I got one of the food saver value packs at Costco or one of those type stores a few years back, it's packaged 3 deer and a number of other things over the years. It seems to me that the cheaper ones can still pull decent vacuum (sometimes it just takes a bit) but they don't seal so well, particularly if you're sealing something wet. To counteract this I've just been sealing each bag t, run the machine, after it seals, shift the bag 1/4 inch and run it again. This confirms the first seal was good (vacuum should ramp up almost immediately) and backs it up. Seems to be working so far, but does feel like it's about time to replace this guy, it's starting to struggle