I live in the desert, and many months out of the year, it's way too hot to be wearing covered shoes. The problem is, though, when it comes to sandals, my feet sweat A LOT and start sliding around, and they become impossible to walk in comfortably. I need a sandal that is super durable, comfortable, will strap to my feet, and look decent enough to be casual or semi formal, and lastly, they will not have their wearability affected by my sweaty sweaty feet. Anyone got some good suggestions?

I tend to buy 1 pair of shoes that are my "go to" shoes. Thus i like them to cover a variety of roles while fitting a few requirements. These are worn basically every day barring literal special occasions. I'll wear them to work, disc golf, a walk, a light hike, anything less than the fanciest of dinners or occasions, and can get away with them if I have to even for those. Oh and while I find it matters less these days, i'm an 11-12 foot size which tends to limit my options in physical sores.

I like slip ons at this point, both as an aesthetic and from a practicality standpoint, and due to my "do it all" requirement generally want something that is comfy, looks half decent, is in black, but also has decent grip on the bottom.

I've currently burnt through my keen slip on's. I got these almost exactly a year ago in black, and they've been "good enough" for $60-75.

That said I'm not in love with them, and I'd also like a dress shoeish equivalent like these rockports . However i've heard they're garbage, especially for the price.

I'm throwing this on here because I'm not against spending more for better quality shoes, but I've spent 2 or 3 times as much as the keens, and gotten very similar results. Hell i'd LOVE if I could just take them to a cobbler to get them fixed every X years, but seems that's really only a thing for heavy duty work boots at this point (which led me down a rabbit hole of looking for a specific kind of redwings, but those also were no longer being made)

Merrell went from quite good many years ago to just garbage that didn't even make it 6 months, and on the other side of the coin I found some Lowa "snow shoes" that fit my requirements and lasted I think 2-3 years, but were no longer being sold by the time I needed new ones.

Does anyone have some suggestions, or am I just better off getting the cheapest thing that I like the look of because they're mostly all going to be burnt through? Even then, any suggestions on half decent brands?

For example: someone will buy, say, several different pairs of pants. They really only want one pair of pants. They’ll try all of them on, keep the one they like best, and then return the rest.

The key here is that they never intended to keep all of them — it was only ever about one pair.

This has come up frequently for me in conversations with others recently. Just today, a penny-pincher family member who never spends more than he has to on anything and will take weeks to make decisions about even the smallest purchases, mentioned deliberately overbuying some stuff that he’s planning on returning.

I don’t know if it’s a new trend, or the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, or what.

I got the sense from one person I spoke to they weren’t serious about the return part, and that the “I’m going to return most of it” was a sort of intellectual safety for buying too much in the first place. But for other people it seems like it’s a legitimate practice.

I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around it, because it seems like a lot of mostly unnecessary hassle. It also seems like it ties up a lot of your money for no good reason, and is perhaps even risky if the store(s) find ways to deny your returns. I can additionally see this as pretty harmful for smaller businesses. It feels like there are a lot of negatives for me, so I’m having trouble seeing the appeal.

Does anyone here do it and can speak to it as a practice? I’d love to get some first-hand insight to demystify it for me.

Help me Tildes! My refrigerator is leaking and I live in an apartment so I need to get a new fridge ASAP so that I don't cause water damage to my downstairs neighbors! Does anyone have a brand recommendation? All I really care about for this is avoiding brands that are known to be shitty.

I also will use this as an opportunity to replace the absolutely horrible microwave that came with this apartment. While all fridges are basically identical to me, I am very opinionated about microwaves:

• There must be a 30 second button that either starts the cooking or adds 30s more to the existing cooking
• 1-6 must be quick-access "microwave for this many minutes" buttons, so that i can press 1 and then 30 to microwave for 90s or 4 and then 30 for 4:30, etc
• I would really like a decent popcorn button that has a microphone to determine when to stop
• Multiple power levels that are actually good at being lower power (I am fine with power level 50 meaning "be on for 50% of the time" etc, I think that works pretty well)
• idk if this even needs to be said in the year 2024 but a spinning tray
• auto-stop on door open so I can press just 1 thing
• If I press 'stop' or open the microwave after it stops it's "haha I'm done" beeping sequence, it STOPS BEEPING (my current microwave keeps beeping even if I press stop and/or open the door and I hate it so so so so much)

Edit: Thanks everyone! Based on recs here I bought a fridge without an ice machine and not LG, and it will be installed on Monday! I don't live in a rented unit, but usually I just say "apartment" rather than "condo" when I'm talking about neighbors.

I didn't go for freezer on the bottom cos those all seem to be drawers and I guess I do have an opinion about fridges, which is that I don't want the freezer to be a drawer, I feel like I'd get too cold pulling things out of it. So I got freezer-on-top, fridge-on-bottom.

There was 1 microwave with all the features I wanted plus the feature I didn't know I wanted where the numbers are arranged the same as a phone instead of [12345][678910] in 2 rows (why would you reinvent how to display numbers like this????) so I bought that one, and everything will be delivered on Monday!

I love fashion and all things streetwear and sneakers, but I have a blind spot when it comes to suits and tuxedos. I don't need to ever dress formally at work since I work in tech, but I'm also at the age where I need to have suits for weddings and such.

I currently have a pretty nice dark grey suit that I bought for a couple of weddings a couple of years ago, but I need to go suit shopping again for just a normal black suit for upcoming weddings. Anyone have anything they look for specifically? I have an appointment at Suit Supply later tonight, but wanted to go in knowing a bit more!

I was wondering how people are currently dealing with inflation in everyday life. Since quite a while now, I found that I have fallen into a habit of excessively looking for discount deals for pretty much everything I buy. I feel pressured every day because prices have ballooned so much.

At first, I only refrained from buying "unnecessary" goods like unhealthy snacks, and instead just go for basic staples and vitamin-rich vegetables. Then I started to cut down on meat consumption due to the high prices, and forced myself to only buy meat that is put on discount at the end of the day as it's about to spoil. And now, I even do the same thing for regular staples like rice or potatoes. It feels imprisoning, distracting and depressing.

So I'm wondering, how are you dealing with inflation? Are you affected in a different way? Or not at all? Any advice on how I could realistically get out of this seemingly endlessly depressing spiral?

In case anyone's interested why I decided to post today: I saw McDonald's popping up in the news these days, as apparently customers don't go there anyone due to their price increases far beyond inflation since 2019. Then, I passed a McDonald's billboard today thst advertised 2 Big Mac Menus + a happy meal for a whopping 30 EUR. The regular prices used to be a fraction of that... Now it's apparently a good deal...

No, I don't just mean "I don't really like my clothes" or "my clothes aren't universal enough" or whatever. I literally have almost no clothes: maybe like 5 T-Shirts in total, 2 pairs of jeans, some socks and underwear. The issue is not just with me disliking my clothes - the issue is that half of the time I'll wake up and find out that I have zero clean clothes to wear.

Luckily, this is not a financial issue, and I can afford to get clothes. However, I have absolutely no idea where to start. Most of the information online exists with the assumption that you already have some sort of a wardrobe that you want to expand. I tried just going to a mall and going into every clothing store, but I end up not liking most of the stuff there and only buying like a single shirt. I know that that's how most people buy clothes, but again, those people usually already have enough clothing, so buying a single shirt is fine for them.

At this point, even just thinking about any clothing-related activities immediately trigger severe anxiety and dread in me. I feel very lost and don't know what to do.

Can anyone please suggest what to do in a situation like this?

Edit: I live in Russia, so well known brands aren't that easy to buy

Hey all! I'm trans masc, and this means my body isn't exactly at the top of the bell curve for men's fashion. I'm looking to dress more masculinely, especially as I recently had top surgery. I'm having trouble finding stuff that fits and I find constantly trying on clothes that don't fit pretty disheartening. I was hoping I could get some advice here!

I'd like to increase the number of jeans I own, but unfortunately I've got proportions that are hard to accommodate. I'm 5'4" and ~100kg, so this already necessitates looking outside the normal sizes, but I also have trouble where jeans that should fit around my waist won't fit over my hips/butt. This means that either I struggle to get jeans on, or I get jeans that are falling down to my ass even with a belt. Women's jeans are presumably engineered to avoid this problem since this is a normal proportion for women, but I would prefer to wear men's jeans for the thicker material, better pockets, and more masculine look. The only jeans I have currently that even approximately fit are some Levi's I bought when visiting my parents back in the States, but I live in Germany and those are expensive to get here, so I'm hoping for advice more generally on how to find suitable men's jeans or even specific recommendations for brands that are more accessible here in Europe.

Another problem I've had is in finding suitable coats and jackets due to my narrow shoulders. There are tons of men's jackets and coats that I'd love to add to my repertoire, but shoulders are nigh-impossible to even get tailored and there are rarely multiple options on that front, especially as someone with a gut. But there are cis men with narrow shoulders too so I wonder if there's existing advice out there on how to shop for coats as a fat guy with narrow shoulders.

Howdy Tildes,

I have been a raw denim "wearer" for close to a decade or so now. I have been a big denim fan ever since my then girlfriend now wife bought be my first pair of selvedge raw denim from American Eagle. Since than I have admired from afar some of the fun collabs of Naked and Famous and some of the beautifully designed and made Iron Hearts. However I have never branched out from Unbranded. Specifically the 401s and the 421s because of cost, fit and not having any raw denim shops within driving distance of my city. Well my UB401s have gotten a little long in the tooth, and to be frank, short in the rinse and I am looking to branch out!

So normally I'd ask over on /r/rawdenim but I'm trying to kick the shite Reddit habit so I figured I would try asking here and see if there are any raw denim folks lurking! What are you all wearing? What would you recommend? I'm 6'5" and about 205lbs. So fairly tall and lanky and I'm struggling to find jeans that I think would fit. I have a budget of about $200-285 (not a ton I know) - So I was looking at some of the Naked and Famous, Nudie, Rogue Territory but open to others. I dig slim fits but nothing super skinny.

So, let me know what you think (and any recommendations), lets some some sick fade shots and lets have a cool discussion about jeans.

So our freezer is dying. Our fridge is over 20 years old and has served us well, but it's time to move on. Given the reputation of modern appliances, the proliferation of smart appliances, and the current class-action lawsuit against LG and Kenmore over faulty compressors leading to fridges dying after just five years, I figured I'd ask for some recommendations on good brands.

For specifics, we don't need or want any fancy features beyond an ice maker. We'd prefer it to not have any smart features, just a good old simple fridge/freezer that can be expected to function fine for years (again, we've had the current one for 20 years). My mom says she'd prefer a fridge with a bottom freezer compartment, but I don't think that's a deal-breaker (our current one is a side-by-side) so long as it's a good model.

I'm a pretty conscientious person and I like to research stuff before I buy it - I'm not obsessive about getting The Best Whatever In Class, but like anyone I'm interested in a good deal for a product that suits my needs.

Between the prevalence of review-stuffing bots, Google's results getting worse, and reviewers themselves sometimes having questionable financial backing, I'm finding it harder and harder to find reliable information. So the gold standard is personal recommendations from real people!

I checked and it's been a while since we've had a general recommendations thread on Tildes so I thought it might be nice to start up another one with the influx of new folks!

Possible points of discussion:

1. Are you looking to buy something and hoping to hear from people about what's good and what's bad? Post the type of thing you're looking for in a top-level comment and others can chime in!

2. Is there a product you enjoy or that has improved your life, fills a niche or special requirement really well, or stands out to you as being a big improvement over its competitors? Is there a particular company you had a great experience with? Share with others who might also benefit!

3. Is there a product you tried, HATED, and want to warn people about? Something that's all hype, no substance? I think that also fits here.

4. Are there any reviewers or sites you trust in particular?

Some normal everyday things have "premium" alternatives which are more high-quality and pleasant to use. Some examples of what I mean

Ballpoint pens -> Fountain pens
Cartridge razor -> Double edge razor
Nespresso -> Brewing coffee
Membrane keyboards -> Mechanical keyboards

Those things can be overkill, but if it's something that you use often, it can become a great investment.

What other similar improvements have you found?

Hey all! Long time no see.
So, I'm dealing with a problem that I can't find many other people having online and I thought I would ask you very well informed people.

So, I recently got a double mastectomy, went from I believe C cups to an extremely flat chest.
Since then, I've had quite the trouble with shirts, specifically t-shirts.

They never did this before, but now, the shirt collar rides up on my throat every few minutes. It doesn't seem to matter too much what the size is, large or medium(the 2 sizes of shirts that I regularly wear).
Of course, they also fit looser, but I expected that.
Is this causing the shirts to ride up? Is there any way I can fix this?
Additional, may or may not be relevant details:
I have been on testosterone for 2 years, so could it have something to do with mass increase around my shoulders/neck?
My weight is around 210lbs, and I'm 5'7/5'8.

If anyone knows anything, or could point me to a better place to ask this question I would really appreciate your insight!

What is a good hat that would go with this jacket? It's a great jacket, but there's no hood. So, while the rest of my upper body stays dry, my hair gets wet. For that reason, I'm looking for something water resistant. My budget is under 100 USD.

First post! This may be a silly thing to ask but whenever I try clothes at the shop it feels fine but after a few days there's always some little things that nagged me (like shirt that's sticky or pants got a bit tight if I walk or sit weird). I rarely buy new clothes so likely just lacking in experience. In case it's relevant, I'm male, skinny and has large hip.

I am a huge fan of Prana pants, they are made of synthetic materials, stretchy and comfortable, light and dry quickly, and I have found them perfect for travel, hiking, lounging, etc.

Unfortunately they have discontinued my favorite models that looked more “professional” like chinos and thus could double for work, travel, date nights, etc. Their current models, while comfortable, all sort of look like hiking pants and don’t have an aesthetic I appreciate.

With that in mind, I was curious if anyone could provide me with recommendations for professional looking pants with similar attributes as those above that you’ve found to be comfortable and multi purpose. Thank you!

My girlfriend and I have been in the market for new computer chairs at home, as we have been getting increasingly uncomfortable in our existing chairs. We are both shorter people (both under 5’5”) and the problem we’ve been coming across is in most chairs (even the ones I’ve found for “short” people) tend to have seat depths of 16+ inches. What ends up happening is the edge of the seat ends up pushing into our calves leading to bad posture because we can’t sit up fully to the back of the chair unless our lower back gets leaned forward a bit due to the size of the seat depth. This leads to bad posture and back pain.

So I’m curious fellow short people of Tildes, does anyone have any recommendations for a more comfortable and ergonomic chair for short people?

I’m going to be replacing my mattress soon, and there are a lot more options available now, including many that I can order online instead of having to go get from a furniture store. Every time I’ve tried ones out in the store it’s always been a crapshoot as to whether or not I actually like it once I get it home, as I can’t really get a good feel for it there. As such I’m more than willing to go with the convenience of an online brand, but would rather hear from some people besides sponsored YouTubers first.

What brand of mattress do you sleep on and like? Any brands you had bad experiences with and would avoid?

I'm a fairly tall person and my partner and I both really love large blankets. However, I'm not a big fan of the thin/plush style often sold at stores like Walmart. Does anyone have large, thick/quality blanket recommendations?

I've looked at BigBlanketCo but their blankets seem to be somewhat overpriced and underwhelming.

After several years, my current pair of shoes has finally fallen apart. I don't need to look cool, or any other bells and whistles. I am looking for a simple pair of men's shoes. I want something that preferably doesn't use sweat shops.

Any suggestions?

Where do you go for decent reviews? Context-i was looking for a site to find good popcorn, and all the results on google for as far as i cared to scroll were fluff (pun intended).

Here’s what i use:

Rtings for stereo.

Wirecutter for appliances.

Reddit for everything else.

And my results are quite mixed, and involve a lot of scrolling.

Where do yall go?

This story was basically the last straw, but the bigger frustration is that I ordered a NAS on Black Friday that STILL hasn't shipped. I have zero trust in this company to actually deliver me what they claim to be anymore, and their listings are crap.

So instead of just spending my time whining (like the Ars comment section seems to be), I'd like to brainstorm alternative places to buy stuff. The main problem is breaking the Amazon habit, especially as it dominates all Google results for whatever you're looking for.

Nothing will ever be as much of a "one stop shop" as the A->Z store, naturally. But I think I'll just set myself up some bookmarks and go to one based on what I'm looking for. Also, while I get that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, there is definitely a sliding scale of better and worse so that should weigh into things.

So let's go by category. I'm just listing out places where I've started to look for things instead. Please feel free to make suggestions. Whatever people recommend, I'll edit back into this list. If you include any general comments about what you like or what they could do better on any of your recommendations or any of mine let me know.

Groceries (Dry goods and sundries)

• Target.com
• Jet.com
• WalMart.com
• CostCo
• Chewy.com: For dog/pet supplies

Groceries (Fresh/perishable and specialty foods)

• Peapod (is this still a thing? Has anyone used it?)

Electronics

• BestBuy.com
• WalMart.com
• Target.com
• Drop.com: Unfortunately, it's whatever happens to be a deal at the time. So good to check in on and get alerts if there is something you're waiting for but not reliable.
• TechnaBob: Same as Drop
• NewEgg: Obviously
• Monoprice: For cables and other staples.

Clothes (basics like socks, t-shirts, underwear, etc.)

Clothes (designer)

• Gilt.com is basically for overstock and weird fashion items. Sometimes there are good finds there though, particularly good deals on designer versions of basics.

Random stuff (specifically random "flea market" type sites)

• Meh.com
• Etsy (for handicrafts and consignment/antiques, although this is also starting to get lousy with shitty knockoffs)
• eBay (can be pretty dodgy, once again crappy knockoff scammers ruin everything)
• CraigsList (if you're okay with used)

Other (specialty sites for very specific things)

• Drop: For stuff in drop communities. Currently they have a very active one for mechanical keyboards along with audiophile gear, writing/stationary, EDC, and random tech.
• The Clymb: A deal site for camping clothes and outdoor gear
• REI.com: More outdoors gear