Software subscriptions. I’ll buy a perpetual license if there’s no decent open source alternative as long as it will run offline. For example, $300 for Marvelous Designer back in the day was reasonable, but they can fuck right off with the subscription-only model.
A few people are saying “streaming services”, I go further and rarely-if-ever buy entertainment media. Music, videos, games, websites.
Not even pirating most of the time, there’s a whole world of good Creative Commons music, FOSS games and actual creative communities (not just parasocial fan communities) for me to be entertained for lifetimes. It’s just healthier to be outside the world of profit and addiction machines. (It amazes me that people can think ‘influencer’ is not a creepy ominous title)
Ethanol, caffeine, mushroom, and cauliflower
At the same time?
Is this a recipe?
Why cauliflower???
Jarred tomato sauce. It’s one of the easiest things to make and every jarred sauce I have ever had tasted like shit
Onions. Can’t stand 'em.
😢
A car. Gas/petrol for a car. A parking spot for a car. Car insurance. A driver’s license. Winter tires for cars. Anything car related.
It’s so ridiculous to pay for a mobile living room that needs to be parked everywhere people go with it.
I just moved back to a city with decent enough transit and dumped my car and god I’m so much happier. I hate driving and car ownership with a fiery passion.
Sadly, many cities are designed around cars where owning one has become more or less a necessity.
Any paid subscription which doesn’t either
a) Save me money, eg Amazon prime (although someone else in my family has Prime so if I need something from Amazon I just use their account) b) Do something I can’t setup myself
And especially no subscriptions which give me the licenses to digital media, without hardware, eg xbox or netlfix
for amazon i think, it makes sense if one buys a lot of small things for some reason online,
but like otherwise often it is possible to buy from the website of the product company directly with free shipping (if one orders enough)
and i feel like every money amazon does not get is good
-
Only Fans cause that shit is free dude
-
Anything advertised on Instagram or Facebook by “influencers” like some cable tv tele-marathon my grandma would fall for.
-
Stocks and shares in any sort of oil and gas company, Google, Meta, Amazon, etc.
I get the stocks one totally, I try and boycott companies/countries/policies I don’t like by investing my money in certain ways, but stocks generally are necessary to stop you from losing money to inflation
I go with an esg etf, that only uses companies with very high scores, and only from democratic countries (-> no usa)
I feel like that is a good middle ground without spending too much time on this?
-
Pre-built computers. I’ve just been building PCs for so long I can’t imagine buying something that meet my specifications within a reasonable budget. And it’s fun.
I have never tried building a PC myself but I have gotten into reviving old ones. I haven’t bought a computer in over a decade. I just inherit people’s old ones and bring them back to life with linux, maybe replace a dead PSU or something. I’m new to hardware stuff. I really wish I knew a way to get these computers into the hands of people who can’t afford to buy one and don’t know how to do this themselves.
I built my own because I wanted a gaming computer with a blu-ray drive. That was the only way. I also added a floppy drive for shits and giggles.
Wouldn’t a pre-built secondhand pc be cheaper, if your just starting out?
Pretty unlikely to find a second hand system with the highish specs I’d want.
But if you mean if someone just needed a computer, then yes used would be much cheaper given how quickly things advance.
Labubus
-
Nestle and Goya products
-
Lottery tickets
-
New phones
-
Anything from Temu or Shein
-
I try to avoid the keyboard mash sellers on Amazon but for some products it’s pretty much impossible to find anything else.
I like to get some scratchies every now and then - it’s one of the major funding sources for museums and sports in the UK, so I see it as a little donation with a dopamine hit rather than an attempt at winning big!
Do you buy used phones? How do you deal with the battery? Used phones generally have old batteries, no?
I just buy a cheap/budget (mid?) phone, 200 EUR max, every 5 years or so…
My phone is a Galaxy S9+ from 2018 that I bought used in 2020 for about $200. The battery life is diminished but it lasts through the day.
I will likely need to buy another refurbished phone soon though, as support for this device is getting cut from my banking app. I try to buy them at $300 or lower.
-
K-Cups. They might save you a grand total of a minute over loose grounds and a disposable paper filter, but they’re more costly per cup and create more waste.
they’re more costly per cup and create more waste.
Is this really true tho? because i heard they are more enviromental friendly because less coffee is wasted?
Might be less coffee but it’s not just the coffee that’s the waste; it’s all the extra plastic that each one of those K-cups uses.
Plastic often lasts centuries (at least) to biodegrade and even then animals try to eat the waste and then die horribly.
I use the k cups and brewer with a reusable washable pod. You put little paper filters in them.
They’re great for single people who want 1 cup before leaving for work though.
Aeropress does this for me, and way better quality. Less waste too
You can do the same with a manual coffee brewer though- just use less coffee and water
Can I leave it to pour a single measure whilst I throw on my shoes and jacket?
French presses are great for quick 1 or 2 cups
Dryer sheets
Also not sure how to search within a thread on piefed app…
Buy dryer balls, they are reusable and last for as long as you don’t lose them.
We got a four pack that became a 3 pack after the first day until my wife found the fourth one in the hood of a hoodie she hadn’t worn in a while.
Lottery tickets.
They’re basically just a tax on the dumb. But man the slogans — all you need is a dollar and a dream, you gotta be in it to win it, etc. — sheer marketing genius.
That tax goes both ways.
There are moments where the potential payout for a ticket is greater than the value of the ticket.
In that mathematical moment, buy exactly one ticket.
I call it the stupid tax. I pay it knowing I won’t win but it would be nice to get some fuck you money.
I don’t mind spending 10 a month to maybe pay off my house years early.
I’ll buy them as “gag gifts” but not for myself.
Streaming subscriptions. I swear the average nowadays seems to be like 4 per person because ppl don’t know how to torrent anymore
Adding to this, anything where I’d be paying a publisher middleman. Avoid whenever possible, pay directly if you’re in a position to support the creator/s of smaller projects.
This also applies to other things, like food ordering and travel accommodation. Some places offer a significant discount if you go directly to them - both of you get a bigger cut.
English speakers (and in some cases even other language speakers) can watch pretty much anything nowadays through free streaming sites. Been binging myflixer for over a year.
✨alternative✨ streaming services are moral.
My country has a huge piracy tradition, we have counterfeit of everything and no one gives a fuck. I have this satellite decoder that let me watch any satellite-broadcasted channel in the world, and the guys who made those are so awesome that they also offer a streaming service they upload everything from all major streaming services, and it’s completely free, no subscription, you just buy their device and you have access to their private streaming
ppl don’t know how to torrent anymore
I’ll admit I was guilty of this until a few years ago, when I started learning the proper, safer ways.
Any advice? I’d love to stop paying for streaming services
I highly recommend the /c/piracy / /r/piracy wiki. Has guides, advice and links to the better public sites.
See the links on the sidebar of https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy
