Same here, old habits die hard and they saved me plenty.

Taped a old window squeegee to a piece of conduit last winter for a rental with a crazy tall chimney and it worked better than the brush I paid forty bucks for. The squeegee edge scraped the glaze off in sheets instead of just dusting it like the bristles do. Landlord thought I was nuts dragging that thing up the ladder but the sweep report came back clean so who's laughing now. Half my truck is stuff from the hardware store at this point, not the supply house, and honestly some of it holds up better. Broomstick handles are stiff enough that you can actually put some muscle into it without the whole thing whipping around on you. Only thing I'd say is watch the tape job, I had a roller fly off into a lady's flower bed once and that was a fun conversation.

Buying stuff feels like doing the thing. It's not.