Recommendations for inexpensive mice?

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For over 20 years I've been able to get away with buying the cheapest mice on the market and they last 5+ years. Prior to the 21st century I was mostly using Apple (My schools used Apple, and the school mom worked at used Apple so it made sense) and the selection of ADB mice was limited.

However, in the last 18 months I've somehow managed to wear out or break the scroll wheel and/or middle click button in three different mice and I didn't think I was being any rougher with them than the previous 20 years.

Can anybody recommend a decent wired mouse on Amazon, Ebay, Newegg, Best Buy, or even places like Walmart, Target, Office Depot, Staples, etc for $20 or less?

I just don't know what brands have decent quality without paying through the nose for it anymore, and even if I was willing to do so, I wouldn't know what's overpriced and what will last.

 

$40 sounds a bit high for a cheap mouse, I historically paid $7-10, although now I'm doubling that with the recent inflation.
However the last mouse I have is a Logitech brand that I picked up from Best Buy for $10, which is historically decent quality even for their lowest end mice.
Yet after less than six months (I can't recall if I bought it in May or June) there is only a 50/50 chance of a middle click registering. Very annoying, as also sometimes when I middle click TWO tabs open instead of one. I think it's something like 20% chance works as normal, 50% nothing happens, 30% double click, with the chance of a double click increasing significantly after a "nothing happens" if I try again, to the point where I think it is something like 10% nothing/10%normal/80% two clicks register following a "nothing".

 

Damn, You have a mouse problem! I've never broke one so I guess you are a clicker addict

 

It used to be that the rollers that were moved by the mouse balls would get gummed up or worn out or something after around 5 years, so that no matter how carefully I cleaned them and the balls, they would not track smoothly; which became very annoying when you were trying to drag and drop stuff as it would cause me to miss the folder I was aiming for in details view (my favorite view). To say nothing of playing a game with such a mouse, especially if timing was important or you had a time limit.

Since the switch to optical mice, I haven't had a lot of issues with them breaking down, until I replaced a mouse with a broken wheel earlier this year, which was the mouse that came with the computer in late 2018. Since then I've had 2 mice of different brands from different stores break on me in relatively short periods of time, making it 3 mice this year, which has never happened to me before. Add to that it being the middle clicker of the wheel or the wheel itself on all three and I wonder what's going on. Before that cheapest mice were lasting around 5 years. Hence my question about good brands of cheap mice to buy.

I do wonder if I'm doing something to damage the mice, but why wouldn't the PS/2 mice suffer the same damage on my Win7 or Win98SE/XP computers? Granted I don't use them as much anymore as I did 10 or 20 years ago respectively when they were my primaries, but I've been treating the USB mouse on the Win10 computer exactly the same way.

 

Update: I ordered the Belkin one, and hooked it up. The middle click button worked fine, but it couldn't track very well. The mouse pointer was jerking around all over the place. I've replaced mice less jerky that tracked better than this one.

I double checked for some kind of plastic cover/wrap over the sensor, cleaned the sensor with Windex, cleaned the mouse mat, tried my spare mouse mat, and it was still jerky. I put the old mouse back on and it tracks fine but the middle clicker still has only a 30% chance of working normally, a 40% chance of doing nothing, and a 30% chance of passing two clicks to the computer, so if I'm trying to open a link in a new tab it might do nothing or it might open TWO tabs.

So I started a return and requested an exchange, and dropped the new mouse off at the post office this afternoon.
GRR, I wonder if I'd have better luck just going to Good Will or seeing if the Salvation Army store has any mice for sale. I picked up a couple of PS/2 mice at Good Will a couple years ago for my older computers since nobody sells them new in stores anymore, maybe I can get lucky and get a USB mouse.

 

Considering that I have a Belkin mouse with a ball attached to the PS/2 port on my Win98SE/XP computer, the same computer I originally played the Infinity Engine games on, I thought it was a good pick. Not that that mouse is 20 years old, but I haven't replaced the mouse or keyboard on any of my older computers since before COVID. In fact, I've only had one keyboard go bad on me at home in the last 10 years. I can't recall which computer I had to replace the mouse on about 4-5 years ago, just that it was difficult to find a new PS/2 mouse (and yes, I know I could probably (considering Windows update no longer works so getting drivers might be an issue instead of Windows automatically downloading generic ones from Microsoft) get a USB hub and hook up USB mice for the Win98SE/XP dual-boot, and definitely could for the Win7 system)
Maybe it was just a bad mouse that was DOA, I did send it back and select the "exchange" option.