$207 for my MP3 player (Zen Nomad Jukebox Xtra). Way more better than burning MP3 CDs and having to switch them every so often.
$250 for movers, first when we moved into our last apartment, and again a year later when we moved into our house. I actually enjoyed unpacking (and did it quickly) when I didn’t have a 12-hour long odessey in the Texas heat to recover from, nor did I feel obliged to any friends who’d helped. I wasn’t sore the next day and no toes were stubbed. Nothing was broken. Lovely.
Dunno the exact amount, but whatever I spent on my college education. I now make more than 10 times what I made in 1985.
I think our visit to Discovery Cove in Florida this past summer was the best vacation money I’ve ever spent. Swam with a dolphin and manta rays, hands-on contact with some exotic birds (Hi, Cap’n Jack!) had a fabulous lunch - just a wonderful day.
Between $40-$400 for birthday gifts for my fiancee over the last 6 years. There was the year that I got him Diablo 2 (Collector’s edition) - he was so excited and played just that for almost 2 years. Last year it was the combo of City of Heroes and a new viedo card. He still plays almost nothing else. This year, it was the Nomad MP3 player and the iRock adapter for his car. He has a very long commute and a crappy radio in his car. Now, he just plugs the iRock into the cigarette lighter and the headphone jack and can listen to any of his over 3000 songs. He always loves the gifts I get him. This Christmas, he got a very cool collectible lightsabre. I love seeing the joy the gifts bring him.
Other than the gifts for him - there was the $200 we kids spent on a family portrait of the two of us, his sister, brother, sister-in-law and the grandkids. Made his parents and grandparents cry. And the $100 we spent for the family portrait of me with my two sisters and my nephew. Made my mom, and grandparents cry too.
I don’t think I’ve ever spent any money on something for me which would go on this list. Oh, wait - the $1500 I’m still spending for my back surgery. There’s something to be said for having a functioning back in time for my 26th birthday.
$3.00 for a little LED flashlight shaped like a lion (you press a button and it’s mouth opens up and it lights up.) I attached it to my backpack when travelling. That thing saved lives. Screaming baby on a bus…show them the lion. Hostile soilders demanding to see your passport…lion time. That dumb little toy got me out of more bad situations and made me more friends than anything in the world.
The $30k or so I spent for grad school. After spending years in a job I hated, going to something I love likely saved my life - either stress or depression was going to kill me eventually. I met fantastic people and ended up in a place I never considered - but I work with a wonderful group of people, I love the job and look forward to getting up and going to work every day.
I was re-wiring my house, undoing previous owner’s completely fubarred stuff and updating what was left of the original wiring, and wound up remodeling the whole she-bang. A small addition, a huge bathroom on the second floor finally, removed a wall and changed the location of the stairs, big ol’ job.
Many tens of thousands later, what I’m really pleased with is the lighting. My kitchen has over-the-counter lights in every place that will hold them, every bedroom has four hundred watt fixtures, each bathroom has heat lamps, etc. The best is that the expanded living room has 9 recessed can lights and one beautiful central ceiling fan, every one has a dimmer and no matter how I rearrange furniture I can have great illumination from every seat. I can see, great gawd a’mighty, I can see!!
$100,000 on my house which gives me much pleasure and comfort and is now worth about three times that.
And, the re-fi fees when I moved to a 15 year fixed on it. I get to root for high inflation now, which makes the cost of the mortgage that much smaller in real dollars.
The money I “spent” on grad school. Essentially, money I wasn’t making if I took a job out of college. It opened a lot of doors.
Great story! Thanks for sharing that.
A measley $65 adoption fee got me Daisy-Diesel. Can you buy anything goofier looking for 65 bucks?
Er, perhaps I shouldn’t ask…
I once arrived at the airport late, paid a guy $10 to cut in line and just made my flight.
I agree, I’ve gotten so much use out of my player (the same one as yours, and almost the same price too!) that the initial investment (which was a lot for me at the time) seems like a real bargain. That thing’s got me through more crappy data entry jobs and long bus rides than I’d ever thought possible.
Also, in a more frivolous way, the $10 I spent on yarn for my new winter scarf has been a good investment. I get complimented on it almost every day.
$150 (half) for my Dolly. I was in serious depression when I got her - waking up every morning thinking “I am so alone, and I want to do some serious physical harm to {ex}”
Now that I have her I wake up every morning simply thinking “I love my dog.” No matter how bad she is, or how much money she costs me, or how hard it is to raise a puppy…I love her a million times more than the $150 she cost me to bring her home.
Free Our yellow lab, Murphy. Been a part of our family for 10+ years and she is just The Best.
$120 Birks and Dansko shoes. Just about the only thing my feet can wear and make me happy.
Sorrel Boots $70 back in 1991. These are all I wear in the winter and they are the warmest boots. I look like some kind of Alaskan mucking about in them, but they are just starting to get broken in now after all these years.
Carharts I paid a whopping $3 for a pair of insulated coveralls at a garage sale. Add my sorrels with them, and I am winter proof as it gets. and oh-so-feminine,
**$40 ** or so for a good sports bra. When the titties are supported nicely, all is well my world.
$10K for 2.5 acres. It’s value now is nearly 10 times but we are never going to move. Ever.
A pair of new clunky lavendar suede work shoes for $7 at the thrift store. I just had to have them. Everytime I looked at them, I started giggling.
It took me six months to get up the courage to wear them. I figured I’d already gotten my money’s worth in giggles. Now every time I wear them, total strangers stare at my feet, and sometimes compliment “your cool shoes.”
They are hysterical.
$10 at the drive-in theatre last night with my girlfriend. Neither of us has any idea what the movie was about. 
$0 to go to Israel with a group from my college. That trip really changed my life forever. Not to mention I got a lot of good drinking done with a busload of other Arizona Jews.
$19 a semester for a great education at my local community college. (Thanks, VA!)
$1500. (Can.) First airfare to SE Asia, 1983.
Best money I ever spent, that trip changed my world and opened me to a world of growth within me. I returned to Asia several times, and roamed other parts of the world as well, but it was that first trip that really opened me.
Wow, great stories everybody! Thanks.
One year I worked a lot of overtime at my retail job at Xmas. I was going to get my paycheck on Christmas Eve, so my husband (then my boyfriend) and I nipped over to the Disney store once I got off work and I bought annual passes to Disneyland as a Christmas gift for us both. It made us both ridiculously happy and we’ve been annual passholders ever since. He *still * says, “That was the best money you ever spent.”