[peteforde]

I had to read your comment a few times to understand the confusion.

The issue is that you've concluded that a $50 fume extractor qualifies as spending real money, when in fact you're still well into the realm of cheap and crappy. What you're describing is quite literally a PC fan blowing into some foam. It's better than nothing, but you'd still be better off with a [real] fan and an open window.

Good fume extractors cost real money yet will seem very cheap if you are running the numbers while waiting for a chemotherapy appointment. JBC makes several, and they are FAR from the most expensive available:

https://www.jbctools.com/fume-extractor.html

Its your life, but IMO you really don't want to fuck around on this detail if you plan to do a lot of soldering. You might not care, but there could be people who love and rely on you to not try and to save a few hundred bucks on the thing that keeps you from premature death.