I’ll say right off the bat that my roomba i7 self emptying vacuum cleaner has been a game changer for me. 2 big ass dogs and the dirt/fur that comes with it made me loathe sweeping/manually vacuuming. $700 well spent.
I’ll tag onto this- not because I think my option is better, but because it’s a complimentary thing that hits a lot of the same points in different situations.
My bike has given me joy, fitness, new activities, and new friends. When I didn’t have a car it got me to work, gatherings, shops, etc. The enjoyment of riding got me out exploring nature around where I live. I’ve done multi-night bikepacking trips. I’ve met friends on rides. I’ve made new friends at work when we discover we both ride in sometimes. I chat to people at the bakery about their bikes.
All that, with a side effect of keeping me healthy and fit.
Saxx underwear or B3neath. No more batwing. Play around with some other brands, Hanes makes one with a pouch that doesn’t feel right for my body type but I could see it being comfortable. All citizens makes a good one. Duluth ballpark pouch was too lazy of a fit and held sweat.
A computer when I was still a kid. I wouldn’t be the quant and maths PhD I am today without it, that shit literally shaped my life.
I just kept messing around with it when I was 7 years old. I learned to write .bat files and create DOS bootable floppy drives for my games at that age (you needed to play around with Soundblast drivers and DOS extenders at the time). Then at the same age I quickly discovered BASIC thanks to the fact that MS-DOS used to include QBasic. Then learned some basic assembly using MS-DOS’s included DEBUG tool. Then my father got me floppy disks with Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ on them and learned that shit again just by fucking around and looking at the examples, all at the age 7~8.
I coded like a monkey but I still coded and at a very early age I already knew what people usually learn first in university computer science classes.
By the age of 14 I already knew how to write my own minimal bootloader in assembly and a basic 32-bits kernel in C.
All of that was just thanks to the little spark I got when I first got that Pentium MMX computer.
It makes about 2.2 US quarts of cold brew in a batch. It’s plastic, but I’ve used it consistently for over 6 or 7 years now.
It has a center sleeve/filter for putting grounds in. They should be coarse ground, but I’ve used Cafe Bustelo (espresso ground brick) and had good results.
Just let it soak for a day or two in cold water.
Now, I don’t use it per the instructions. After it has appropriately steeped, I pull out the filter, empty it, rinse it, and put the empty filter in a 2qt pitcher, and run the coffee from the brew pitcher into it. This leaves a little extra which goes right into my cup.
I then immediately prepare a new brew pitcher and drink out of the 2qt.
That cost me $30 back then, and I brew 2-3 pitchers per week. I don’t know what that works out to in Large Dunkin’s, but I’m sure it has paid for itself, several times over.
No, I think mine was called a Primula. Want to say I bought it at JC Penny. Not sure if they still make the same model. This one came with a tea/fruit infusion sleeve too but I never used that. If I want to make cold brew tea I just get a dozen or so teabags into a 2qt and let those steep overnight.
Form me personally, I’d have to say my automated espresso machine. For context; I was buying 1-2 coffees from a shop per day (let’s say 10/week on average).
Cost me $700 on a sale. Grinds & presses the beans by itself, then pushes boiling water through to give me espresso shots. It paid for itself in 8 months of ownership by weening me off the local shops, and it’s lasted for over 6 years so far.
Came here to say this. Wasn’t as often but I’d get specialty coffee for $8-$10 a couple times a week. I bought a off brand espresso machine for $100 that is running to this day. If I include various accessories I’ve probably spent around $200. I did wind up getting a work bonus and splurging on a $400 Eureka grinder so I can have freshly ground.
Last I did the math at most I spend around $1.00 a cup, for a savings of around $8. I’ve made at least a couple hundred coffees it has definitely paid for itself and then some.
$25 bidet attachment for the toilet has easily drenched a few thousand cheeks at this point. Folks around this house really try to hold it until they get home so they can poop with the bidet lol.
I couldn’t turn my family to the bidet cause but I love mine. I usually use a bit of toilet paper to dry my ass because I haven’t made the leap to a towel, but if I run out of toilet paper I simply let my ass air dry. It’s amazing. It also feels so much more clean.
They felt extravagently expensive at $300. But I’ve had them for 7 years now, wear them a few hours each day, and they still work like new. They sound amazing and the noise cancellation has had a tremendous positive effect on my sanity as an apartment-dweller.
Every year I buy a replacement set of earcups for like $15. I’ll keep using them until they poop out.
Community Rec center membership. For a one time fee of $10; it’s easily the best $10 I’ve ever spent and is a great city perk. I’ve gotten in great shape since going there.
Something I wish my employer realized is how much value they would get out of providing their developers with good hardware instead of crappy laptops. When it takes 15 minutes to change a line, compile and run the software I’m working on, I’m not going to be very productive.
For context, I work on 2 separate projects that need separate development environments (because they have some conflicting dependencies). One of them has to be in a VM, which significantly affects performance. The laptop was high end 3 years ago, but now it’s beaten even by an Intel i3. It also doesn’t help that the compamy has installed 2 anti-virus software that take up like 30-40% cpu while I am running builds.
Another crappy thing they did was move the infrastructure to AWS… And it costs a ton, performance is shit, and copying files from the build servers is a nightmare… we have to remote into some “copy machine” on AWS, copy the files from the build server to the “copy machine” via samba, upload the files to some internal tool (that’s like OneDrive but worse in every way), and the tool will sync it to our machine. Oh, and the copy machine has very limited storage, it’s win10 on a 40gb drive. It’s insane.
That sounds horrible! How could a machine like that have been high-end in last 15 years? Unless it’s a chromebook. Seriously, is that a typo that it has a 40 gb drive? If not, I’m amazed it can even boot to windows.
I’m so glad my current company is not like this; Couple months ago my coworked started to have issues with running out of ram (16 gb), and noticed that there was an amazing deal on some thinkpads: P14s gen 2, 32 gb ram, 4K, Ryzen 5 pro: 970€ without vat. And now almost everyone in the company has a new laptop! Granted the company is small, 13 employees, making thanigs like this easier.
I have a 9th gen i7. It sounds pretty good, until you look at the i3-13100F which is 30% faster. CPUs have had a huge jump in performance in the last few generations. The laptop is a Dell Precision 5540 from roughly ~2019-2020. I recently received an upgrade to 64GB of ram which helps a lot, but the main bottleneck is the CPU.
The company has a 5 year machine replacement policy… I have to use this slow piece of shit another 2 years until I can get it replaced.
Yes, 40gb is right. To be fair, we only use it for copying files. Cost cutting because AWS costs money.
My toaster oven. By far it is the one small appliance that sees use nearly everyday for something.
Sometimes I’m reheating pizza, toasting a bagel, using it as a small oven when I don’t feel like waiting for my big oven to preheat. It’s so versatile I don’t know if I could live without it.
And to the dudes in their 20s who missed the George Foreman Grill marketing from the 90, go get a foreman grill. I made so many drunk burgers and hotdogs and sausages on that bad boy. Still have it somewhere. Paninis too!
If you can afford it, I highly recommend the ninja foodie grill. Easier to clean than a George Foreman grill and it’s an electric grill plus air fryer. We have the XL model so it is definitely bigger than the Foreman, but it gets used so much more. Huge plus, for me, is the built in meat thermometer probe. Choose the meat and the wellness, stick in the probe, and it’ll cook it to that temp for you. No more guessing for me!
(Take my suggestion/recommendation with a grain of salt because I am used to cooking for a crowd and don’t know how to make smaller amounts anymore.)
You should check out air fryers then. They’re basically toaster ovens with a fan for blowing the hot air around. Amazing for making things nice and crispy!
I adopted a defective lizard from a breeder for a 20$ fee. This particular defect often results in culling the animal, as it is often too expensive and time-consuming to care for. Because of this, not much is known about its care.
I now am one of the most prominent “experts” on caring for this particular subset of creature. Though no one but the most experienced keepers should own one, I am still happy to give information to folks who may have to care for one, either from rescue or purchasing one before knowing exactly what they’re getting into.
Aside from being able to give advice on keeping these creatures alive, that’s not all the value: the real value is my stupid lizard. I got him literally just a couple of weeks before the pandemic & lockdowns started. He’s an absolute angel who has brought me so much joy in my darkest times. He’s sweet, gentle, goofy, and is a wonderful companion animal. He now has complete freedom in the front of my home (when he’s not in his vivarium) with his own heatlamp, ramp, and a view of the road where he love watching all the cars go by.
I love your sweet boy, what’s his name? I had a buddy with a bearded dragon named Mothra and I loved that little dude. RIP Mothra, you were taken way too soon.
Thank you! His name is Pączki. Pronounced like “Pawnch-key” or the more common American pronunciation “Poonch-key” is also cool. He doesn’t mind, either way. Americans will recognize it as “the donuts they sell before Fat Tuesday/Lent/Mardi Gras.”
I’m sorry to hear about Mothra. Loss is never easy. Bearded dragons are such wonderful creatures. Definitely not for everyone, but, personally, they’ve made my life so much more vibrant with just how sweet and goofy they are.
I used to think that people who owned reptiles were crazy (they still might be, but for different reasons lol), but when a bearded dragon was suddenly thrust upon me one day… it took a while, but I came to absolutely adore them.
TL;DR at the bottom. But do note that you SHOULD NOT set out to own a scaleless bearded dragon!! Aside from their crazy difficult care, they are often NOT produced ethically, resulting in sick dragons that often suffer and meet an early end.
I used to foster dragons, so I already knew tons about their ideal care & conditions. However, when looking up care for this particular defect (they’re referred to as “silkbacks”), a ton of it was/is just people parroting information they’d only heard thirdhand, as there is barely anyone who actually owns one/has one that isn’t a rescue of questionable origin. Because of that, tons of myths and misinformation are online now about silkback care. I essentially had to start from scratch on care and use trial-and-error to figure out what was true or not. It’s not malicious misinformation, though! It’s just ignorance.
Let me be clear: the reason barely anyone owns one is not because they’re rare! They’re actually very easy to produce. It’s just that most ethical breeders do not sell them to the general public, for a very good reason. It’d be like someone selling one-legged puppies and advertising them as “rare.” My breeder genuinely produced Pączki by accident (genetics are crazy), and separated the pair afterwards. They only offered him up to me after I brought up my credentials/experience while attempting to purchase a different dragon from them (who was sold before I could get them, unfortunately).
Owning one of these is bearded dragon ownership cranked up to “Nightmare Mode”. The dragon can grow up fine, but it takes a ton of time, energy, money, and dedication to do so. I’m an idiot who decided that I had all of that, plus a curiosity to see the difference between the silkback vs. normal dragon care in case I decided to foster again and found myself in possession of a rescue.
Here’s an abridged list of extra care requirements: no rough surfaces or sharp edges in their habitat, no bugs that risk bites (so no crickets, which are a common staple), slightly reduced/farther placed UVB due to higher eye sensitivity since they are prone to blindness/eye issues, same heat requirements, weekly/biweekly baths IN CONJUNCTION WITH: specialized lotion, aloe, massages, shed “help”, etc.
They will injure themselves, no matter how safe you make their environment. The injury may also stem from you, as I’ve even accidentally gouged him with my fingernail before. They’re not extra-fragile or anything, but they do require careful handling. It’s basically like human skin… but much slower to heal and much more prone to infections because of that– it’s a trait of cold-blooded animals.
TL;DR: I basically had to figure out care myself, due to widespread misinformation from folks who have only heard thirdhand.
Their care requirements is a lot of buying extra things and constantly paying attention to prevent & treat any injuries that may occur because of their skin.
There’s a lot more, but those are the basics. Hopefully that helps!
Again, DON’T GO SEARCHING TO GET YOURSELF A SCALELESS BEARDED DRAGON!!! If you want a less prickly dragon, look for a “leatherback” bearded dragon! Their care is the same as a standard dragon and they still have all their scales.
Thanks! I’m just a sucker, tbh. He was on the cusp of being culled if he wasn’t taken by someone, and, even though he wasn’t what I was looking for, I was in the market for a dragon, so…
But I’m glad I did. He’s my best buddy, and we’ve helped to inform more people about dragons and their care. I’m happiest when I’m able to help people.
When I was doing research on getting a reptile pet I thought about getting a bearded dragon. But they really need a set temperature, in a big enclosure, and eat bugs. I got a ball python instead.
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