I’m curious, what’s an item, tool, or purchase you own that you feel has completely justified its cost over time? Could be anything from a gadget to a piece of furniture or even software. What made it worth it for you?
Leatherman. Spent like $140 on a good one (Signal) and it was used nearly every day. Pliers, screwdriver, pry, cut, etc. Great to have easily available on the hip.
I got a Leatherman Wave years ago and it’s almost always on my hip.
Fantastic thing.
My Skeletool is 12 years old and still going strong. I love that thing. Gets used almost every day.
I have a Leatherman Tool, as in, when they only had one model, and it was called the Tool. I dread the day when I inevitably lose it somehow.
My sous vide, 100% I have never gotten a steak from a restaurant that was better than what I make at home with my sous vide and a good thick iron pan. It cost $100 and it probably paid for itself with one package of steaks from Costco.
Agreed! Sous vide has turned me into a steak snob! I’m looking at $50-$60 steakhouse steaks to get close to how mine come out. And my circulator is just a cheapo $25 Aldi model. Still going strong even after 12 years.
I have two 10,000 liter water tanks in my basement that I use to harvest rainwater, and another 2,000 liter tank on my roof. From October to around May I close the city water and use only rainwater. I’ve been doing that for a bit more than 10 years now, and it paid for the installation cost in about 4 or 5 years. I also have solar water heaters, but it’s hard to tell how long they took to pay for themselves because I also have on-grid photovoltaic panels for energy generation. My energy bill is about 1/6 of my neighbors’, and the photovoltaic panels paid for themselves in about 5 years as well.
Wow. Thats very cool. I’m planning on getting a solar system installed this winter too (costs less in the winter). Here power supply is not reliable but solar is fairly cheap thanks to China. Infact I’m pretty sure we have a very impressive solar system for a country of our status. (Pakistan)
It’s been more than a decade since I installed mine, so there are probably more options today, but when I did, you were either on-grid or off-grid. On-grid means you “sell” your energy production to the energy company, but if the city power goes out, so does yours. Off-grid means you don’t use city energy at all, but it was much more expensive because it required batteries for storing energy… however, I remember recently reading about people using their electric car batteries to power their houses when the electricity was out, and I’m sure batteries are much more affordable nowadays because of how much electric car technology has developed.
Batteries are quite expensive. Lead-acid batteries are readily available, but don’t really work well for powering a house on a regular basis, because they don’t have a very long life cycle. LiON batteries work very well, but they’re fire hazards. Even worse, if you live in an area where you get freezing temperatures, they must be kept inside, because they can’t be allowed to freeze if you’re cycling them. LiFePO4 is the current best option. If you don’t charge them above 80, 85%, and never discharge below 20%, you should have a nearly infinite lifespan. But that means that for every 30kWh of power you use, you want 50kWh of battery. And currently LiFePO4 battery banks run approx. $1000/kWh (+/- depending on band). If you heat your home with electricity, and you live in e.g. North Dakota, you’re going to want more like 200kWh of batteries, because even high efficiency heat pumps can suck a lot of power when it’s -20F.
I’m currently working on getting a 17.7kW system approved by the local utility. It looks like I’ll need to step down what I’m feeding into the grid, because the line capacity out where I live is only 10kW, and they will only approve 75% of the line capacity for grid-tied systems.
Bit different here. You can be on grid or off grid too. But the government has limits. They don’t want to buy all the power lol. Despite the fact that they don’t produce enough themselves.
You are put on a waitlist first. Now we do have one side of the house under solar already for a year. But thats my uncles side, and they are on grid by now plus have have batteries. And yep batteries are the expensive part here too. But you can manage a combination too.
I’ve got a 5kw battery/solar system for my little off the grid trailer home. Batteries were at $1000 a piece, at 2.5 kw a piece, last year. They are currently $800 each so prices are dropping year over year
How did you get the tanks in your basement?
sloped lot. I put them there before the walls.
When you say "I close city water’, sounds like you are also drinking that water? Sounds like a cool idea that I too have been thinking about. That water needs disinfection though
You drink the rainwater?
Not directly, but I probably could. I have nets in my gutters so insects and leaves don’t fall on it and I have another filter before the tanks in my basement. I regularly do tests to check levels of pH, chlorine and other stuff. The chlorine tablets I use says it’s used to make water drinkable, and I use the rainwater to cook and make coffee (so I only consume rainwater that was treated and boiled).
My city is in the middle of mountains and it rains a lot and it also has tons of public water fountains, so every weekend I just go to a natural water spring at the bottom of a mountain and fill some bottles to drink through the week - the city’s water company do weekly tests on the fountains and every fountain has a QR code for you to check that fountain status.I think that’s a cool option for preparedness, but seems like a bit of a hassle compared to just using municipal water. But I’m guessing the municipal water is also fairly expensive where you live
There were a couple of years with extended drought season were the city’s water supply were dangerously low… since then I have another five 260L barrels and 720L of rainwater storedn in 5L bottles under my stairs just to use for my lawn, garden and house plants… I haven’t touched those bottles in a long time and they are all mossy, but it’s just for plants anyway. I don’t believe the climate is going to get any better in the future nor the population is going to get smaller or the industry use less water. Every year is hotter than the previous. What I expect is longer and longer drought seasons, and I don’t think I’m prepared enough :P
Im my experience, the expensive park of the water bill is actually the sewer expenses. Are you on septic or do you use municipal sewer? Do you have a water/sewer bill at all in the months youre not using their water?
Here the sewer is 80% (so for every $10 you consume of water they charge another $8 for sewer). In those months I don’t use their water I still pay for the sewer minimal fee (up to 10m³ water consumption, my average in the months I use their water is 18m³)
Filters, hommie.
I mean, I know, but wouldn’t those also increase the cost?
I pay $200 a month for water in the seattle suburbs, plus $180 for city drainage, and a one time $25k fee for hook up to the water system. So yeah filters might be a cost.
I have a kegerator that isn’t seeing much use as I don’t really get full kegs of beer anymore these days. We were buying cans of seltzer by the case and I figured I could just make my own. So I got a new 5 gallon keg for around $100 and some connectors and stuff. Got my co2 tank filled. Filled the keg with water and cranked the pressure up. After a day or two I had decently carbonated water. Pour a glass like you would a beer, add a little lemon or lime juice for flavor and boom. Seltzer. Been doing that a few years now. Between the co2 fills and the water from my tap it probably costs me $2-3 per 5 gallon “batch”. Compare that to $10-15 for a case of twenty four 12oz cans.
For all others who didn’t own a pub before: things like sodastream do basically the same and are easy to place and handle.
I have a similar setup (keezer), and i really want to start kegging a wider variety of drinks, but I’m not going to make a whole 5 gallon batch of tepache. Putting 1 gallon of liquid into a 5 gallon keg isn’t ideal cause you either have a lot of oxygen in the headspace, or have to waste a lot of co2 purging.
Unfortunately, 1 gallon kegs are way more expensive than 5 gallon kegs.
Woa.
A book. Teach yourself Perl in 30 days.
I bought it around 25-30 years ago. I have dyslexia and autism and have had problems learning from books in the past, but something about the way that was written just clicked for me.
It allowed me to write some pretty cool software, including a huge system that ran a large animal charity for a very long time, tons of automation software and scripts, and several full webuis. Indirectly it led me to a new career where I write perl every day.
(I can write in many other languages now, but that was the keystone of everything for me)
It’s it possible the title was Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days?
My waterfront property. I live right on the Chesapeake Bay and man it is just magical.
Used Wacom Cintiq 21UX I got off FB marketplace for like $300 (MSRP went for $1500+) about 5 years ago. No new drivers are being updated or released for it because it’s so old, but it still works great. I’ve likely made back what I paid for it in art commissions since then.
My radar detector (Valentine V1 Gen2) literally paid for itself the first time it alerted me of a speed trap ahead. I am guessing it has since saved me 10’s of thousands of dollars.
Ditched gaming chairs, got an ergonomic office chair with several adjustment points.
It’s mesh seat and back, so its breathable in summer, gentle and supportive. I sit upright with no back pain. I lock it in place upright if I’m not using the armrests (eg: controller). Comfortable enough you quickly forget its even there, which is what you actually want in your practical furniture.
Every ‘gaming’ chair I’ve used cost almost as much, was a sticky pleather mess that flaked within months, pneumatics shot within a year, weird ‘racecar’ leaning back, fucked up my neck. But hey, at least it was in garish pointless colours? (Also, fuck those chairs that have the little ‘edges’, are they supposed to cup me in my seat Luke a cot? Because they get in the way).
I will never game in a gaming chair again. Quality ergonomic office chairs are DESIGNED for sitting in for hours at a time, and it shows. I’ve converted several others now.
I bought a second hand Aeron right at the start of Covid, banking on the fact I’d probably need it. I have been permanently remote work since and it’s been one of my best investments. It was very expensive and also very worth it.
Thank you, +1 to your converted list
Can you link the one you got please?
The thing is that this chair is so good that I’ve had it for years and the pneumatics still so no sign of wear. So I couldn’t find a link for you, the retailer I got it from is lone gone. (Also you probably don’t live on the same island as me.)
But I can see the emblem on the back indicating the brand is GTCHAIR, so I guess check their range for full mesh ergonomic? I forget how many adjustment points mine boasts, I want to say 9… also has a lumbar support piece, which goes great with the height-adjustable back
Office chairs are designed to be sat in for long periods. Gaming chairs are designed to look cool on twitch.
Imagine ricing an office chair to look like a gaming chair:
“Look at my awesome gaming office chair I customized it myself” would definitely be a flex on twitch
Absolutely agreed. I got a decent office chair over a decade ago, and it’s been good since. I think it has a teeny wobble that popped up in the last two years, but other than that the padding and such are still great.
I bought a big pack of eneloop rechargeable batteries a decade ago and they are just within the last year or so starting to fail.
I’ve got another one:
Long before COVID, I would go to a barber shop for haircuts.
The place I went to had one short, old guy who had arthritis. I’m tall, and long in the torso. When he was cutting my hair, he couldn’t lower the chair enough to be able to cut my hair, so I’d have to scoot down in the chair so that I was sitting with my ass at the edge of the seat and my spine bent so my head was low enough.
When you entered the shop, you’d write your name on the board, and if you wanted someone specific to cut your hair, you’d put the barber’s name next to yours. So, I started picking one of the taller, younger guys to cut my hair.
One day I was in a rush, and there was a line, so I figured I’d just take whoever was available and scoot down if I had to. The old guy skipped over me two times. When someone pointed out that I was there before him, the barber got pissy and said, “he doesn’t want me cutting his hair”
One of the other barbers apologized and took me next. I gave that guy a $20 tip.
When I got home I went online and bought a Flowbee. I haven’t been to a barber shop since. It does a great job, there’s no line to wait in, it takes me about 10 minutes, leaves no mess behind, and I haven’t paid for anything but electricity and shop vac bags ever since.
No barber visit for 7 years now. been clipping myself ever since.
I’m going to say my $50 charcoal grill. I’ve had more propane grills fail on me in 5 years, and charcoal grill keeps going. I know its terrible for the environment.
Your little grill is hardly terrible for the environment. Maybe for your lungs, but that’s why you don’t inhale the charcoal.
A private jet is way worse for the environment. I think you’re okay.
I’d bet that selfhosting jellyfin and running sunshine/moonlight has saved me close to $800 on comparable services since I learned to do it last year. So I’d have to say my GPU, which is used mostly for those purposes.
Only problem there for me was that it went off the rails for me, i got some 100TB of storage and I’ve been collecting old movies and shows that can’t be found anywhere on Netflix type services. II spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours by now
Camping hammock, it’s what I sleep in most nights. My body complains when I have to use a mattress
A bicycle. No gas to pay, no parking fees, no insurance, and I can do most of the maintenance.
