
Health insurance
*American health insurance Insurance that never pays for anything
Any designer t-shirt. It’s a fucking t-shirt, idk if it says ‘Supreme’.
Weirdly enough, Supreme was created as a parody of all of those high fashion companies like gucci and what crap else, then it caught on and they just rolled with it, and now they sell a friggin brick and a crowbar with their name plastered on it. Its kinda hilarious watching rich dumbasses eat that shit up for the 'clout' or whatever
"what crap else" is an excellent phrase. I'll use that. Thank you.
insulin
water filters
Tampons and Pads
It’s a “luxury” item. You know, the luxury of not bleeding all over myself, my place of work, and any store I might need something from!
Every school year I buy good pads and tampons to keep in my classroom. Students on periods can just come grab what is needed.
Funny enough, it's probably a bigger "luxury" for others that I'm not bleeding everywhere. I guarantee other people would mind a lot more than me if I (or other women) started free bleeding lmao Not that I'd prefer to not wear pads. Just that I'm pretty sure other people would be more upset than the amount of shits I give about it at this point lmao.
Seriously, I’m already used to cleaning up blood, other people, maybe not so much. Also, free bleeding made me actually lol.
Apparently that's what it's actually called and there are people who do it as their main period management thing (assumably just when they're home? Idk)
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Worked for a movie theater, and they get next to nothing from ticket sales. Concessions makes up basically all of theater profit. You don’t have to buy food and drinks to watch a movie, so it always baffled me how mad customers would get as they willfully handed over their cash and complained about prices. Just make an effort to sneak in your snacks… us minimum wage employees didn’t care enough to stop you… unless you tried to walk in like you owned the place. Any other time we just looked the other way.
My wife and I would walk in and they would never check her purse…which had a couple bottles of Gatorade which were actually filled with booze. No one ever gave a shit.
When I “caught” people, I actively encouraged them to actually make an effort. Use a purse or wrap everything in a hoodie—do *something*. We stop you when food is in plain sight just so we don’t get in trouble. The one thing thing I wished I had stopped was the cucumbers left behind by middle-aged women in *50 Shades of Grey* I hated my job.
Why would you try to stop someone from eating healthy?
Pretty much anything out of a cinema. I remember a joke my dad told me a few days ago, “three robbers stole £20,000 worth of goods in a cinema and were never caught. They stole 10 buckets of popcorn and 2 drinks.” A bad joke but it is pretty much the truth
That’s because they’re barely breaking even from ticket sales. Concessions is how they actually profit.
Realtor fees in the US
As someone getting ready to put my house up for sale, I agree.
Apartments/rent. Why the fuck is the cost of housing getting so outrageous? A one-bedroom run-down apartment on the 3rd floor with no utilities included should not be $900/month.
I’m in metro Atlanta, and yeah, I can’t get anywhere decent for under $1300 for a one bedroom. The ones that are a little nicer are going for $1500+. What’s worse is trying to rent a house. There is no reason why a 3 bedroom house 25 miles away from downtown Atlanta costs almost $3000 a month to rent.
900? Those are rookie numbers. I’m paying 1175 with no utilities included, 25 dollar car port fee and a 25 dollar mandatory valet trash fee ( people come around between 7-9 to grab our trash outside our door). Bringing my actual rent to 1225 a month before utilities.
Epi pens. The patent in the US ended so the company that bought it raised the price to $900.
> The patent in the US ended so the company that bought it raised the price to $900. When patents end it goes into the open domain. The patent was just sold. the patent ends in 2025
Yeah patents ending nearly always cause the price to go down not up.
When that ends, I feel like at least *one* company is gonna spring up and sell em for 50$ a piece and make bank
Been without mine for years, once the ones I had expired.
They approved generic ones; that's what I have. I got something in the mail about an EpiPen lawsuit the other day. Damn right I should get something; how long was I carrying an expired one until generics came out?
Diamonds
Came here to say this. The amount they have in reserved is insane. Sure are pretty, though.
Indeed! Every so many years (7? or so, I think) the diamond cartels all come together to renegotiate how many diamonds are going to be released for sell to retailers from the VAST supply kept locked away so as not to flood the market and cause massive price drops. Diamonds (along with gold, other “precious” gems, etc.) are expensive because they’re supposed to be rare. Diamonds are NOT rare anymore.
Fountain drinks at restaurants.
This is where a lot of them make any money at all.
Lindor chocolates. They’re really good but it’s like 5 dollars for 3 of them
This sounds expensive! Is it the Lindor balls? They're like 40c each in Australia.
Graphics cards
True especially in recent times but then again it's considered high tech so it's bound to be expensive
Ambulance Luckily i dont live in the US
US here: I have taken an Uber to the ER.
I drove myself to the ER last month when I was in agonizing pain from a kidney stone. Probably shouldn't have, because I had passed out from the pain earlier in the day, but no way was I paying thousands of dollars for an ambulance ride.
Things are not okay.
I was once on a hike with a friend and a life-flight helicopter was landing at the top of the trail. I don’t know what happened but I did see someone on a stretcher get put on the helicopter. My friend and I promised each other that if anything were to Happen to either of us, we’d do our best to carry the other or scoot down the mountain and back to the car to avoid the Bill for a helicopter or even an ambulance down the canyon. I’m certain it’d be thousands of dollars.
Starting price for a life flight is 40k. My ex MiL had a cardiac event and her life flight was 70k.
I drove to my home from my HS after a full 1.5 hour football practice with a kidney stone. I had never been in so much pain hut I somehow got through practice. Ended up getting no sleep that night and puking the water I drank before my dad drove me to the hospital. Good times.
Same. The driver was so nervous, I felt awful about it. I tipped really high.
Canada here. My uber back to my car where I had my medical incident cost double what the ambulance cost me. My ambulance ride was $45 CAD, Ontario
Life hack: injure (or "injure") yourself near a hospital where you want to go for a cheaper Uber ride.
Food and medical bills
College in the US, and I’ll follow that up with student loan interest.
Living in general
College
Prescription drugs. EDIT: I should say that this is a problem in the US. I can't speak for other countries. Pharmaceutical reps are absolutely ruthless when it comes to shilling their stuff. They bribe healthcare providers with free lunches and lots of swag to persuade them to prescribe X drug instead of Y drug, even if Y drug is safer, more effective, better for the patient, etc. It's disgusting.
Housing. My apartment complex is charging over $2,000 for a 2 bedroom because of "high demand". Meanwhile 3 apartments near me sat vacant for months until they found people willing to rent them for that much.
I recall reading an article that for the first time in decades, people are moving away from the coasts instead of toward them. The cost of rent/real estate in California, NY and the like has gotten ridiculous. I'm from NY and don't know a single person in my age group who can afford to live alone.
Where I am in Tennessee, my two bedroom apartment is $675 and includes water. It's not a high quality apartment, but it's not crap either. Even though my rent is reasonable, I still see many people trapped living with abusive parents or SOs just because they can't afford to live without them. I can only imagine how much worse it is in areas where rent is so much more expensive.
Adobe
Medical care
Smoked salmon. Smoking increases its value by a few hundred percent.
This is partly because salmon loses a lot of water weight after being smoked. So it takes a lot more raw salmon to make an equivalent weight of smoked salmon.
An education in the US
Healthy food, the fatty foods are cheap but the people who want to eat healthy pay almost double
Removing corn syrup is expensive /s
beef jerky
You lose 50-60% of the meat weight when drying it to make jerky. That is why it is expensive.
Plus very small unit sizes. Also a PITA to make.
Make it yourself and you'll quickly understand. 1lb of jerky takes 2-3lbs to make. Top Round is ~$6 a pound, so a pound of homemade jerky is ~$15-18 just for the meat. You can get really good jerky for $20 a pound with shipping included.
water