This. I buy name brands if the quality is materially better.
If I can’t tell the difference in quality I’ll buy on price. And sometimes I can tell the difference but pick a point on the price/quality spectrum that I think will maximize my utility. Especially with more expensive items like steak and wine.
Yeah, the $200 bottle of French wine is definitely better than the $20 bottle of Chilean, but not enough better to consistently shell out an extra $180. For $20 you can get a nice Chilean cab.
I find uber usually works best, but I’ve never been to Chile so maybe cabs there are really good 
Cheerios, OMG, yes. The generics are terrible. Even Joe’s O’s are no good… the exception to the “Trader Joe’s brand is better than name brand” rule.
I was supposed to go to Santiago next month but now the trip might fall through. 
I could have reported back to you.
Simpler but less cost-efficient, if that is the goal. Perhaps the goal is simply to type letters onto a message board.
Just got some gas. I looked up what the Costco gas was, it was a little less expensive than the local Chevron but it’s a 20-mile round-trip (4/5 of a gallon), but I took an additional 20 cents/gal off for Safeway points. Ended up being cheaper (assuming the internet was correct) at Chevron. So win-win! Win!
Mixed goal I guess. I use the relative cost heuristic when weighing options. I don’t want to think too hard, so I could change to absolute cost, but I’m not explicitly calculating a monthly cost for chick peas. 
ain’t nobody got time for that.
They provide a smooth full-bodied ride with a good finish.
Well done. :toth:
My wife’s and my next vacation is to Hawaii.
I’m paying the thousands of bucks extra, because I’m not going to start/end the vacation by spending 13 hours crammed into an economy seat.
Last time I went to Hawaii I went first class on 3 of the 4 legs (first was sold out on Honolulu to Kahului, but that’s a puddle jumper so no biggie) and it was so worth it. It’s not a nice vacation if I have constant back pain from the miserable flight.
grocery shopping: generally go with a “per unit” price comparison balanced with what quantity do I really need.
single time purchase (like hotel stay or buying a car or phone): consider the qualitative factors to narrow down which options I’d be comfortable with, then look at cost differences in a more absolute fashion. That is, look at the lowest cost as the “baseline” then check the (absolute) marginal cost for the others to see if they offer something better for lower additional amounts.
I dunno man, we usually go to Asia and I just checked prices for two people and it’s like $20k total for a round trip business class for two people to Tokyo? Kind of insane imo.
So like what if you go further, do you pay 10k for your flight? Or $15k-$20k for first class?
On a 3 class airplane I certainly wouldn’t pay for first. Business class is plenty good enough. I’ve not flown to Asia… I don’t know how to answer that question. I’ve been to the South Pacific, but I was young and flew coach. For a long time HNL-GUM was my longest flight segment but the Africa trips have that beat, and those were in coach too. But those were a while ago too and my back is deteriorating.
I think if I couldn’t comfortably afford a business class ticket I wouldn’t go.
Admittedly, that is an exceptionally low fare for that city-pair. I used the date-picker on Google flights to find it.
EDIT: And, drilling in, it is economy/premium economy on the first two legs…
However, the JAL nonstop between JFK and NRT on those dates is showing $6122 for business class if purchased directly from JAL, with some discount options available through online agencies I’m not familiar with.
Two stops though…
If you’re trying to save money to spend on luxury hotels…
What about the energy efficiency of newer fridges?
I think this is viewed as a psychological quirck of humans because our brains work in logarithmic ways, so we worry about % changes more so than absolute but that can be silly in real life where saving 20% on peas matters a lot less than saving 5% on a car
versus 30 years ago? Sure. 10 years? Not as sure. All the internet has are older articles, and most are tainted by the source: they’re either appliance sellers or repairers.
Some say a refrigerator loses efficiency over time.
