Well, I am going to jump in here since I am known to be a tool snob!! I make my living with tools, especially saws and such and my favorite saying is "only a rich man can afford cheap tools". Basically spend the money and buy it once and not have to buy it over and over again. In the long run, you will save money.
I year or so ago, I was buying the most expensive blades that I could from Lowes or Home Depot. They were pretty good but not great. There is a state of the art sharpening shop (
Cook Industrial Tool, Inc and yes, they do sharpening by mail)near by that I sometimes send stuff out to get sharpened or to get custom knives made for my moulding machine. One day I had to go there to pick up some custom moulding knives and I got a tour of the "plant" by the owner. Very impressive, especialy the $300,000 robot saw blade sharpening machine!) More impressive, however, was Tim Cook's (owner) knowledge of saw blades. I received so much education from him it was unbelievable!
His advice...don't waste your money on the blades at Home Depot and even though the Forrest Woodworker II blades are good, they are way overpriced since they pend a lot of money advertising to the hobby market. He is a Forrest Dealer so there was no bias there. His recommendation was to buy a quality industrial blade without all the hoopla. The pro cabinet shops MUST have top quality blades and do not want to spend and arm and a leg.
His recommendation was an Everlast or one of the Freud Industrial series blades. You will not find these at Lowes or Home Depot and may even have a hard time buying them online. They are only available through certified saw shops. The big advantage is the price is good but also, the carbide is MUCH better and MUCH thicker, allowing for many more sharpenings before having to toss. You also want to look for micro lazer cut cooling slots and especially a tension ring. The tension ring is a very slight raised or indented area about 1/16" wide about 1/3 of the way in from the tooth edge of the blade. This is there to stabilize the blade when it is brought up to speed. ALL good quality blades have a tension ring but not all blades with tension rings are good quality.
I ended up buying 2 Freud Industrial LU84M combination blades and ABSOLUTELY love them. They are the best blades I have ever used and I am ready to buy a couple more. The nice thing is, they were only around $70 each or so. They are every bit as good, if not better, than the Forrest WoodworkerII blade that I had that cost nearly double.
Another REALLY GOOD suggestion for those that have a saw shop near them...visit the saw shop in person. Most all of them have unclaimed blades that they took in for sharpening and the person never picked them up or paid for the sharpening service. I also picked up a used Tenryu Gold Medal freshly sharpened with lots of life still in it for $25!! This is an $80 blade on Amazon and is also an EXCELLENT blade.