This probably goes against the spirit of the post, but my 2.5 acres of NW FL swamp. It's dope.
Mom died of COVID, and after my divorce, I still had just enough inheritance left to pick it up. It's a place to camp, shoot (guns and bows), hike, relax, whatever the fuck I want.
Benefits:
- Learning to build stuff. Working on converting trash trees to lumber right now, proper cabin next.
- Learning the environment. Too much to go into, but I'm learning ecological things I never knew. Trying to improve the biosphere while keeping it (nearly) strictly native.
- It's my home away from home. No matter how stressed I am, I can get out. I go every weekend and work on it.
- I have a place to run away, no matter what. I'm no prepper, but I have a SHTF place for sure.
- No matter how foolishly I live the rest of my life, I can still pass this to my kids when I croak. They're 8 and 10 and get to see it next month! (Playground isn't near done though.)
- 1,000 outdoor skills. Again, too much to list, but you could drop me off naked in January and I'd be comfortable within 15 minutes.
- I can recycle so much stuff! So much of my gear was found on the side of the road. Plenty good enough for camp materials.
- It's a place for friends to gather. Had my cat's funeral out there and it was a blast, after all the crying was out.
tl;dr Get some damned land if the opportunity presents itself. They're not making any more.
My house.
I started by looking at apartments, but after seeing a few I just wasn't feeling it. I've always wanted a yard, more space and privacy so I thought I'd have a look what kind of houses would fit my budget and found out that by paying just a little more I could get a small one on a good location for almost the same price. Now I own a small granny cottage with a damn nice yard, well, root cellar and a sauna in a separate building aswell as a small workshop. On top of all that my mortage payments are less than what my friends are paying rent.
Best purchase? Probably my steam deck. Nobody else in my family really plays games and I always felt like my choice was either to monopolize the living room TV or retreat to my cave where my PC can be the only person that cares about me. With my steam deck I can play almost every game I care to try, and I don't have to be a dick to my partner who just wants to chitchat and watch bake off.
Best acquisition? Absolutely 100% the weight bench I got from FB marketplace for nothing. I'd go so far as to say that it literally saved my life at the beginning of the pandoodle when we were being super serial about locking down. I had just gone from a restaurant job to an office job anyway, so I was getting used to being a bit more sedentary and all of a sudden I had nowhere to go during the day, no access to the gym by the office, and nowhere to go/nothing to do all evening. I was probably about 5 minutes from trying to peel all the skin off my body just so I could say that something happened that day when some kind soul decided to put the bench up for free. Spent another $100 on adjustable dumbbells, then just kept trolling different online spots and picking up plates, dumbbells and barbells where I could. Now I can bench my weight, but more importantly I can sit still at work for almost 3 whole hours every day and sleep is a thing I do rather than a cruel joke.
19.99€ I spent on Minecraft in 2011.
About 8000 hours of entertainment.
Steam Deck. I travel a lot and it's become a constant comfort in cramped airplane seats and backwater hotel rooms all over the states.
This may sound weird, but GTA V is one of mine. I've never bought any shark cards, just the criminal enterprise pack, so altogether I spent about $60 on it, and I've gotten 765 hours of enjoyment from it so far. That's roughly 8¢ per hour. I'm not planning to stop playing any time soon, too.
A Wahoo kickr snap on-wheel trainer and a secondhand specialized mountain bike. Cheaper than any gym membership and it helped me lose 20lb in two months over the winter.
Just about everything I've saved up to buy, that had a reputation for longevity or built for commercial use:
Appliances: Speed Queen washer/dryer: Washer is 10 years old this year and is working just like the day I bought it. Unlike the GE frontloader it replaced, which died at 6 year of age. Speed Queen actually rates their equipment's duty cycles. I'm about halfway through the washer's rated life. The dryer is about 4 years younger.
Wolf DF304 range: Cooking is a hobby for me, so it gets used... A LOT. Far more than the average range gets used. Otherwise, this is an extravagant purchase for most households. I clapped out a Dacor range in 6 years, but suffered with it for an additional 2 to save up for the Wolf. Have had the Wolf for 8 and it still works like new with no issues, unlike its antecedent.
Electronics: McIntosh: MC7100 it's 30 years old and I've owned it for 20 of those. I also have an MC7108 that had issues that I corrected. My grand kids will be fighting over those two pieces. Before, I had to dig into box store branded stuff at about 8 to 10 years to replace capacitors, or other things that happened to them or they were just junk. The MC7108 had a bad capacitor in the on/off circuit. It still worked, with that bypassed. It's fixed now as it was worth fixing.
Cars: Toyota: 85 Corolla GT-S (raced it in Autocross for many years and it never had a problem). I currently own a 14 Camry LE that has been reasonable over its 147,000 miles, but not as good as I was hoping. I detest fancy cars and anything that guzzles gas. Simplicity is where it is at, if you want a car to last a long time and not be a garage queen. People that buy the fancy German cars are just bewildering to me. Sure, they are nice, drive great, and might even get you laid... But that's a LOT of money to put into something that will uneconomical to fix by 150,000miles (241401km for my more civilized friends).
On my list of things I want to buy that I'm fiarly certain will be worth it:
Dash Cam
2-stage gas powered snowblower.
(10 years ago)
Weber Smokey Mountain 22.5 inch smoker. I've cooked for 30 people at a time off of it, it's easy to use, holds temp well, lots of mods, etc. etc.
Mid twenties, I bought two items at a luggage store near the Castro in sf. One was a weekend bag for camping, or visiting another city, can hold 3 days of clothes. Another was a small bag for daily use. Lesbian here, I don't carry purses, just bags the size of purses, way more functional.
I'm late 40s now. Traveled, wandering, homelessness, camping, backpacking, have put those bags thru hell for over 20 years. They still look brand new. The small black bag, still use daily. I'm constantly astounded by what I can fit in it. It's like the tardis.
A 2.5" hard drive enclosure for 15$. 2.5" hdds are pretty cheap nowadays with pretty sizable capacity, got a 1tb toshiba for 30$, making them perfect for backups. Toshiba and western digital are the brands to look for. 2nd best purchase would be my digital license for cryptomator on android, encrypted cloud backups for most of the providers.
My bookbag and also my Thinkpad T530 which is in my bookbag. I bought it for $99 at a goodwill and honestly it's slowing down but it's still the best laptop I've ever had. I just want this exact model with better specs
A computer that was good enough to run Windows Vista. Trust me when I say that I fell in love with it. And yeah, it was used when I got it. It served me a very long time, 11 years to be exact.
My Elora ratchet set, bought in '99, used it on all daily drivers and hobby cars, saved me loads of cash on car maintenance. (And several jobs in the house) still going strong, although both ratchets need maintenance.
LASIK Good quality gym wear (Lululemon circa 2015) Investing in mental health via a psychiatrist
My Sony noise cancelling headphones (XM3). I love them and use them every single day. And also my wall mounted pull-up bar.
LASIK. And my $20 cast iron frying pan bought in 2001.
Brompton folding bicycle.
femto lasik
Ketamine for my TRD.
