What’s the best money you ever spent? Meaning, value you got for the money; enjoyment you’ve gotten from your purchase (regardless of the cost); return on investment; or whatever criteria you want to use.
I’ve got it narrowed down to three choices:
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[li]$700: Walt Disney World dining plan ($35 per adult per day X 10 days X 2 adults). We got to eat at one counter-service restaurant, one table-service restaurant, and eat one snack (ice cream treat, bag of popcorn, etc.) per adult per day. This meant that we didn’t have to budget our food money, have to drive into Kissimmee to save a few bucks by eating at Burger King, and got to try new sit-down restaurants that we otherwise wouldn’t have eaten at. We never once had to worry about the bill OR the tip (the plan includes gratuities); just hand over the card and sign the slip. [/li][li]$70: Vasectomy. ($20 office visit and $50 outpatient surgery co-pay). We’ll never have to worry about birth control again. [/li][li]$199 (-$50 mail-in rebate) + $12 per month: XM Satellite Radio. Just about any musical genre I could imagine, commercial-free, and all across the country. Not to mention 2 channels of uncensored comedy, a channel of family comedy, several channels of news & talk, plus traffic & weather information for cities I’ve never even been to. How cool is that?!? [/li][/ul]
The $3.00/month insurance fee on our family talk cell plan. My son has lost his phone three times. Twice he found it, once he didn’t. It was nice to not have to pay the $65 (minimum) it would’ve been to replace it with a comparable phone. And I know that’s not the last time the monster’s going to lose it.
The 20 bucks at the dentist’s office when my kids got their adult teeth in and my brilliant dental hygeinist said “for an extra $20 each, we can put sealant on their teeth. It really reduces the chance of cavities and problems later.”
Most of the stuff that I consider well worth the money is stuff that ended up saving me money on the back end later.
The best money I’ve ever spent was the hundreds (over $1000? I don’t remember now) it cost for all the applications for my Green Card. Ever since then, everything has been going right. I don’t even want to think about where I’d be or what I’d be doing if I’d never gone for it.
Picked up a P2 300 mhz PC at Best Buy for… nothing, after rebates, provided I signed up for a 3-year contract with Prodigy, which I wanted anyway. Had to buy a monitor for it; they had an opened one in the store, so I got a 15" one for $35 (this was in 1997).
More recently, I bought a stack of 10 P2 300’s for $15 apiece. No monitors, keyboards, or mice, but I was able to scavenge parts from six to turn the other four into a reasonably able home gaming network–Starcraft, Diablo II, Unreal Tournament–for about $30 a machine.
$5,000 for LASIK at the Emory Eye Clinic. Changed my life. (I do need glasses to drive at night now, but they’re nothing. They’re not even heavy! I was kind of excited when I found out I needed them, because I could go into Lenscrafters and get any frame I wanted!)
$175,000 for my house, this past August. Well, a downpayment and then 30 years that add up to a lot more than $175,000 - but I do so love owning. It’s amazing. It’s your land.
$5 for one of those little clippy things that holds your shower curtain to the wall and one of those triangle-shaped pieces that keeps water from sneaking out the corner. Keeps the floor dry and keeps me from stepping out of the shower into cold nasty water. Beautiful in its simplicity.
$2000. In 1971 I bought my first car (a Subaru). A few months after that Nixon floated the dollar, and the price for the same car increased considerably.
$25 (guess). In the 80s I bought my first digital watch. I’m still using it. It tells the time to within 30 seconds a month, has an alarm, a stopwatch and a countdown timer. The convenience that last feature alone has given me has been worth far more than the purchase price.
I got the first LaserJet printer that HP made. It’s still my only printer. Cheap as hell to keep going too, since ink cartridges can be refilled locally and last for thousands of pages, unlike inkjets.
In 1988 Mr. S paid money for a dog for the first time in his life. $100 for the runt of the litter, who turned out to be his bestest buddy ever, Miss Emily Kimberly. We donate $100 every year on her birthday to English Springer rescue in her memory.
In 1987 I bought a duffel bag at an Army/Navy store for $20. Not only did I use it for laundry, it was (until recently) the only piece of luggage I owned. I put the poor thing through the wringer, and it’s still in great shape. I fully expect to still be using it 20 years from now.
HeyHomie, I have to say my $200 (-$50 mail-in rebate + $12 per month) SIRIUS Satellite Radio was my best investment. All you mentioned, plus the best Indie/Alt music station I’ve ever heard, a great opera station, Howard Stern is coming, but dangit, XM stole my Air America!
This North Face bag. I spent about $150 on it about 8 years ago, and then spent two years on the road, dragging it in and out of hundreds of hotels, then cramming it back under the bus. It holds almost all my clothes, it’s as waterproof as a bag with zippers can be, the wheel assembly is well made, and everything is reinforced. North Face has a rep for way overpriced gear, but I would have gladly paid two or three times the price for this bag. It’s damn near bulletproof.
$2500.00 for my full size cargo van. Used it as a delivery vehicle, where it made me about 3000-4000/month. That meant I had enough to qualify for a home loan, so the van bought my house. After I retired from the courier business, the van was used for camping and taking my huge dog places, and right now it’s on loan to my kids so they can move and not pay for a U-Haul. The van tows trailers full of crap to the dump, brings loads of topsoil and mulch to various friends houses, and in general is just a great all around, reliable, useful vehicle with a great sound system in it. I have carpet in the back, a leather love seat that fits snugly against one wheel well, and occasionally throw beanbag chairs back there for extra seating–this thing is the road trip party vehicle of the gods! Heck, one of my neices was started in the back of my van, so we can all thank it for her, too. I’ve told the van that I will never sell it, and when it finally gives it up I’m going to have it crushed into a cube and incorporate it into my landscaping somehow. I love my van…
All our computer equipment. We buy crustyware and put it together in odd ways. We have two desktops right now and a laptop all on a wireless network which makes browsing from the couch possible (a dream come true! I work in front of a computer all day and I have zero desire to sit in an uncomfortable chair in front of a monitor when I can curl up under a blankie on the squashy couch!) and I think all told there’s less than 300.00 in actual cash money expended for the whole setup.
The 200.00 I paid for the cool gazebo that fits onto the deck. It’s bug proof, keeps the rain off and during the summer it’s a great spot to hang out and sometimes to sleep when it’s too damned hot. It’s especially nice when we drag the laptop out there and stream videos over the network–that’s just coolness.
Netflix. For 18.00 a month I get to watch all the movies I can handle, they stock really obscure titles and I never have to deal with the bullshit at the video store. I figured it out and it’s costing me about a buck twenty five per movie–try to get a deal like that at Lackluster!
My sister got off to a bad start: she dropped out of high school, left home at 15, drank, took drugs and dated (surprise) very abusive men. Just before she turned 30, after a bankruptcy six months earlier, she told me that she was sick and tired of wasting her life, and asked if I could loan her a few hundred dollars to buy some clothes to wear while looking for a new job. I gave her what I could, a paltry $350, and the job she subsequently got was the first in a line of incredible successes in her life. Best money I ever spent.
[/li][li]$70: Vasectomy. ($20 office visit and $50 outpatient surgery co-pay). We’ll never have to worry about birth control again. 