KNIVES

You are correct.
"Move into a new apartment" often includes stupid expenses like moving trucks, deposits and tons of other cash drains, all happening in 1 month.

I have found wonderful knives at thrift stores for less than $5 USD.
If your lifestyle can afford to pay full retail for the same knife, that is great.

The exotic steels can cost more, but you don't really have general purpose chef's knives any more at that point. Chopping up a chicken bone for a fancy chickenleg or handling frozen food with a weeb hardness knife isn't a good idea.

For 100$ you have a Zwilling/Wusthoff/Mac general purpose chef knife which will last you a lifetime, more money doesn't get you a better general purpose chef knife..

r8 my knife I ordered?
brisa.fi/knife-blades/japanese-cutlery/santoku-ss-damascus-180.html

beater knives chip too tho? that's the whole point of having a cheap knife around, chipping it won't kill your soul. i personally have two super old Chicago Cutlery knives for bones and frozen food. they're awful but i'll never feel bad about one more chip, and sharpening more often because of how rough they're handled.

granted, hard steel will chip more easily and more severely, but frozen food, and bones esp will always cause chipping.

unless you have a heavy soft steel cleaver. which is the next knife i want. i make chicken wings often enough that it'd see a lot of use, not to mention backbone work if i spatchcook any turkey or chicken.

if you're a woman or have small hands you should be happy, otherwise a larger knife probably would have been more ideal.

usually i say 8 inches for smaller hands and 10 inches for big hands. but apparently santoku's were created for japanese housewives or something so they're probably perfect for that demographic.

I'm coming from pic related, and that's 6 inches, so I feel like this is a step in the right direction.

Tojiro DP Gyuto + Combo stone

just go to the dollar store. it’s just a knife dude

Mercer Renaissance

The size of your hands or your body have a lot less to do with this than housewives seem to believe. What are you cutting, and how big is your work area. That should settle it.

For me, onions, shallots, and other small things represent the vast majority of my cutting. If I do leaves or herbs it's not enormous amounts because I'm one person. Meats don't call for anything big, I'm not breaking down a side of beef every day. So I use a petty knife more than I use my gyuto.

Ironically I'll pull out the gyuto if I'm doing a lot of garlic, but I suspect a santoku would work great for that too. I only use it for its height not its length

Honestly I'm not sure what people are cooking at home that calls for a 240mm blade. Cabbages maybe? I don't eat much cabbage but I could see maybe wanting that.

Yup, 160-180mm santoku is my preference for an every day knife.

Small enough for veggies, big enough for smaller meats and tall enough for most things.

Glad to hear it, I was getting shit on for it being so ugly but damn do I love Damascus steel and I wanted to treat myself to a nice knife.