Started getting them way back when those things were quite expensive and they still payed for themselves within 2 years.
You can use bigger more powerful ones to get more light in a room, which makes your home much more pleasant without your electricity bill going through the roof.
And this is just plain bulbs, no extra installation work stuff. If you go into stuff like LED light strips you can surround yourself with light and/or pimp your home to your hearth’s content.
There is really is no need to live in a place that turns into an almost cavelike somber environment when the sun goes down.
A 3D Printer and CAD software, especially if you can get around free software.
Break a plastic thingy, why spend $50 on a replacement when you can make one. On no that broke, learn why and make it better.
I’m at the point where I can 3D print small tablet cases, and it’s funny watching the included injection moulded accessories fall apart, while mine is going strong.
It’s not for everyone, and there is a skill gap that’s bigger than most people are comfortable jumping. But if you have the desire/want to learn CAD or 3D printing, it will pay for itself, if you use it right.
Depends on what it is. There are no “Blueprints” online (as much as I wish there was), but there are repositories of 3D Printable models, like Thingiverse from Ultimaker and Printables from Prusa Research. For example if you wanted a replacement Stylus for your Nintendo DS or 3DS you can download them for free. For really popular things (or things nerds love), you’ll find a model
However as the idiot who made the 3DS stylus, I had to make the models myself with a pair of caliper and dozens of test prints. It takes time and patience but the effort is usually worth it since the next time it much less and reduces the more you make.
Fusion 360 or Tinker CAD are good starting software, with FreeCAD, or OpenSCAD as alternative. With Blender if you prefer modeling like clay.
Ender3S1 is a Good Starter printer for cheap, with Bamboo Lab and Prusa being the go to community printers. My preference is Ender and Prusa since there are replacement parts easily available.
3D Printer. You’ll probably need to learn a bit of 3D modeling to get the most out of it and it is a hobby in its own right… But man, the amount of little bullshit stuff I had to buy from Amazon that now I print for pennies and to the exact specifications that I need. I made a new door shelf for my fridge to hold my coffee carafe, a door stop, a loop for my bedside table to hold cables, bracket to hold my webcam, hydroponics tower, drawer organizers, pegboard hooks, a plate to cover a weird shaped hole in my wall, a bracket to hang a rgb smart bulb behind my monitor, a phone stand, angled smart doorbell mount, broom and mop hanger, board games, and of course attachments for my 3D printer!!
Hmm… My kia console just broke (literally just the clasp snapped) but to fix it I need a whole console which will cost $400. It’s literally just an L shaped piece of plastic that I can glue to the handle mechanism but that L piece went missing. So I took some Legos, glued them into an approximate shape, and then sanded it down to the right dimensions. Console lid now closes, with a fashionable colorful Lego clip lol. If I had a 3d printer…
Haha, that’s so smart! Yeah I’m considering printing car accessories, so I bought ASA filament which should stand up to the temperatures in a car and not degrade from the suns UV.
Now that you’re into the hobby, what would you recommend to someone that would put good use to a 3d printer? Albeit I don’t quite understand the software side of it quite yet.
I’ve only personally owned the Anycubic Vyper which is supplanted by the Kobra. I’ve had it for ~3 years with a decent amount of use and abuse. It’s very forgiving and when you work on it you aren’t worried about breaking a 1k+ machine. That being said, since I use it so much, I’ve been thinking about upgrading to the Bamboo Labs P1 series for multifilament prints. If you’re going to be making smaller prints with finer detail, Like if you’re into model/figurine painting, you might want to look into resin printers. They’re more of a process to use, but you can get some amazing results.
As for software, I use Blender, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s just what I had previous experience with. People in the space seem to really love Fusion360. But I can’t in good conscience recommend an AutoDesk product without a fat asterisk after it. They pull similar DRM shenanigans as Adobe. So checkout TinkerCAD. Or just Google: parametric modeling software.
A bidet. You can get a basic one for $30-$40 and there is no need to get anything fancier than that. With the amount of money you save on toilet paper, it will more than pay for itself in the first year.
Additionally, toilet paper will never clean your rusty balloon knot nearly as well as a stream of water. If you got shit on your hand, would you be satisfied with wiping it off with some paper? I hate pooping anywhere else but shit-base-alpha. Whenever I have to poop somewhere and use toilet paper, I feel like a filthy caveman.
Yes. I love my bidet. I got one after the stupid tp shortage. I still like toilet paper to dry off but yes, parts of me have been much happier since this change.
Whenever someone balks about the bidet I just ask them if they ever used lotion before, and then I point out that they’re using poop as lotion on their butt.
Like, just buy a bunch of USB-C cables; they’re cheap. Maybe some HDMI and audio ones. Maybe splurge for the braided ones if you want to be fancy. It saves you from the problem of only having one that works that you have to keep juggling around, or not having one on hand when you need it. Different lengths and colours as well, so you don’t have super long ones going all over the place, and can distinguish them at a glance.
On that note, you don’t need to buy books from Amazon, Google, Apple or Kobo. And no I’m not talking about raising the Jolly Roger.
Project Gutenberg offers public domain books for free to anyone in all the formats. While Overdrive or Libby offers you Books, newspapers magazines, and audiobooks for the low low cost of a free library card. Down side on Libby is wait times for some things. Audiobooks can be worse, upto a month or more for the most popular books.
Most things I buy, because that’s why I buy them. I know you were looking for a different type of answer, but I think it’s still important to acknowledge this. There are potential exceptions for some necessities, but still rarely ever buy the bare minimum.
Toyota Tacoma. Is literally worth more now than when I bought it. My model has bluetooth but none of the “always on tracking” many vehicles come with after. Subaru Forester. It had a recall for a head gasket something or other that required an entire new engine. Got that done at 115k miles, basically a new car for nothing.
Le Crueset set for about $600 15 years ago. We have cooked hundreds of meals with them. Same with cast iron and stainless copper core pots and pans. Immersion blender (corded) as well. Stove top espresso percolator is so cheap and nice if you aren’t a daily espresso drinker. Having that one cup on a rainy afternoon or after dinner is a treat.
If you like grilled/bbq/smoked food, a nice grill will last years if you take care of it. I had a side by side gas and charcoal/wood grill for the last 11 years. Heavy use and lack of replacement parts finally killed it. I could cook full plates for 20+ people off that thing or just a couple of chicken breasts for a quick dinner. I have a pretty cheap but capable gas stainless grill and a santa maria bbq now. They work fine, but not quite as convenient as the all in one.
A really good mattress, solid bed frame, nice pillows, and high thread count cotton sheets are worth every penny. I didn’t get all that together until I was middle aged and I really wished I had done it sooner. My back is like “wtf dude, we could have had this the whole time ?!”
If you do any woodworking, 3d printing, making stuff, art etc? Space. A space to do all that it. Wether it is a hobby or cottage industry, you will need dedicated space to make your mess. I’ve seen people trying to DIY in apartments on youtube and its just so bad. Not to mention dangerous. Fumes, fire, trip hazard, mdf dust, etc. Find a place to house all that nonsense outside of your living space.
And if you make digital art, photoshop, draw, anything that makes you hate a mouse for input. A Wacom tablet screen is worth it. Not an iPad, not a Surface all in one, not some knock off clone from Ali Express…but a crazy expensive Wacom. The regular tablets are okay, but drawing on the screen is almost impossible to come back from. I bought mine in 2009 for $3k and still use it daily.
And if you are prone to æmenia or are a vegetarian, it will also put extra iron into your food. Conversely, you can also get fish-shaped chunks of cast iron called “lucky fish” that residents of SE Asia throw into their pots to add extra iron during the cooking process.
I think a reverse umbrella. It’s a great thing, it won’t turn inside out and break in heavy winds, and when you fold it up all the wet side is on the inner side so you don’t drip all over the floor, the bus, etc. I love mine and it was only about 20 dollars.
This is highly individual, and I have some expensive products to add…
A good dedicated camera, since I got my first proper camera back in 2017 (a Lumix GX80) I have taken tens of thousands of photos per year.
Last spring I upgraded to a Lumix S5 with few fantastic lenses and it has been awesome, and with my S5 and 100-400mm sigma lens I have goten plenty of great photos.
To me my cameras are in my top three ever best purchases, all the things I have went snd done because I wanted to take photos have more than paid for the money invested, perhaps not in direct money for me, but in inspiration and enjoyment.
I am planning on getting the Sony A7 IV as a complement to my S5 as the A7 IV has much better and faster autofocus, I love my S5 for it’s amazing colors, UI and overall performance, but as I often go planespotting I need better and faster autofocus.
Damn, that was a lot of text about cameras…
Time to talk about cars…
I bought my first car last summer after getting my license back in 2022 and living alone without a car for 8 years.
It is a 2021 SEAT Leon FR PHEV hatchback and being able to get to interesting places out in the country to get cool photos have been fantastic and really improved my mental health.
It was very lightly used, and has enough performance for me without being exsessive.
I mostly drive on battery and charge up once a week, since I live in an aparment complex we only have shared charging infrastructure, but since it is a PHEV I can still go far when I need to without worrying about chargers.
If you’re into miniatures, be it for painting, playing games that use them, or just showing them off, a resin 3D printer. Make Games Workshop and Hasbro pull their hairs out and have fun with a huge amount of stuff you can print!
A nice Elegoo Saturn 2 or Halot Mage printer + 2 liters of resin are enough to print well over 400 miniatures of 28mm-32mm scales. Even if you account the pre and post print work (putting supports, cleaning the print), it quickly becomes cheaper than buying boxes of plastic minis. The learning curve, amount of things to account for before printing and maintenance are all significantly smaller than a filament printer
Laundry machine, whether at home or laundromat. It’s one household chore that almost nobody does manually in the developed world.
Hot water heater. It’s almost dirt cheap to run, but damn if I don’t love me some hot water.
Refrigeration. Shit is so cheap and ubiquitous, but fucking ice and cold beverages, hell yes.
Cannabis. It’s not free but it’s really not expensive. A little goes a long way these days.
Internet maps and GPS. Usually you don’t have your pay for the maps, or GPS, but somebody has to store and update all that information about places you’ve never been. Also phones and data connections aren’t free. Trips used to take a lot more planning, and getting lost. I think a smart phone is worth its cost for mapping alone. And it also calls people too. And plenty of other amazing stuff.
I don’t know. I wanted to say “hot water on tap”, to differentiate from a tea kettle, which is also a water heater. But the prompt was about items you might purchase, and I’ve always called it a hot water heater.
We moved into a place that had a massive washing machine in a room attached to the garage. We ended up buying a massive dryer to match. It’s like having our own laundrette. And since I do my laundry like an animal (no separation, no gentle cycle, now low heat dry) I can get most of my clothes done in two loads.
Unfortunately, unless you pay top dollar for something like a Speed Queen, most brands have become hot garbage and have a near-50% chance of breaking down within the first 3-5 years.
Samsung has been particularly bad as of late with home appliances of any kind, with many retailers dropping them entirely due to warranty issues and repeated call-backs for repairs.
Still, to be specific: most models of Speed Queen washers and dryers have a MTBD of 15-30 years. They still see the occasional lemon, sure; who doesn’t? But it’s damn rare with them.
The cheapest Speed Queen in 1950 was $100, which is about $1300 in today’s dollars. It looks like Speed queen starts about the same cost now. Now you can get these machines for $500. 1/3 cost for 1/3 quality. So either way it’s roughly $100 per year that’s about $2 per week. Still quite affordable and worth every penny compared to a washboard and basin, wringing, and line drying (and spending 2-4 hours of your time doing laundry every week).
Speaking of hot water, a few years back I needed to replace the boiler for my home heating, and I learned that there are “indirect fired” hot water tanks that use the boiler to call for heat. I did the math and had one put in.
I love it because the tank is dead simple, very little to go wrong, no burning and rusting and blowing out the bottom seams.
And my favorite aspect is that it exercises my boiler all year round, so I know won’t have nasty surprises when the winter season starts.
Depends on your hairstyle, but I used to have my hair cut about once a month for $20-25. I bought a set of electric hair clippers for about $30 more than 15 years ago and learned to cut it myself and have saved thousands of dollars. Its a simple men’s cut, so it works for me.
An electric razor or a quality safety razor are also possibilities. I used to use the disposable gillette razor cartridges at about $4 per head, which lasted 3-4 weeks (I used them until they hurt to save money). Now I have both a safety razor and an electric razor (I don’t need both, the electric was a gift). The safety razor was $45 and and blades are about $0.10. Blades last about a week instead of a month, but it paid for itself in about a year. I experimented with various shaving creams as well, but eventually went back to canned shaving cream because the time spent creating a good lather in alternative forms was annoying and not worth the savings.
The electric razor may or may not pay for itself depending on how much it cost and how often you have to change the head and the cost of cleaning solutions, but I do enjoy having it for a quick shave. It definitely is not as good of a shave though.
Really depends on a hairstyle - I cut my hair like this for years, but now I realize I looked like a criminal.
But now my wife does my hair, and she is perfect at that (because it’s same stuff on same head every time). So I’m still not paying :)
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