New vs Old Filter

That does not look like an "every month" filter change. Bad air flow is bad for the wallet. I think that I also heard it was better to buy inexpesive filters and change often vs. purchasing good ones (and it feeling wasteful to change).

The good filters can be changed every 90 days. If you can see through it, it's not doing anything. I had an inexpensive one in from the company that cleaned it before this and it was clean when I replaced it with a good one. Obviously it should have been catching this, but it wasn't.