I had tried my hand with hobbyist electronics a few times over the years, and had a few different cheap pencil style soldering irons from Radio Shack and always found soldering so hard to do well. I had no idea how people were getting the kind of joints that all the "this is how it should look" pictures showed. On a whim a few years ago I got a Hakko FX-888D, and it was like night and day! All of a sudden soldering was _easy_. I spent a couple decades convinced that I was really bad at soldering or that it was incredibly hard to do, but all that time, I had just never had a decent soldering iron.
I'm sure there are probably cheaper soldering irons that would work essentially as well as my FX-888D compared to the Radio Shack irons I had, but I don't know which ones specifically they are and recommending a $25 knockoff Hakko T12 sounds like advice that'll send someone down the same difficult path I had. (Unless the floor for all soldering irons has been permanently raised, and no one makes any as bad as those Radio Shack ones anymore?)
The old cheap ones have no temperature control whatsoever and crappy tips that oxidize quickly. I had the same experience as you, and have a trusty 888. I actually got access to a Hakko FM-206 rework station a while back and loved it more than my 888. It has a very compact tip holder, allows you to swap tips when they are still hot, heats up instantly but also cools down when idle to preserve the tip. I looked into getting something similar for home and ended up with a "knockoff T12" that uses the same tips based on discussion on the EEVblog forums. I haven't used my 888 since.
Knockoff T12s can use genuine but still cheap Hakko T12 tips (though I've never had a problem with cheap clone tips), with a temperature sensor built in. Using the word knockoff is probably misleading on my part, they aren't low quality counterfeit copies of Hakko and don't pretend to be Hakko, they just use Hakko T12 tips as it's the closest thing to a de facto standard there is. I can't even recommend a specific manufacturer for them, they just all seem to be using the same circuits and whatever one is available is fine. You need to order online basically. I don't know why they haven't replaced the $25 garbage irons sold in hardware stores, but those still exist and I wouldn't say the floor has been raised.
Pinecil is also great. It also has temperature sensors built into the tips. It has limited power so you might get frustrated on that one day in a decade that you need to solder something big, but it's so convenient for occasional use. I keep mine in my pen holder, and pull it out for short tasks. I just steal my macbook's usb-c charging cable in these cases (although pine also sells a nice silicone high temperature usb-c cable).
Both options have another benefit that I've enjoyed: They have DC power input, and don't become useless after an international move.
I'm sure there are probably cheaper soldering irons that would work essentially as well as my FX-888D compared to the Radio Shack irons I had, but I don't know which ones specifically they are and recommending a $25 knockoff Hakko T12 sounds like advice that'll send someone down the same difficult path I had. (Unless the floor for all soldering irons has been permanently raised, and no one makes any as bad as those Radio Shack ones anymore?)