1077 – Save money on what you need: Tom talks Mickey Mouse Boots

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Tom Antion uses the story of buying old WWII-era “Mickey Mouse boots” to make a broader point: older, well-built products are often better—and cheaper—than newer, overhyped ones. He explains how thoughtful purchasing saves entrepreneurs money, time, and frustration, which directly improves business success.
Drawing from personal examples (boots, tools, machinery, vehicles), Tom argues that modern products are frequently downgraded in quality, while vintage or used items can be more durable and reliable. He encourages entrepreneurs to evaluate purchases more intelligently rather than relying on flashy marketing.
Key Takeaways
• Old is often better: Vintage and military-grade items were built to last and can outperform modern versions at a fraction of the cost.
• Avoid “Top 10” and “Best Of” lists: These are usually affiliate-driven and designed to sell, not to inform.
• Be skeptical of single-product reviews: Many reviewers receive free products or commissions, which biases opinions.
• Look for real comparisons: Channels like Project Farm test products objectively and show real data.
• Consumer Reports can help, but their tests don’t reveal long-term reliability.
• Amazon strategy: Start with 1-star reviews to identify real problems; ignore complaints caused by user error or shipping issues.
• Used marketplaces (eBay, Facebook Marketplace) can deliver high-quality items at massive savings.
• Lower expenses = stronger business: Buying better gear once saves money, reduces downtime, and boosts productivity.
Bottom Line
Smarter buying decisions—especially favoring proven, durable, and sometimes older products—help entrepreneurs cut costs, avoid junk, and run more efficient businesses. The money saved directly strengthens long-term profitability.

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Episode 1077 – Mickey Mouse Boots
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1077 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today I'm going to talk about what? Do you hear this? You'll never guess what this is about. Mickey Mouse boots. Uh, okay. Hope you didn't miss episode 176. That was household skills. And and I did get some response to that episode saying, hey, Tom, I usually give us hardcore business skills. Why are you going off on these different tangents on, you know, carpentry and electrical work, Well, the reason is, is because if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, which I have been for since 1977, I don't know how many years that is now. Let's see, 80, 26, 46, 49 for almost 50 years, you know. So, these things can help you save money and make money, all right? And not waste money and not waste time on things you could easily do yourself. So anyway, that's that's why I did that. And today is a similar one. Mickey Mouse boots. This is this is going to be how you can evaluate things that you want to buy more reasonably and legitimately than may than you may have been doing in the past. And sometimes in many cases, old is better. That's why I named this Mickey Mouse boots. I'll tell you about those in a minute. All right. Pick up a copy of my automation book. It's screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Make sure you get version 3.0. That's the latest. And check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com. And my school at IMTCVA.org, the only licensed dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country, probably the world certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning.
[00:02:28] All right. So the first section of this is going to be old as many times better. And I was thinking about this because we had this really cold streak here in Virginia Beach. And the last couple years when we hit the really low temperature, I started researching on the the best way to keep your feet warm. Okay. You see the high level stuff I do over here, folks. And so I ended up finding these things that are nicknamed Mickey Mouse boots. Supposedly, the warmest boots on the face of the earth are ever created. Now, I'm not saying that's true because I haven't tried all the boots, but I got a pair off of eBay. These are World War Two boots that are super thick. They must have an inch of insulation in them. They're fully waterproof and they were pretty much designed, I believe, for centuries that had to stand out in the cold for hours at a time and didn't want to get frostbite. So I went on eBay and I bought some of these and darn if they aren't warm as heck.
[00:03:45] In fact, they're very funny looking, right? You could call them like a type of clown shoe. They're so big. And so I took a picture of of them and we'll put them him in the show notes for you, but it's just I mean, everybody laughs when I, you know, when I walk down the street, people don't laugh to my face because they don't know me. And I look, you know, pretty like a badass, right? But everybody that does know me laughs like crazy because, I mean, my feet aren't small by any means. They're big. But these make you look like I mean literally like Ronald McDonald clown shoes. But they're so warm. So. And I think I paid $40 for them on eBay, and you'd spend 150 to 350 for the latest, greatest, warmest boots that have some fancy material in them and all that stuff. And these are just as good or better. All right, even though they're kind of funny looking. Another thing is, uh, I bought a kindling maker brand new at Tractor Supply. It's like a iron thing where you hit pieces of wood on it and it splits them into smaller pieces to start fires. Well, the thing bent in like the first two seconds, it was just terrible, cheap crap.
[00:05:11] And I ended up going to eBay again, finding a vintage, an old one that was like, you could drive a tank over it and it wouldn't break. They brought a drill press for 50 bucks. That was better than you can pay three 400 of them at Harbor Freight. All right, so there's all kinds of old things that can be better. Now, I wouldn't say that in the technology field, but for things that you need, many times the older original ones are better than the newer ones. So keep that in mind. That's the first thing. But let's say you need something for your business and or personal or your house or washer and dryer, whatever you need. One thing I want you to avoid is when you type into, let's say, YouTube. You know, what are the best washers and dryers? What are the best computer printers? What are the best electric drills? I mean, whatever it happens to be, you're going to see an enormous numbers of sites come up that rank really high, like the top ten electric drills, the top five laser printers, you know, so you're going to get sites like that. And usually the the channel name will be a best of or top ten whatever. You know, it's not a personal one of a real person that is evaluating stuff and what you can be absolutely sure of.
[00:06:47] Everything that's on the list is an affiliate link. They don't care what you buy as long as you buy one of them, right? And they give it some type of eight out of 10 or 5 out of ten, you rarely see low figures because they want you to click and buy something they don't want to do. One out of ten, right? When you go to YouTube, you don't want to look for those kinds of sites. You want to skip over those kinds of sites. And usually I put in the search term like laser printer comparison or something like that. Another thing that's a little bit iffy if you get a review of a single product, because you can also be sure that that's going to be an affiliate link for that person. And there's nothing wrong with affiliate links for that stuff. But many of these things are given to the person for free, and many of them, they'll say anything to get you to buy it. So they get their fillet commission. So those are a little bit iffy. Occasionally you'll get to somebody that says, well, I'm going to give you an honest review of this particular product, but still, it's only one product. It's not a comparison. So the best thing you can look for is a real comparison site for that product, and it still might be affiliate links in it.
[00:08:12] Okay, I get that, but this would be a usually a particular person that's very good at checking out what they're talking about. And one of the best examples of this is a site on YouTube. You can look it up project farm project all one word. This guy I mean, the only thing annoying about this guy is he talks a hundred miles an hour. You have to stop and pause it all the time to see his results, but he buys all the stuff himself, and then he totally evaluates it. Like he just bought a new tool on how to to see which screwdriver is stronger and an actual measurements of when he goes till they break, and then he shows you which screwdrivers are the best screwdrivers. I mean, there's all kinds. He's got any. He responds mostly to viewer requests. So he's got hundreds of these tests on there, millions and millions of views and subscribers because he really, you know, you can see after you just just watch any one of his tests and you'll see, oh my God, that guy really tests this stuff. There's no BS to it. There's no affiliate stuff to it. He's just telling you what the heck is going on with these different things. Yeah. I mean, pick any episode at Project Farm and you'll see how fast he talks.
[00:09:40] But he he shows you all these things he bought and then how he's going to test them. And then he shows you the test and then the test results, and then you get to pick which one you want to buy and what price range and, and all that. So it's really that's the best way to buy stuff is to find a guy like that in whatever field you're looking for. If it's mattresses or I don't know whatever else you might want to buy, say. Now, another reasonably good thing is Consumer Reports, because again, they're not funded by manufacturers unless there's stuff going on behind the scenes, but they've got a pretty good reputation for many years of actually testing stuff. But they, you know, they fail sometimes because I've bought stuff on their recommendation and it failed, you know, because their testing doesn't go on for years. So if if the washing machine died after six months, that wouldn't have shown up in their test, which all happened within probably a matter of weeks. So that's still a good resource for you if you're buying big ticket items. Same thing with automobiles. And you know, you got to look at their, uh, their repair record and the chances of breakdown. For instance, Jeep, the kind of general consensus. And this is not my opinion. This is opinions I've seen because I was going to buy a Jeep, and a lot of people say, don't buy a new Jeep, don't buy a new Jeep, because first of all, Jeep, they had one of the best slogans ever.
[00:11:19] We wrote the book on four wheel drive that was Jeep, but then it got bought out by, I think, Chrysler, and then this other company that starts with an S, I can't even pronounce it. I don't know what it is, but everybody says now, uh, not everybody, but a lot of people say Jeep suck nowadays. In fact, there was I was buying something off of Facebook Marketplace, another good place to buy older or used stuff. And I had to go down to this guy's house, and he had all these jeeps in his backyard, and I started asking him about him. I said, hey, if I was going to get a Jeep, what year should I shoot for? And he was saying, oh, probably 1995. I'm thinking, that's pretty old. He said, yeah, they're easy to fix. They run forever. They're beautiful. Me and my wife rehab them and work with jeeps all the time. And we would never in a million years get a new one or anything close to being new because they've gone in their opinion, they've gone downhill significantly over time. So you got to check things out. And then another thing on Amazon. So when I go to buy something on Amazon, I go immediately to the one star reviews.
[00:12:31] And I and I look at the percentage of them 5% or less. Yeah. Usually, uh, those 5% of people or, you know, just doofuses that don't know, didn't read the directions or or it could be a thing where the wrong product got sent to them, which has nothing to do with the quality of the product. It just somebody messed up and sent the wrong thing. But sometimes they'll say, yeah, and then the manufacturer never responded to our requests or. Or this thing sucks. It leaks all over the place. It's chintzy. It's this and that and the other. If it's a high percentage, ten, 11, 12, 15%, one stars, I don't even bother looking at the rest of them. It's not that it can't be that many people say this sucks. And and then sometimes you see ones that are, you know, all five star reviews. Well, when you look a little closer, you see, oh, this was a vine free product in exchange for a review or something like that. Well, don't trust those either, because the person wants more deals where they get free product, so they say good things about them, whether it's true or not. So I go to the one stars first and then I decide, oh, that those people are idiots. They didn't read the directions.
[00:13:50] They're not using it correctly. They they made a mistake. They bought the wrong thing and are blaming it on the product. You know. So I'll still buy stuff with one star reviews because almost everything legit has some one star reviews, but the people writing the reviews might be idiots. That's the whole thing, all right. Or or like I said, they bought the wrong thing or they got it took too long to get there. Again, that has nothing to do with the quality of the product. Those are one star reviews, just because they're not happy with the whole situation. So Mickey Mouse boots, I'm wearing them right now because it's cold outside. But I want you to, um, to save money, get higher quality products for your business or your personal life or whatever you're buying. So you got to pay attention to these types of things. Consumer reports, legitimate people on YouTube that do legitimate comparisons of a lot of different products. Be careful on the reviews at Amazon. Look at the one stars first and many times old is better. Like I said, that kindling maker was like I said, you could drive a tank over it, but the one I bought brand new at Tractor Supply was pitiful. It was just, you know, it bent like instantly. So there you go. That's another thing that will help your business in the long run.
[00:15:15] If you get higher quality products and don't get ripped off with junk products just because it's fake reviews or people just want the affiliate commission, your business will be better off. You'll spend less time fixing or returning stuff, or having poor service from the item that you bought. And a lot of the if you buy used stuff. On many of the things that I've talked about on Facebook Marketplace and other episodes, you save a ton of money. I'm wearing a brand new beautiful high reflective Jacket right now that retails for like $170. I paid 40 bucks for it on Facebook Marketplace because the the guy that had it retired and never even used it, it was brand new, still had the tags on it for 40 bucks instead of 180 that you can see it online for. And I'm wearing it right now because it's it's warm as heck and it's great. See. So you can save a lot of money. And that money that you save is going to make your business more successful because you'll have less expenses to, uh, to drag you down from buying the good stuff that is going to help you make money. All right. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I'm going to me and Mickey are going to go out in the snow and clean off the car. All right. See you on the next episode.