Muddy, I once had a Radio Shack multimeter (or Guessometer as my grandfather called them, after my father killed his accurate one, somewhere between 5 and 8 years old), that did funky things, and it turned out the battery was going bad. Might just check it first.
My around the house and mainly for Raspberry PI type stuff is a Craftsman I bought before Sears left here, when I was trying to use up a gift certificate. I have some of those Loadpro leads on all my meters, after my first set, when I found them occasionally (damaged freight store) for an extremely reasonable price. I've never found a deal on a Fluke yet (have a friend who did a few times), and I don't use one often enough now, to pay full price. My high end meter, is an OTC 3545 I bought decades back, that served me well. I have family in electronics, but couldn't get them to teach me anything. By the time my father started an electrical discussion, he was using Open and Short in their opposite meanings.