Good, Cheap, Fast - Pick 3

[maroon]

Today I was thinking about the adage, "Good, fast, cheap - you can only pick 2."

Are there any products you think are good, fast, and cheap? Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of In-N-Out Burger's burgers. What say you?

[snailderby]

The three fund portfolio.

[runner3081]

Today I was thinking about the adage, "Good, fast, cheap - you can only pick 2."

Are there any products you think are good, fast, and cheap? Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of In-N-Out Burger's burgers. What say you?

Good is subjective. Good tasting, maybe. Good for you? Nope.

[sunny_socal]

SSD drives!

Right now $27 for a 256GB model. Everyone should upgrade their boot drive and use their legacy drive for data. 512GB even better.

[JoMoney]

In and out is rarely fast where I'm at. The drive-thru always has cars wrapped around the building, and there's usually a few orders ahead of you even if you go in. "Good" is subjective too, as far as french-fries go they probably have the highest quality, cut and made fresh... but they're lacking in taste.

I do like trilemas though for looking at things with competing priorities.

[finite_difference]

For food, I would argue it’s:

Healthy, delicious, cheap. Pick 2.

[Cubicle]

My used Miata. Has only needed oil changes in since I bought it (good). Paid a cheap price (under book value). Goes fast.

Aldi: Good quality, cheap prices, fast in & out of the store (especially compared to Costco & Walmart).

Tethering my phone to my home computer for internet access: Reliable service (good), cheap (compared to Comcast & Fios), fast speeds (enough to watch movies).

My manufacturer refurbished Brother copier/fax/scanner/printer machine. Good (zero malfunctions in 3 years). Cheap (saved $150 compared to brand new). Fast (copying, printing, scanning).

(knock on wood that I don't jinx any of these things)

[black jack]

For food, I would argue it’s:

Healthy, delicious, cheap. Pick 2.

I choose all three: peanuts all year round, watermelon in summer.

You can find good bicycles cheap on Craiglist; they're faster than walking (and healthier than driving).

Running water, hot and cold: it's great (life-preserving, in fact), comes out of the faucet fast, and cheap (especially compared to what you'd be willing to pay for it if were scarce).

[Calli114]

Maybe it's more of a service. Getting books via the library drive-thru window.

[TheGreyingDuke]

I had always heard it as fast, cheap, safe; I thought it came from aeronautics.

[Shallowpockets]

This is the crux of so many post questions here on BH. Mostly geared to the good, yet cheap.
This is why people post the questions that actually have a simpler answer than they think it could be.

I would clarify those three words by saying:
Good - sometimes just good enough is good enough.
Cheap is not always the bottom price.
Fast is not always a necessity.

Otherwise the answer is Chinese food.

[Maven]

Grocery pick up service. It's been free for the holidays but it's normally $4.95. Good, cheap and fast!

[inbox788]

Grocery pick up service. It's been free for the holidays but it's normally $4.95. Good, cheap and fast!

You can put Uber and Amazon in that category. These companies and/or services are being subsidized by someone trying to make inroads into an existing business model, being disruptive or transforming. That is, until they become the establishment, and resume their profit maximization goals.

Hyundai/Kia wasn't good in the 80's and 90's and today isn't cheap, but around 2000-2010, I think they would have qualified. The thing is, sometimes, you won't know until it's too late and the marketplace has adjusted. [remember Yugo, Daewoo, Edsel risk if you chose wrong?] Today, that could be a Tesla 3 depending on the future of batteries, electricity costs and resale values.

Tesla Model 3 Total Cost of Ownership Estimate — Crushing It
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/10/07/te ... ushing-it/

"Daewoo, that's who"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owEoA7vsFSY

1987 Hyundai Excel & Yugo GV Test Drive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-O5i1z ... u.be&t=355

https://testdrivejunkie.com/1987-hyunda ... est-drive/

[btenny]

E books from my city library to read on my Samsung Android tablet. Fast to find and select. Lots of good fiction and non fiction books. Cheap as in free. So all three. Good, Fast and Cheap.

Beach summer evening concerts on Thursdays in Tahoe. Amazing setting right on a big sand beach for sunset while listening to good bands. Sometimes Jazz, sometimes Rock & Roll and sometimes country or flamenco/Spanish mix. Bring your own drinks and food and sand chairs. Takes about 15 minutes to get there and park and set up our picnic from my house. We stay for 2 hours or so for sunset and two sets of music. Sponsor is local hotel and local art league. Sometimes you donate $$. But most times cost is free. So good and fast and cheap.

Skiing at resorts like Heavenly, Northstar and Kirkwood. Great skiing from easy to crazy steep and hard. Fun exercise. Loads of friends. Cheap to buy a Senior local pass for $379 that is good all winter. Ski 3 days (pay for your pass) or 20 days or 150 days if you have the stamina. Fast for locals as it takes about 20 minutes to get on the hill. Oh yea, I also ski pretty fast. So Fast, cheap and good.

[maroon]

Today I was thinking about the adage, "Good, fast, cheap - you can only pick 2."

Are there any products you think are good, fast, and cheap? Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of In-N-Out Burger's burgers. What say you?

Good is subjective. Good tasting, maybe. Good for you? Nope.

User name checks out!

Thanks to all for the comments/suggestions.

[David Jay]

Working for a supplier of manufacturing equipment, my VP of Sales always said Price, Delivery and Quality. Pick 2.

[Phineas J. Whoopee]

The old saying is obsolete, as OP divined. Today, over a period of no more than twelve months, maybe only six, economically, and including in engineering where the concept originated, if you're not gooder, and faster, and cheaper, you're out of business.
PJW

[jlawrence01]

Today I was thinking about the adage, "Good, fast, cheap - you can only pick 2."

Are there any products you think are good, fast, and cheap? Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of In-N-Out Burger's burgers. What say you?

For a place that has extremely limited menu, In-N-Out Burger is NOT fast. In my last six visits in four different units, I have received my food 10-15 minutes.

I have much better luck at El Pollo Loco where I am generally served in five minutes from the time of order.

[bhsince87]

Bogleheads forum!

[sunny_socal]

Black & white laser printer:
- Relatively low cost of entry, $100-150 will get you a real multifunction machine (print, copy, scan, fax)
- Fast print speed
- Thousands of pages per cartridge
- Ink is dirt cheap on ebay or amazon

Scanning is particularly useful since most real estate and banking transactions use PDF files.

[nisiprius]

It's not a very profound saying. It's just a way of saying there are tradeoffs, and because there must be a part of our lizard brain that can count to three, we always like identifying "three."

Another example of the genre is what airplane pilots say: "Altitude, airspeed, and brains--you need two out of three."

All three of them are subjective, although you can compare two things against each other in those three dimensions. In a way it's a statement of the efficient market hypothesis, since "cheap" is determined by competition and market value, so something that's better in every other dimension shouldn't be cheaper.

However, you can have good, cheap, and fast particularly if your personal metric for "good" is different from that of others in the same market.

For example, since I personally happen to like Folger's Classic Roast, for me it is "good." Since it is not a gourmet coffee, it is "cheap"--probably cheap relative to the average of what's on the supermarket shelves nowadays (Keurig pods, vented bags with gourmet names on them and claims of single-origin, etc). And since it is a very popular brand, you can count on finding it anywhere, so if we're on a camping trip and need to get "coffee," we can get it quickly--it might even be in the campground store.( Oops, scratch that, it wouldn't be "cheap.") Folgers. Or Maxwell House. Good, fast, and cheap.

Kindle eBooks. Good (same words as in ink-on-paper books), fast (electronic delivery), and cheap (customarily price noticeably lower than physical books).

A local park happens to have a cluster of five or six kiddie rides, of the same kind you often see outside department stores: put kid on saddle of fiberglass dinosaur, put quarter in slot, motorized crank gently rocks the dinosaur for about two minutes. One was a sort of Jeep that had room for two kids and a (non-operational) steering wheel. One day I got rolls of quarters, took the four-year-old grandson there, and just kept feeding in quarters and, for once, giving him all the rides he wanted. It was a great time. He began inviting other kids (strangers) to share the ride with him.

More generally, compared to Walt Disney World Resort, day visits to regional amusement parks are good, fast, and cheap. Or, generally, lower-tier local attractions compared to big-deal national things. Local state parks are good, fast, and cheap compared to plane trips to Yellowstone.

Public libraries.

Of course, any electronic technology compared to what was available ten years ago. I continue to be stunned by the quality of flat color touchscreens compared to, say, the 1980s and 1990s. Not just the delicious image quality, but also the accuracy and reliability of the touch-sensing. Anyone else remember touchscreen ATMs that had a green screen CRT, and break-the-light-beam sensing touch technology? The screen image would routinely drift so that the "touch"-sensitive area was misaligned with the "button" images...