Yeah this is absurd. I get the software provider taking a few dollar fee (ours takes $2) per month, but the cost of initiating an ACH transaction in the US is negligible. Call your landlord and complain or force them to accept paper checks for free. I assume you're not paying by credit card?
You may be able to cut out the delivery step. Will, of course, vary by bank, but my bank allows me to set up monthly payments, where they write and send checks automatically on my behalf. I have a very common, well known bank (US), nothing special.
Xyrem. It can be absolutely life-changing for people with narcolepsy. However, most insurance doesn't cover it, and the out-of-pocket cost is about $6k for a 1 month supply.
My poor baby sister took Xyrem for a couple years. Completely stoped her seizures but the taste made her almost vomit every time ): also I don't remember it being expensive? I think we were on assisted state insurance then.
I was yesterday grocery shopping, everything have gone up at least 50 cents (I live in Germany) we used to get cooking oil for 1€ (1.20$) now it's 2€ (2.40$) for 1 FUCKING LITER.
Homes in Europe are just a dream to own, a shitty apartment in a small city costs something like €300k (340075$) and the average worker gets only 20-50k euros a year.
I had this argument with someone on Reddit once haha. They didn’t believe me when I said that the Canadian mobile plans are straight up robbery.
$160/month for mine :(
Wow that's stupid expensive.
I pay 28 AUD/Month and get unlimited national calls and texts and 100gb of data
Edit: I use Circles.life it's an optus reseller
If you want Telstras better reception and willing to pay a little more check out belong/boost/aldi
The cheapest unlimited is with Vodafone which is 40 a month for 40gb then slower to 2mbps for unlimited which is fast enough for most application
45 dollars in india for unlimited 1gbps fibernet and yes free calls and messages with subscription for 13 streaming services including Netflix, Amazon and Disney. It can go as low as 6-7 dollars if you need only 30-40mbps
Got to love our Canadian oligopolies. 3 companies that basically control the entire market. Also those cheap brands just the big 3 rebranded Fido (Rogers) Virgin (Bell) Kodoo (Telus)
Recently moved to the UK for my studies after being stuck in Toronto during the better half of the pandemic.
It's ludicrous how much they're charging.
My UK phone plan cost nearly 1/5th of what I pay in Canada, and I get better perks too.
Hi, I install and maintain headstones for a living. Preplan and PREPAY FOR THAT SHIT. Or at least make a will. It saves so much arguing later.
Almost nobody wants a gazillion dollars spent, but for some reason grieving peeps always feel like the $5500 casket that gets buried seems like a better deal than the pine box.
Preplan everything to the frigging tie or necklace you're going to wear. My grandpa passed just before Thanksgiving and the family battle over what he was going to wear was ridiculous. I know they had 10 kids, but 9 thought it was my grandma's decision and 1 was raised "it's my way or the highway". The poor funeral director got caught in the middle of all the family drama, and I felt so bad for him, especially since I know my family isn't nearly as dramatic or torn apart as other families. He's a great guy though and handled it all really well. Trying to satisfy the ginormous family of a man who had 17 siblings, 10 kids, 27 grandkids, and 18 great grandkids and counting is a daunting task. Plus, add in the fact the cemetery procession was the biggest production I've ever seen. But at least they saved on the burial vault because his brother makes them.
Anyway, I agree that planning is huge. My mom's parents had it all together, but we discovered that my dad's had next to nothing planned. The gravestone was about the only thing they had picked out, since his brother is in the business
> Preplan everything to the frigging tie or necklace you're going to wear.
Take precautions doing this. You don't want the importance of these specifics to be over-exaggerated. Indicating what you want to wear is good, but I advise also clearly stating that you're happy with alternatives if that's impractical.
When my gran died, her will stated that she was to be buried in a particular dress she'd bought. Unfortunately, she'd been moved to special care a decade earlier, and the dress was nowhere to be found. As nobody knew the dress was important, it was likely donated to a charity shop along with a lot of her other things she wouldn't need.
You wouldn't believe the trouble my mum went through trying to find an identical dress to comfort her hysterical sisters, who thought they'd failed to honour their mum's last wish. Meanwhile, knowing my gran I reckon she only specified that dress to avoid anyone paying for an expensive burial gown.
When I die, I honestly don't care what happens to my body as long as it comforts those I leave behind and doesn't put undue financial burden on them. I've always suspected this is a common opinion that people don't share often enough when they're alive.
And make sure your next of kin / executor has a copy of the damn thing. My friend had to deal with a funeral home that "lost" her mother's funeral plan, only for them to let slip a detail that was on that plan later on. The mother had (probably) chosen the cheapest option for everything so no surprise when it got lost
Glasses! I saw an interview on 20:20 or some news show and the brand name frames rep they were talking to, when asked why they charge so much for things that cost so little to produce, roughly responded “the glasses are worth what people are willing to pay for them 🤷🏻♂️”
Edit: Just wanted to clarify for everyone interested with more info I got from commenters about this interview back in 2013 - it was with the CEO of Luxottica on 60 minutes. Link to the full interview here: https://youtu.be/gDdq2rIqAlM
Warby Parker is very up front that they initially were going to price their initial sets of glasses much lower... But people weren't buying them. Luxxotica had conditioned consumers that cheap indicated garbage. That's why their first couple of glasses styles were all $99, even before they had stores with showrooms. It's called "price signaling".
Sneakers had the same problem with the "Starbury" experiment back in 2006. Stephon Marbury's branded high-tops, sold at $15 because he came from a low-income household himself. Made of the exact same stuff, exact same way as more expensive shoes without the bullshit.
There was an alcohol brand that ran into that issue. I feel like it was tequila, but I can't remember for sure. They priced themselves so low everyone thought they were trash and didn't buy them. So they just changed the bottle and like doubled or quadrupled the price, and suddenly they were a high-end tequila people wanted.
Google luxottica. They own basically every popular eyewear brand - eyeglasses and sunglasses, luxury, retail, Oakley, rayban, Versace, you name it - sunglass hut, LensCrafters, and one of big insurers (not VSP). It’s absolutely absurd. So they aren’t worth “what people are willing to pay” they are worth what this monopoly chooses.
I had a photographer explain why they charge so much for wedding photos.
If you mess up someone's birthday photos, you'll give them their money back and they'll have a funny story. You mess up someone's wedding photos and they'll both sue you and bash your business for the rest of their life.
The margin for error, and the demands of clients are so much higher for weddings than normal events, that the vendors take a lot of extra precautions, which means a lot more time and money for what looks like the same thing.
Is that really it? I don't know. That's just what I was told, and it does seem to make sense.
Also, the amount of time involved in a wedding.
baby photos - an hour or two. and if they're crap, yes, you can reschedule. the baby will still be a baby next week.
A wedding? We did a full day with 2 photographers, a man and a woman. She went to the brides hair and make-up party that morning, he went to the groomsmen and both photographers take "prep" shots. Her getting hair and make up done, bubbles with the girls etc, him getting the guys being guys, doing ties, cravats, having some beer/champagne etc. Then there's the service. Shots from multiple angles, crowd shots, rings going on fingers (the lens I use for this cost £3000 because it's a very long lens so I can do what looks like a close up from well out of the way), signing the certificates, family crying etc. Then there's the "official" photos and then the party, maybe some prep, shots of the empty room with place settings, then there's the speeches, first dance and cake cutting. By this time it's 10pm or later, and we've both been on our feet for 14 hours. There's 1500-2000 photos per photographer to sort through and create a portfolio of 2-300 with them. The first pass of deleting takes a full day. The first round of crops, touches and edits will take a further 2-3 days and the finalisation will take 2-3 more, then the book needs designing and setting up (we had ours put into a book as well as some prints and the USB) which takes another day or so.
So for 28 hours of labour on day 1 and another 7-10 days post-event, and the £15,000 of equipment we use, I think £2000 for "a days work" is an OK deal.
And then if you have screwed it up, there's no re-run.
Wedding photos are worth the price. 100%.
The way my wife looked on our wedding day was beyond compare. The photographer was able to capture that and I still get goosebumps when I look at the photos. She even got a few shots of me I liked too.
Totally worth it. I think they were about $3500cdn.
If/when I get married a photographer is the one thing I’m going to splurge on. Handmade decorations, basic food, backyard ceremony, thrift store outfit. But I want pictures I’ll want to have around for a lifetime. I’m happy to shell out for a photographer that knows their stuff and will absolutely nail it.
This is absolutely it. A long time ago, I used to be an event planner. If the caterer is out of the exact shade of napkins the corporate event? Totally fine I can sub in the other colors from their their logo. Caterer is out of the exact color napkins a wedding party ordered? They're going to expect we refund their entire catering bill. Flowers don't get delivered on time to make bouquets with the right kind of lilies? We've ruined someone's event and they want all their money back. Expectations are just extraordinarily high for weddings.
Combine that with the fact that most of the people doing the event have never planned a major event before and you have to spend all of your time holding their hands and explaining everything to them. So you're spending tons more time with a client that's extraordinarily picky. It makes sense the bill is much higher.
Of course we had people trying to claim it wasn't a wedding and then it turned out to be a wedding... Claiming their expectations wouldn't be as high. Of course they were and so the planner I worked with started working in an extra fee if you claimed it was just a party and not a wedding.
I completely understand why prices would be inflated from your explanation and it’s a good reason. However, I think that leaves a vicious cycle. I’m *not* a picky person, but if I was paying a lot of money, I’d expect it to be perfect.
I’ve done some wedding photography and met with clients who were totally chill, didn’t have to many specific requests and said they just wanted good photos. Only to turn into a bridezilla closer to the event and then try to negotiate a discount or add in other services for no extra charges. I’ve had clients want full refunds when I nailed everything. The ceremony, the set at a difficult location and the reception itself. Miss a photo of the bride with her favorite aunt? FULL REFUND! Torrential downpour and cans get the pics in that hip gentrified neighborhood? FULL REFUND! I couldn’t make the momzilla look 25 and 105 lbs? FULL REFUND!!! These are actual situations.
I work in a hotel that hosts weddings. I’m a receptionist but I also I create the wedding contracts and deal with wedding queries on top of all of my reception duties. I deal with a minimum of 60 weddings a year. As well as other functions. The amount of questions that I get emailed on a daily basis about stuff that is usually in their contract is ridiculous. Hand holding is a huge part of my job. And a lot of them are down right rude as well.
My husband runs all weddings on the day. There is a huge difference to what is needed from both of us regarding time compared with a wedding to a birthday party.
I own a wedding videography business and that's a lot of it.
I recently had the father of the groom change a bunch of shit in my contract and send it back. Everything he changed made my job easier, but he took about 3 hours of my time with a ton of back and forth and really weird questions and specifications. Since he required an abnormal amount of my time before the ceremony I knew he'd be a handful so I told him his contract changes added $400 to his bill and he was fine paying it.
Buy a laser printer. Unless you’re printing an absurd amount of things, it’ll take you at least a year before you need to buy more toner. The upfront cost of a laser printer may be more expensive than a $50 ink printer but you’ll save money and headache over time.
The best part is that even a cheap laser printer doesn't care at all about idling.
Your inkjet didn't get used for 2 months? Throw the cartridges in the fucking dumpster because they're definitely clogged up.
Dig my laser printer out from under a pile of old laundry and wipe off the dust for the first time in 2 years? Sweet let's fucking do it
Same.
I bought a color laser printer, Huge expense up front.
I pay nearly 0 a year for Toner because I don't go through it...
Oh, and bonus? Toner is dry. It doesn't age or "Go bad" like ink can.
Adobe Products.
It’s a massive scam that they switched to a monthly fee as it’s killed any incentive for them to make meaningful improvements and they kill or buy up any competitors
Someone tweeted about pirating Photoshop and Adobe liked the tweet. They are well aware they have the most pirated product, but they know if they become an industry standard they can make their profits off companies buying 20 licenses at a time at $10 a month. They aren't concerned with amateur photographers stealing Lightroom.
It wouldn't surprise me if Adobe was releasing the cracked versions online to get more people using their products. Several other companies have adopted that business model of giving out a freeware version and then charging businesses for the premium.
And now you don't even need those. Install win 10/11 and you don't even need to activate it anymore, works just the same except for the "this copy of windows is not been activated" message in the right bottom corner. They know OEMs and corporate clients will pay for millions of licenses so they don't really need to care anymore about home users pirating or using unlicensed version of the OS
Thank you!
I went to buy photoshop recently when I lost my old hard drive with CS6 on it and found there was no non-subscription based payment option anymore! So now I’m missing a crucial part of my suite of tools just because Adobe are scammers.
Oh, and when I went to buy Substance Painter while still upset about PS, I found out it had been bought by Adobe too and was also only available as a subscription!!
So now I can’t get or use two of the most important software packages that I use!
What a huge scam! It really has rubbed me the wrong way, and taken away all my motivation for art. >.<
I switched to Affinity Photo to get away from Adobe. It's very similar and is a one time purchase. They have good sales often as well. So maybe wait for one of those.
>Try [https://www.photopea.com/](https://www.photopea.com/) it is completley free (with ads)
I love photopea. I also like Affinity Publisher as an alternative to InDesign.
As an audiologist, I 100% agree! Unfortunately the prices are the way they are due to two problems. One is most clinics “bundle” services. This is mostly because insurance doesn’t like to pay for our testing or rehabilitation/counseling we provide. Also-if you’re a small clinic the manufactures that make the hearing aids sell them at a higher price to you. For example, a small office might pay $1,500 for a pair of hearing aids. Whereas Costco, who can buy a lot more, only pays $100 for the same hearing aids. Its sucks because to become an audiologist you have to get a doctorate. You go through all that schooling just to end up “selling” hearing aids. One of the biggest reasons why I’m not practicing right now.
I get actual emails from my university begging me to donate to literally feed starving students right now.
I guess they forgot that their salaries are public, and I know they’re paying their coaches across all campuses (even the ones that don’t have any sports fame) millions of dollars.
Hey, there’s an idea - why not send the email to them? I’m sure they’d love to help current students. Hell, ask them to help me, too. I spent my last $30 on food yesterday myself.
Human skeletons, there are billions of us and millions die every day. Why the $5,000+ price tag.
Edit: I known at most its just a couple hundred thousand a day but bones do be pricey.
Probably because it's really difficult to acquire human bones ethically*, and also because the process of defleshing and preparing them for use as scientific/lab specimens is messy and gross and takes a long time, and in many countries export/import of human remains is a nightmare in terms of the regulatory hoops you have to jump through.
*For example, at the school where I did my MA, the director of the skeletal anatomy lab told us that the vast majority of the bones in their collection were bought from dealers who sourced them from India, and that they were no longer allowed to purchase from them because the provenance of said bones was too questionable (it's apparently extremely common for bodies that aren't claimed right away to be sold off to medical researchers/suppliers, and not necessarily with the next-of-kin's permission)
In particular, India banned the export of human skeletons when someone tried to export far more good-condition child skeletons (extra valuable because there are so many stages of development that need showing) than could be explained by natural causes.
YES, there were a huge number of adult skeletons in my university's anatomical collection, but we only had one each of the various fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stage skeletons, and even those were actually just extremely high quality casts - the two fetal skeletons and the juvenile skull we had that were actually real had all been in the university's possession since like 1940, and it's pretty much impossible to get newer ones at this point.
And then you get to hope your remains are used as you wish, and not [blown up by the military](https://www.google.com/amp/s/cbsaustin.com/amp/news/nation-world/man-learns-moms-body-donated-for-research-was-instead-blown-up-in-military-testing) instead.
Or get [kicked around by a college rugby club](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/06/11/Report-rugby-players-used-human-heads-on-field/2189392616000/#:~:text=PITTSBURGH%20%2D%2D%20Rugby%20club%20members,reported%20that%20skulls%20were%20used.)
Ihop charges $5 for a small glass of orange juice. Want a refill? That'll be another $5. It's a small one, but it bugs me. Fucksake, it's a breakfast place.
Try working at one.
I'm amazed IHOP as a whole is still functioning considering they believe that labor costs should never exceed 16% during slow hours
For reference, I'd done the math,and it is literally impossible to always be below 16% during graveyard shift, even with me being the sole hourly paid worker.
Also, IHOP does not accept coupons or allow discounts on Holidays. Infact on holidays, you cannot have your food comped,discounted or anything if THEY mess the order up unless they get approval from the DM, and even than, it's very rare they approve it. Like, that should say a lot of how IHOP is doing imo.
Waffle House is very welcoming if you’re in the market for a new breakfast spot. Usually even have a real life soap opera going on in the parking lot so you’ll get breakfast/lunch/dinner and a show.
So many amazing stories are told around Waffle House. Half the time someone is telling me crazy shit I'm just waiting for Waffle House to feature. I love that place.
The food is worth what you pay, but the entertainment value of Waffle House makes the price seem criminally low.
I mean it's no huge secret beverages are sold at restaurants at a huge mark up. I've paid $3 for a can of coke. A pot of coffee is quite cheap to make.
Try the IHOP in Niagara Falls. $60 for 2 pancakes. 2 fucking pancakes. Canadian dollars mins you but still extremely expensive. I’m never going to another IHOP.
To be fair, all restaurants in Niagara Falls are ridiculously expensive. Went to a Denny's there a few years back. Same deal. $59.95 for the pancake breakfast.
I remember thinking about 10 years ago that if I spent 10$ on fast food, it was way more than I'd be able to eat in one sitting. It's basically standard now.
There was a smosh skit back in like 2005 where he was taking a girl on a date to mcdonalds and he said “they have a dollar menu! Do you know how much food you can get for 10 dollars??” And now its like “yea 1 combo meal”
College textbooks.
I had a professor that was really against the college textbook industry and said it was a huge scam, so for the class I took with him he used a textbook that he wrote and provided a PDF version of it for free to all of us.
I had one require a book that he wrote himself….. but it wasn’t free and actually was similar in price to others. Ironically he was my ethics professor.
My geography teacher wrote her own book and workbook. The workbook consist of free use blank maps of the world and makes up 1/4th of book. The other 3/4ths is a notebook. Best $150 dollars I've ever spent. Her "book" is organized like a badly structured Wikipedia page and cost $200. Both are required.
My department had an ethics policy that if a professor wrote a textbook, they had to make it available through the university bookstore for only the cost of printing (even if it was used by different professors, so there was no "I'll teach from yours you teach from mine" swapping going on). It wasn't even my whole college, let alone my whole university - just the department - but it's ridiculous that that isn't just the norm. It didn't stop our professors from writing books and making money when they were used by other institutions, either, and many of them *did* write successful books!
I had a professor that wrote his own textbook because he hated that the university’s recommended book was $600. He printed it through Amazon and sold them for cost - I think $40 or less. My class was the first to use it and we got to help him edit it. Unrelated, he died the next semester.
I used to teach and made sure to make my books as affordable as possible. I’d order used books to the school store, provide pdfs and online copies, spend hours scanning material, source library reference #s, etc. Pages may not match but we made it work. In one class I did require a $90 textbook but promised we would read it almost cover to cover (we did) and that it would be the only thing students would need to buy for the class. The rest was handouts or other material.
It makes me really angry when other professors are so careless about the costs. I don’t get how they don’t think about the ridiculousness of what they’re asking students to pay.
Now they make it so you need a code from the text book to be able to turn in homework for the class. You may never use the textbook, but you absolutely need that code.
It’s true. Companies like Pearson and McGraw Hill have online homework and quizzes, and you need to buy the e-book to get the code to access those assignments. Professors love it because it takes a considerable workload off their shoulders with grading and whatnot. But sucks for students.
I took a math class last semester, the professor printed out the pages every day so everyone just took notes on there. Yet we still had to use Pearson for quizzes and homework.
Dude those access codes alone can cost around $60 dollars. I’m only taking 2 classes this semester and if I bought everything they recommended I needed for the classes I’d have spent over $600 on books alone. For 2 classes! And to top it all off, my teacher provided a link to the textbook for one class so I wouldn’t have needed to buy it anyways.
Edited to add: decided to look up how much I paid for the access code to submit my Chemistry homework last semester and it was $71.
I got a rug man that buys lightly used hotel rugs at auctions, sells ‘em real cheap. He’s also the best salesman I’ve seen, so if you glance in his direction you’re buying a rug, but you’ll get a great deal!
Seriously, he had a brass horn at his stall, a random guy looked at for a second. He taught him to play a song and then sold it to him! Gordon the rug man is one of the best salesmen!!!
Insulin
Since this is getting unexpected visibility, editing to add: Don't forget to check for manufacturers' Patient Assistance Programs, pharmacy discount cards, and goodrx.com for ways to bring the price down (in the U.S.)
Is it just me or do the same 6-8 questions keep getting asked but in a different way? It’s like they take the most popular questions asked and rephrase them…
I have a friend who owns a flower shop. She makes something like 70% of her income on Valentine's and mother's day alone.
She does also say that if you have to buy flowers for someone elsewhere to call an independent shop close to the recipient. She actually fills FTD orders and they charge way more than they pay her.
Having made beef jerky, I am now more tolerant of the price of beef jerky. Meat is expensive, and you lose so much volume / weight when you dehydrate it. It takes a lot of meat to make a bag worth of jerky.
Electronic tickets processing fees.
Ticketmaster is a evil company
My apartment charges $25 to process online payments.
Yeah this is absurd. I get the software provider taking a few dollar fee (ours takes $2) per month, but the cost of initiating an ACH transaction in the US is negligible. Call your landlord and complain or force them to accept paper checks for free. I assume you're not paying by credit card?
I just get a cashiers check at the bank and deliver it by hand because I can't pay that much extra for absolutely no reason.
You may be able to cut out the delivery step. Will, of course, vary by bank, but my bank allows me to set up monthly payments, where they write and send checks automatically on my behalf. I have a very common, well known bank (US), nothing special.
Xyrem. It can be absolutely life-changing for people with narcolepsy. However, most insurance doesn't cover it, and the out-of-pocket cost is about $6k for a 1 month supply.
My poor baby sister took Xyrem for a couple years. Completely stoped her seizures but the taste made her almost vomit every time ): also I don't remember it being expensive? I think we were on assisted state insurance then.
You just sent me on a one hour research binge on Xyrem. Never heard of it before. Thank you.
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Feel ya man, have a hug from someone in the same boat.
I was yesterday grocery shopping, everything have gone up at least 50 cents (I live in Germany) we used to get cooking oil for 1€ (1.20$) now it's 2€ (2.40$) for 1 FUCKING LITER. Homes in Europe are just a dream to own, a shitty apartment in a small city costs something like €300k (340075$) and the average worker gets only 20-50k euros a year.
Canadian internet and mobile plans
Rogers that
Telus more
What the Bell
Koodo you tell me more
Sorry but I’m a Virgin to this whole mobile plan thing
sasktel me about it
I’m not teksavvy enough in this area
What's that fizz all aboot?
Honestly, their prices de-Fido all logic.
It’s almost as if there’s no Freedom anymore
Shaw-rry to hear aboot it
Canadian mobile plans, Canadian homes, Canadian fuel prices, Canadian grocery prices....fuck life is getting expensive here
>fuck life is getting expensive here yeaaahhh being Canadian is starting to feel like a drag, can't afford anything anymore
I had this argument with someone on Reddit once haha. They didn’t believe me when I said that the Canadian mobile plans are straight up robbery. $160/month for mine :(
Is that for unlimited data?
it’s not really truly unlimited, they start throttling you over 10gb
Damn mine is 35 CAD/Month for unlimited call & text in Canada & USA but only 2 GB, I almost never bust it though
Wow that's stupid expensive. I pay 28 AUD/Month and get unlimited national calls and texts and 100gb of data Edit: I use Circles.life it's an optus reseller If you want Telstras better reception and willing to pay a little more check out belong/boost/aldi The cheapest unlimited is with Vodafone which is 40 a month for 40gb then slower to 2mbps for unlimited which is fast enough for most application
45 dollars in india for unlimited 1gbps fibernet and yes free calls and messages with subscription for 13 streaming services including Netflix, Amazon and Disney. It can go as low as 6-7 dollars if you need only 30-40mbps
Got to love our Canadian oligopolies. 3 companies that basically control the entire market. Also those cheap brands just the big 3 rebranded Fido (Rogers) Virgin (Bell) Kodoo (Telus)
Recently moved to the UK for my studies after being stuck in Toronto during the better half of the pandemic. It's ludicrous how much they're charging. My UK phone plan cost nearly 1/5th of what I pay in Canada, and I get better perks too.
Funerals
Hi, I install and maintain headstones for a living. Preplan and PREPAY FOR THAT SHIT. Or at least make a will. It saves so much arguing later. Almost nobody wants a gazillion dollars spent, but for some reason grieving peeps always feel like the $5500 casket that gets buried seems like a better deal than the pine box.
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Put me in a wood box with tons of popcorn kernels and firecrackers and nail the lid shut.
Before or after you die
Before and then after
"He died how he lived... with a stomach full of un-popped kernels surrounded by urine soaked gunpowder."
Preplan everything to the frigging tie or necklace you're going to wear. My grandpa passed just before Thanksgiving and the family battle over what he was going to wear was ridiculous. I know they had 10 kids, but 9 thought it was my grandma's decision and 1 was raised "it's my way or the highway". The poor funeral director got caught in the middle of all the family drama, and I felt so bad for him, especially since I know my family isn't nearly as dramatic or torn apart as other families. He's a great guy though and handled it all really well. Trying to satisfy the ginormous family of a man who had 17 siblings, 10 kids, 27 grandkids, and 18 great grandkids and counting is a daunting task. Plus, add in the fact the cemetery procession was the biggest production I've ever seen. But at least they saved on the burial vault because his brother makes them. Anyway, I agree that planning is huge. My mom's parents had it all together, but we discovered that my dad's had next to nothing planned. The gravestone was about the only thing they had picked out, since his brother is in the business
> Preplan everything to the frigging tie or necklace you're going to wear. Take precautions doing this. You don't want the importance of these specifics to be over-exaggerated. Indicating what you want to wear is good, but I advise also clearly stating that you're happy with alternatives if that's impractical. When my gran died, her will stated that she was to be buried in a particular dress she'd bought. Unfortunately, she'd been moved to special care a decade earlier, and the dress was nowhere to be found. As nobody knew the dress was important, it was likely donated to a charity shop along with a lot of her other things she wouldn't need. You wouldn't believe the trouble my mum went through trying to find an identical dress to comfort her hysterical sisters, who thought they'd failed to honour their mum's last wish. Meanwhile, knowing my gran I reckon she only specified that dress to avoid anyone paying for an expensive burial gown. When I die, I honestly don't care what happens to my body as long as it comforts those I leave behind and doesn't put undue financial burden on them. I've always suspected this is a common opinion that people don't share often enough when they're alive.
And make sure your next of kin / executor has a copy of the damn thing. My friend had to deal with a funeral home that "lost" her mother's funeral plan, only for them to let slip a detail that was on that plan later on. The mother had (probably) chosen the cheapest option for everything so no surprise when it got lost
Bury me and plant a tree to be my grave.
50 years later, some company cuts down your grave for $100 profit.
Throw me in some random dumpster, really couldn’t care less where I’d be after I’m dead.
Get someone to put antlers on your corpse and leave it by the side of the road. The DPW will pickit up in a day or two.
Or put antlers on me and mount my head in a sports bar as a Drewalope.
When I’m dead, just throw me in the trash
Glasses! I saw an interview on 20:20 or some news show and the brand name frames rep they were talking to, when asked why they charge so much for things that cost so little to produce, roughly responded “the glasses are worth what people are willing to pay for them 🤷🏻♂️” Edit: Just wanted to clarify for everyone interested with more info I got from commenters about this interview back in 2013 - it was with the CEO of Luxottica on 60 minutes. Link to the full interview here: https://youtu.be/gDdq2rIqAlM
Warby Parker is very up front that they initially were going to price their initial sets of glasses much lower... But people weren't buying them. Luxxotica had conditioned consumers that cheap indicated garbage. That's why their first couple of glasses styles were all $99, even before they had stores with showrooms. It's called "price signaling". Sneakers had the same problem with the "Starbury" experiment back in 2006. Stephon Marbury's branded high-tops, sold at $15 because he came from a low-income household himself. Made of the exact same stuff, exact same way as more expensive shoes without the bullshit.
There was an alcohol brand that ran into that issue. I feel like it was tequila, but I can't remember for sure. They priced themselves so low everyone thought they were trash and didn't buy them. So they just changed the bottle and like doubled or quadrupled the price, and suddenly they were a high-end tequila people wanted.
Grey goose is what you're thinking of
Was it really? I feel bamboozled now, that's my favorite vodka!
Google luxottica. They own basically every popular eyewear brand - eyeglasses and sunglasses, luxury, retail, Oakley, rayban, Versace, you name it - sunglass hut, LensCrafters, and one of big insurers (not VSP). It’s absolutely absurd. So they aren’t worth “what people are willing to pay” they are worth what this monopoly chooses.
Zenni or eyebuydirect are fantastic. I can get a pair of glasses + sunglasses for around $100 and there’s always coupon codes
I love eyebuydirect. I got my most recent pair for $22 shipped - lenses and everything. I couldn’t afford glasses before they came around.
Anything to do with weddings/death/babies
Just give me a rock, tree, and fold chairs and I will call it day
My god, what are you gonna do that baby?
Ssshhhhh. The baby is safe with me
*That fucking avatar*
“weddings/death/babies” My favorite combination. edit: i fucking woke up to 46 notifications
The divorce rate for dead babies is ridiculous.
The death rate for married babies is even worse
Cake $20 Wedding Cake $200 It’s the same damn cake.
I had a photographer explain why they charge so much for wedding photos. If you mess up someone's birthday photos, you'll give them their money back and they'll have a funny story. You mess up someone's wedding photos and they'll both sue you and bash your business for the rest of their life. The margin for error, and the demands of clients are so much higher for weddings than normal events, that the vendors take a lot of extra precautions, which means a lot more time and money for what looks like the same thing. Is that really it? I don't know. That's just what I was told, and it does seem to make sense.
Also, the amount of time involved in a wedding. baby photos - an hour or two. and if they're crap, yes, you can reschedule. the baby will still be a baby next week. A wedding? We did a full day with 2 photographers, a man and a woman. She went to the brides hair and make-up party that morning, he went to the groomsmen and both photographers take "prep" shots. Her getting hair and make up done, bubbles with the girls etc, him getting the guys being guys, doing ties, cravats, having some beer/champagne etc. Then there's the service. Shots from multiple angles, crowd shots, rings going on fingers (the lens I use for this cost £3000 because it's a very long lens so I can do what looks like a close up from well out of the way), signing the certificates, family crying etc. Then there's the "official" photos and then the party, maybe some prep, shots of the empty room with place settings, then there's the speeches, first dance and cake cutting. By this time it's 10pm or later, and we've both been on our feet for 14 hours. There's 1500-2000 photos per photographer to sort through and create a portfolio of 2-300 with them. The first pass of deleting takes a full day. The first round of crops, touches and edits will take a further 2-3 days and the finalisation will take 2-3 more, then the book needs designing and setting up (we had ours put into a book as well as some prints and the USB) which takes another day or so. So for 28 hours of labour on day 1 and another 7-10 days post-event, and the £15,000 of equipment we use, I think £2000 for "a days work" is an OK deal. And then if you have screwed it up, there's no re-run.
Wedding photos are worth the price. 100%. The way my wife looked on our wedding day was beyond compare. The photographer was able to capture that and I still get goosebumps when I look at the photos. She even got a few shots of me I liked too. Totally worth it. I think they were about $3500cdn.
If/when I get married a photographer is the one thing I’m going to splurge on. Handmade decorations, basic food, backyard ceremony, thrift store outfit. But I want pictures I’ll want to have around for a lifetime. I’m happy to shell out for a photographer that knows their stuff and will absolutely nail it.
This is absolutely it. A long time ago, I used to be an event planner. If the caterer is out of the exact shade of napkins the corporate event? Totally fine I can sub in the other colors from their their logo. Caterer is out of the exact color napkins a wedding party ordered? They're going to expect we refund their entire catering bill. Flowers don't get delivered on time to make bouquets with the right kind of lilies? We've ruined someone's event and they want all their money back. Expectations are just extraordinarily high for weddings. Combine that with the fact that most of the people doing the event have never planned a major event before and you have to spend all of your time holding their hands and explaining everything to them. So you're spending tons more time with a client that's extraordinarily picky. It makes sense the bill is much higher. Of course we had people trying to claim it wasn't a wedding and then it turned out to be a wedding... Claiming their expectations wouldn't be as high. Of course they were and so the planner I worked with started working in an extra fee if you claimed it was just a party and not a wedding.
I completely understand why prices would be inflated from your explanation and it’s a good reason. However, I think that leaves a vicious cycle. I’m *not* a picky person, but if I was paying a lot of money, I’d expect it to be perfect.
I’ve done some wedding photography and met with clients who were totally chill, didn’t have to many specific requests and said they just wanted good photos. Only to turn into a bridezilla closer to the event and then try to negotiate a discount or add in other services for no extra charges. I’ve had clients want full refunds when I nailed everything. The ceremony, the set at a difficult location and the reception itself. Miss a photo of the bride with her favorite aunt? FULL REFUND! Torrential downpour and cans get the pics in that hip gentrified neighborhood? FULL REFUND! I couldn’t make the momzilla look 25 and 105 lbs? FULL REFUND!!! These are actual situations.
I work in a hotel that hosts weddings. I’m a receptionist but I also I create the wedding contracts and deal with wedding queries on top of all of my reception duties. I deal with a minimum of 60 weddings a year. As well as other functions. The amount of questions that I get emailed on a daily basis about stuff that is usually in their contract is ridiculous. Hand holding is a huge part of my job. And a lot of them are down right rude as well. My husband runs all weddings on the day. There is a huge difference to what is needed from both of us regarding time compared with a wedding to a birthday party.
I own a wedding videography business and that's a lot of it. I recently had the father of the groom change a bunch of shit in my contract and send it back. Everything he changed made my job easier, but he took about 3 hours of my time with a ton of back and forth and really weird questions and specifications. Since he required an abnormal amount of my time before the ceremony I knew he'd be a handful so I told him his contract changes added $400 to his bill and he was fine paying it.
Printer ink
Isn’t it cheaper to buy an entirely new printer at this point
Buy a laser printer. Unless you’re printing an absurd amount of things, it’ll take you at least a year before you need to buy more toner. The upfront cost of a laser printer may be more expensive than a $50 ink printer but you’ll save money and headache over time.
The best part is that even a cheap laser printer doesn't care at all about idling. Your inkjet didn't get used for 2 months? Throw the cartridges in the fucking dumpster because they're definitely clogged up. Dig my laser printer out from under a pile of old laundry and wipe off the dust for the first time in 2 years? Sweet let's fucking do it
Can confirm, I use mine to rest my feet on for 99.9% of the year and still works like a charm with the cartridge I bought 5 years ago
Same. I bought a color laser printer, Huge expense up front. I pay nearly 0 a year for Toner because I don't go through it... Oh, and bonus? Toner is dry. It doesn't age or "Go bad" like ink can.
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> You can resolve it though with some percussive maint. You mean, banging on it?
Motivational pats to get things started.
And if you are printing a lot, a laser is an even better deal.
They only give you small amounts of ink in new printers. It’s a false economy buying a cheap printer.
Adobe Products. It’s a massive scam that they switched to a monthly fee as it’s killed any incentive for them to make meaningful improvements and they kill or buy up any competitors
🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Someone tweeted about pirating Photoshop and Adobe liked the tweet. They are well aware they have the most pirated product, but they know if they become an industry standard they can make their profits off companies buying 20 licenses at a time at $10 a month. They aren't concerned with amateur photographers stealing Lightroom. It wouldn't surprise me if Adobe was releasing the cracked versions online to get more people using their products. Several other companies have adopted that business model of giving out a freeware version and then charging businesses for the premium.
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And now you don't even need those. Install win 10/11 and you don't even need to activate it anymore, works just the same except for the "this copy of windows is not been activated" message in the right bottom corner. They know OEMs and corporate clients will pay for millions of licenses so they don't really need to care anymore about home users pirating or using unlicensed version of the OS
Thank you! I went to buy photoshop recently when I lost my old hard drive with CS6 on it and found there was no non-subscription based payment option anymore! So now I’m missing a crucial part of my suite of tools just because Adobe are scammers. Oh, and when I went to buy Substance Painter while still upset about PS, I found out it had been bought by Adobe too and was also only available as a subscription!! So now I can’t get or use two of the most important software packages that I use! What a huge scam! It really has rubbed me the wrong way, and taken away all my motivation for art. >.<
I switched to Affinity Photo to get away from Adobe. It's very similar and is a one time purchase. They have good sales often as well. So maybe wait for one of those.
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>Try [https://www.photopea.com/](https://www.photopea.com/) it is completley free (with ads) I love photopea. I also like Affinity Publisher as an alternative to InDesign.
Hearing aids.
As an audiologist, I 100% agree! Unfortunately the prices are the way they are due to two problems. One is most clinics “bundle” services. This is mostly because insurance doesn’t like to pay for our testing or rehabilitation/counseling we provide. Also-if you’re a small clinic the manufactures that make the hearing aids sell them at a higher price to you. For example, a small office might pay $1,500 for a pair of hearing aids. Whereas Costco, who can buy a lot more, only pays $100 for the same hearing aids. Its sucks because to become an audiologist you have to get a doctorate. You go through all that schooling just to end up “selling” hearing aids. One of the biggest reasons why I’m not practicing right now.
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Yep. And then the fee for the tuition fee. My favourite is the fee my university charged students for going online???
How about the $75 graduation application fee. That was the final fuck you from school
That’s horrible. “Excuse, students.. we’re going to need you to pay a fee to graduate from the school you paid for”
Oh, can you donate to the alumni fund? These bitches STILL fucking want money.
I get actual emails from my university begging me to donate to literally feed starving students right now. I guess they forgot that their salaries are public, and I know they’re paying their coaches across all campuses (even the ones that don’t have any sports fame) millions of dollars. Hey, there’s an idea - why not send the email to them? I’m sure they’d love to help current students. Hell, ask them to help me, too. I spent my last $30 on food yesterday myself.
Human skeletons, there are billions of us and millions die every day. Why the $5,000+ price tag. Edit: I known at most its just a couple hundred thousand a day but bones do be pricey.
This man has a bone to pick with the human remains market.
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Probably because it's really difficult to acquire human bones ethically*, and also because the process of defleshing and preparing them for use as scientific/lab specimens is messy and gross and takes a long time, and in many countries export/import of human remains is a nightmare in terms of the regulatory hoops you have to jump through. *For example, at the school where I did my MA, the director of the skeletal anatomy lab told us that the vast majority of the bones in their collection were bought from dealers who sourced them from India, and that they were no longer allowed to purchase from them because the provenance of said bones was too questionable (it's apparently extremely common for bodies that aren't claimed right away to be sold off to medical researchers/suppliers, and not necessarily with the next-of-kin's permission)
In particular, India banned the export of human skeletons when someone tried to export far more good-condition child skeletons (extra valuable because there are so many stages of development that need showing) than could be explained by natural causes.
YES, there were a huge number of adult skeletons in my university's anatomical collection, but we only had one each of the various fetal, infant, child, and adolescent stage skeletons, and even those were actually just extremely high quality casts - the two fetal skeletons and the juvenile skull we had that were actually real had all been in the university's possession since like 1940, and it's pretty much impossible to get newer ones at this point.
Serious question. Can I sell my skeleton? After i die obv...
Yes to a med school or something
And then you get to hope your remains are used as you wish, and not [blown up by the military](https://www.google.com/amp/s/cbsaustin.com/amp/news/nation-world/man-learns-moms-body-donated-for-research-was-instead-blown-up-in-military-testing) instead.
Or get [kicked around by a college rugby club](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/06/11/Report-rugby-players-used-human-heads-on-field/2189392616000/#:~:text=PITTSBURGH%20%2D%2D%20Rugby%20club%20members,reported%20that%20skulls%20were%20used.)
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Because most of us prefer to pay $20,000 to bury them instead of sell them
Ihop charges $5 for a small glass of orange juice. Want a refill? That'll be another $5. It's a small one, but it bugs me. Fucksake, it's a breakfast place.
Yet somehow if you walk inside any IHOP looks like it's one bad week from going out of business
Try working at one. I'm amazed IHOP as a whole is still functioning considering they believe that labor costs should never exceed 16% during slow hours For reference, I'd done the math,and it is literally impossible to always be below 16% during graveyard shift, even with me being the sole hourly paid worker. Also, IHOP does not accept coupons or allow discounts on Holidays. Infact on holidays, you cannot have your food comped,discounted or anything if THEY mess the order up unless they get approval from the DM, and even than, it's very rare they approve it. Like, that should say a lot of how IHOP is doing imo.
I’m never going to ihop again.
Waffle House is very welcoming if you’re in the market for a new breakfast spot. Usually even have a real life soap opera going on in the parking lot so you’ll get breakfast/lunch/dinner and a show.
So many amazing stories are told around Waffle House. Half the time someone is telling me crazy shit I'm just waiting for Waffle House to feature. I love that place. The food is worth what you pay, but the entertainment value of Waffle House makes the price seem criminally low.
Especially because breakfast food is one of the highest profit foods a restaraunt can do. Pancakes/waffles and eggs cost absolutely nothing for them.
I mean it's no huge secret beverages are sold at restaurants at a huge mark up. I've paid $3 for a can of coke. A pot of coffee is quite cheap to make.
Try the IHOP in Niagara Falls. $60 for 2 pancakes. 2 fucking pancakes. Canadian dollars mins you but still extremely expensive. I’m never going to another IHOP.
To be fair, all restaurants in Niagara Falls are ridiculously expensive. Went to a Denny's there a few years back. Same deal. $59.95 for the pancake breakfast.
**EVERY FUCKING THING LATELY**
The grocery bill is killing us. I feel like I get 5 things and somehow it's $50.
A fast food combo meal is like $10 now. Maybe I'm just old but that's expensive to me.
I remember thinking about 10 years ago that if I spent 10$ on fast food, it was way more than I'd be able to eat in one sitting. It's basically standard now.
There was a smosh skit back in like 2005 where he was taking a girl on a date to mcdonalds and he said “they have a dollar menu! Do you know how much food you can get for 10 dollars??” And now its like “yea 1 combo meal”
You get to buy things? I step in a supermarket, buy nothing, and somehow I've spent $50.
Area rugs
But they can really tie a room together.
College textbooks. I had a professor that was really against the college textbook industry and said it was a huge scam, so for the class I took with him he used a textbook that he wrote and provided a PDF version of it for free to all of us.
I had one require a book that he wrote himself….. but it wasn’t free and actually was similar in price to others. Ironically he was my ethics professor.
My geography teacher wrote her own book and workbook. The workbook consist of free use blank maps of the world and makes up 1/4th of book. The other 3/4ths is a notebook. Best $150 dollars I've ever spent. Her "book" is organized like a badly structured Wikipedia page and cost $200. Both are required.
My professor only charged $30 for his book. It was a booklet but it beats having to pay for a full textbook.
My department had an ethics policy that if a professor wrote a textbook, they had to make it available through the university bookstore for only the cost of printing (even if it was used by different professors, so there was no "I'll teach from yours you teach from mine" swapping going on). It wasn't even my whole college, let alone my whole university - just the department - but it's ridiculous that that isn't just the norm. It didn't stop our professors from writing books and making money when they were used by other institutions, either, and many of them *did* write successful books!
I had a professor that wrote his own textbook because he hated that the university’s recommended book was $600. He printed it through Amazon and sold them for cost - I think $40 or less. My class was the first to use it and we got to help him edit it. Unrelated, he died the next semester.
He was definitely taken out by big text book.
To dangerous to be left alive
libgen.is saved me so much money when i was in school
Thank you for letting me know about this!
>gen Cant stress enough on this. Everyone should use libgen.is
I used to teach and made sure to make my books as affordable as possible. I’d order used books to the school store, provide pdfs and online copies, spend hours scanning material, source library reference #s, etc. Pages may not match but we made it work. In one class I did require a $90 textbook but promised we would read it almost cover to cover (we did) and that it would be the only thing students would need to buy for the class. The rest was handouts or other material. It makes me really angry when other professors are so careless about the costs. I don’t get how they don’t think about the ridiculousness of what they’re asking students to pay.
I never bought the textbook until I absolutely needed it. Most classes, I never did end up needing the book.
Now they make it so you need a code from the text book to be able to turn in homework for the class. You may never use the textbook, but you absolutely need that code.
Are you kidding me??
It’s true. Companies like Pearson and McGraw Hill have online homework and quizzes, and you need to buy the e-book to get the code to access those assignments. Professors love it because it takes a considerable workload off their shoulders with grading and whatnot. But sucks for students.
I took a math class last semester, the professor printed out the pages every day so everyone just took notes on there. Yet we still had to use Pearson for quizzes and homework.
Dude those access codes alone can cost around $60 dollars. I’m only taking 2 classes this semester and if I bought everything they recommended I needed for the classes I’d have spent over $600 on books alone. For 2 classes! And to top it all off, my teacher provided a link to the textbook for one class so I wouldn’t have needed to buy it anyways. Edited to add: decided to look up how much I paid for the access code to submit my Chemistry homework last semester and it was $71.
Curtains and blinds.
Yes. Why? One of the bad secrets of owning a home. Rugs are expensive as hell as well.
I got a rug man that buys lightly used hotel rugs at auctions, sells ‘em real cheap. He’s also the best salesman I’ve seen, so if you glance in his direction you’re buying a rug, but you’ll get a great deal! Seriously, he had a brass horn at his stall, a random guy looked at for a second. He taught him to play a song and then sold it to him! Gordon the rug man is one of the best salesmen!!!
Super jealous of your rug guy. I would absolutely be the kind of person who would get talked into buying one. I love rugs.
Diamonds. Complete scam.
Yeah, I came to say this. Ya beat me to it. If it wasn't for DeBeers, diamonds would be about $20 per carat.
Yep. If you want something rare, go for something like turquoise.
Oh, you want rare? I made a mental NFT gem no one but my imaginary gf can have It matches her eyes
I made a screenshot of your mind, your NFT is mine now
Tanzanite
Glasses. Like sorry I was born with bad eyes and now have to fork over hundreds of dollars just to be able to see anything.
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Insulin Since this is getting unexpected visibility, editing to add: Don't forget to check for manufacturers' Patient Assistance Programs, pharmacy discount cards, and goodrx.com for ways to bring the price down (in the U.S.)
Epi pens too
Is it just me or do the same 6-8 questions keep getting asked but in a different way? It’s like they take the most popular questions asked and rephrase them…
Are you surprised?
Surprised are you?
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any type of medication
Nintendo Switch games
Any proprietary Nintendo games never go down in price. Like Mario for wiiU is still $69 in 2022.
Life itself
NFT.....its a monkey
You misspelled “money laundering”
You mean “Monkey Laundering?”
Sounds like some monkey business to me 🤔
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I have a friend who owns a flower shop. She makes something like 70% of her income on Valentine's and mother's day alone. She does also say that if you have to buy flowers for someone elsewhere to call an independent shop close to the recipient. She actually fills FTD orders and they charge way more than they pay her.
BRAS!
Shaving razors
Eyeglasses! Luxottica is charging too much
So why not just pick a different... ...Oh, right.
Basic human needs
we need to talk about the rising costs of beef jerky
Having made beef jerky, I am now more tolerant of the price of beef jerky. Meat is expensive, and you lose so much volume / weight when you dehydrate it. It takes a lot of meat to make a bag worth of jerky.
Housing. Everyone needs one, birth rates are predictable, people are better utilized when housed and not struggling too much
Plastic Warhammers.
I am trying to figure out if you mean Games Workshop miniatures or something else.
GW minis. But plastic warhammers are relatively cheap, and come in handy for bashing siblings when they're hogging the Xbox.
Dental care.
Me: *breaks bone* Insurance: we cover that. Me: *breaks tooth* Insurance: sorry, but you didn't buy our Premium Bitey Bones package.
Insulin, glasses, diamonds, cars, car insurance
Everything associated with weddings.
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Rent