I often hear, “You should never cheap out on a good office chair, shoes, underpants, backpack etc…” but what are some items that you would feel OK to cheap out on?

This can by anything from items such as: expensive clothing brands to general groceries.

  • Che Banana
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    65 months ago

    Spain I can get the powdered Ibuprofen 400mg for about 2/3€, which I really prefer over the pill, and you get about 20 packets.

    I agree with the huge US bottles, but personally the powder gets old and usually clumps up before i finish them all and I end up buying a new pack.

    • prowess2956
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      55 months ago

      I had no idea one could buy powdered ibuprofen. What’s the advantage? Advil’s marketing suggests you need special technology to deliver the medicine to the correct point in your digestive system.

      • Che Banana
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        45 months ago

        Yeah, it’s actually more mild than the pill form, and acts SO much faster, most times you can feel the headache just fade away.

        I used to pop aspirin and Excedrin for migraines but found out (the hard way) it’s no bueno for your stomach, so I have to use these sparingly. We also have 1g Acetaminophen (Tylenol) horse size pills, but it doesn’t do anything/help the pain for me anymore.

    • nicetriangle
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      5 months ago

      In the US you can get a bottle of 500 ibuprofen 200mg pills for about $10.

      So for your case that’s 8000mg for 3 euros or .0375 cents a mg

      In the US that would be 100,000mg for $10 or .01 cents a mg.

      So 3.75x more expensive not factoring in the Euro being higher on the dollar.

      But it’s not even about the price, it’s the fact that it’s just hard to find a large bottle of it here in the EU at all (at least the Netherlands where I am now). I’ve never really seen it in stores. I much prefer buying a bulk bottle that lasts a year or two easily.

      • Che Banana
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        35 months ago

        Yeah I mean I get it, but still don’t/can’t use 500 before they expire anyway…plus since I only buy them every couple for years I’m not the expert on the price. Just an anecdote…please don’t quote me.

        • nicetriangle
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          5 months ago

          They have an expiration date of 4-5 years, so not really an issue. I just think it’s a waste of my time to go to the store to get a 10-20 pack and also a waste of space and a waste of packaging.

          Small annoyance overall I know, but it’s one of my gripes about over the counter medicine here.

          Edit: more annoying is that more hardcore cold medicine is not sold over the counter here at all. Anything with pseudoephedrine is prescription only. Also the sort of actually effective decongestants and antihistimes are all prescription only if they’re even legal at all here.

          But what’s funny is despite that, I can literally walk into the grocery store and buy codeine cough syrup right off the shelf without asking anybody or showing ID. It seems ridiculous to me.