I bought a pair of sandals for $60 when my husband and I came to visit Australia a year before we were married. Our 6th anniversary is on Sunday and I just replaced the sandals last week. Those things saw a LOT of use, especially since they were the only shoes that fit me during the last few months of my pregnancy, so they were worn every single day. The soles are still fine, but the leather uppers are starting to look a little worn.
My new sandals are the same brand (Simple), but this time I had to pay a little more for them…I guess prices have gone up after so long.
Teva sandals. Specifically, the Terra-Fi model. I paid about $60 on sale at REI for a pair almost 6 years ago and I can still wear them. I use them as my inside shoes. The velcro on the ankle strap has been almost worn out, but the straps themselves and the soles are still okay. I bought a newer pair about a year ago. They’re not that easy to find here, but Tevas are worth the effort.
The sleeping bag I bought at REI (on a different trip) was worth far more than its weight in gold. Housing in Japan sucks yak testicles. That may even be an understatement. The “insulation” in my first house was about enough to keep the inside 3-5º C warmer inside than the weather outside. My first winter here saw a low of -9º C inside my house. My kitchen pipes were frozen so solid that I couldn’t use the sink until spring. I bought the sleeping bag on my holiday trip back to the US to see family and friends. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to spend $100+ on it, though it was rated to -20º C. My first night back, I was incredibly glad that I had. Every morning that I woke up with frost from my breath frozen on the outside of the bag I patted myself on the back for buying it. I might not have actually died without it, but that first winter would have been even more horribly unpleasant without it.
'sfunny, Campion, I opened the thread intending to mention Book Hugs. Same purpose, different approach. I can read a book and knit at the same time, and mine also gets a lot of use in the kitchen holding cookbooks.
My USB keychain thumb drive thingy cost me about $40, and is the neatest thing since sliced bread. Transferring files from one computer to another hasn’t been so easy since the floppy-disk era. Plus it gives me another place to store a backup of my thesis, which provides peace of mind much in excess of forty bucks.
Our ReplayTV is by far the best entertainment purchase we ever made. It was not cheap, especially with the subscription to get the program guide, and I’ll admit that I was leery of the expense and had to be cajoled into it by my husband, but it’s hands down the best money we ever spent. Yes, yes, It Changes How You Watch TV. The program guide, the commercial skip feature, and the tremendous freedom of saving any show you want to watch whenever you feel like it—yes, yes, all these things are wonderful.
But the best feature is also the simplest: the seven second instant replay button. Have a hard time understanding a line? Jump back 7 seconds. Miss something because of a noise in the room? Jump back 7 seconds. Want to see a key action sequence again? Jump back 7 seconds. See something out of the corner of your eye that’s probably an important bit of foreshadowing? You get my drift. I cannot figure out why every DVD player in existence doesn’t have one. It makes me insane to watch TV or movies without it.
About 8 months ago I was strolling through Wal-Mart and bound in the clearance bin a pair of Cobra walkie-talkies for something like $15. Of course, the caddy scoffed in the way only a wife can when here husband gets excited over a “useless toy”. Heh.
She was death-bed sick last night. Instead me going in the bedroom every half-hour and bugging her to see if she needed anything, I gave her one handset, carried the other, and had her hust call me for whatever she needed. Useless Toy, indeed!
Twelve years ago I bought a tapestry “carpet bag” carryon at Strawbridge and Clothier at Christiana Mall in Delaware while Christmas shopping. That crazy thing has gone everywhere with me, here and overseas. It magically expands to hold two weeks’ worth of clothing and assorted cosmetic items and never seems to wear out. I love that thing and hope it will last forever. Cost: $100. Oh, yeah. And no sales tax!
Creaky, your post reminded me of the time in the early 70s when I went with my mom and grandmother to an outlet mall and splurged on a bath sheet. It probably cost $8 or $9, which was a lot of money, considering I was making $2.25 an hour at the time. It’s now over 30 years later and I still have that giant towel. It’s very worn and somewhat tattered, making it the perfect wipe-down-the-dog-before-letting-her-in towel. That was 3 or 4 hours of my life well invested!
Fairy Chat Mom, very cool. I love stuff like that. Really, honestly the best part of shopping is happening on this kind of stuff. This is a good thread, by the way. I’ve really enjoyed reading all of the posts!
Heh. I came in this thread specifically to post about my Simple tennis shoes. They are so awesome that I recently went out and bought another pair of the same make so that when my current pair wear out, I’ll have another. The current pair are a little dirty now but absolutely no other signs of wear and tear on the uppers and only one small spot of wear on the soles. I’ll hazard a guess that it has been a year or so since I bought them, and I like to hike. They are incredibly comfortable, and my chiropractor even commented that they are perfect for good posture. Yeah, Simple! First pair: on sale for about $30. Second pair: $50. Absolutely worth every penny.
Satellite Radio. The radio was about 100 dollars and the service is 12.95 per month. Well, well worth it. No more hauling around CDs and no more annoying Clear Channel radio stations.
We bought a refrigerator dolly at Costco for $50. I figured it was worth it because we were expecting to move three times in two years, and it costs $20 to rent one. Since then, it’s been used over a dozen times a year (for 12 years), especially once all our friends figured out we had one.
I spent many hours of private lessons and many hundreds of dollars trying to correct turned-in feet in certain dance steps. Then I went to a good athletic shoe store that analyzed my gait and sold me a $100 pair of walking shoes. In a few months, my turn-in went away, without my even thinking about it - even when I wasn’t wearing the shoes. Amazing.
I’m usually a shark for used CDs. I found two Caroline’s Spine records, Blind Melon, Papa Vegas, Shannon Curfman, several STP albums, Soundgarden, and probably a handful of others I don’t remember and I don’t think I spent more than $45 for the lot. That’s hours of quality for less than a Grant. Pretty sweet.
That just reminded me. I have here on my table an alarm clock that was purchased in the early 70s. It belonged to my sister as she was growing up and going through high school, then it passed down through the kids. I ended up taking it with me when I moved out, because it has the most obnoxious buzzer I’ve ever heard. This thing woke me up for years in situations where no simple electronic beep could have done the job.
Just a few weeks ago, the teeth on one of the gears wore off completely, to the point that I can no longer adjust the alarm time. It’s stuck on 6:15, regardless of how I try to change it. Still, this crappy little clock that probably cost less than $10 when it was purchased has served my family faithfully for over 30 years, and it still keeps time perfectly well. So I moved it from my bedroom to the living room and plugged it in, even though I already have, oh, at least 10 items in here that tell time. It’s still going. And I hate my new beeping alarm clock.
My Doc Martens. Okay, it was $120 I begged my mom to spend, but I was sixteen or seventeen at the time and I couldn’t afford them. I have a truly remarkable ability to wreck shoes. (I’ve worn holes in the toes of four different pairs of Converse All-Stars.) But after at ten years, my Docs are still in fabulous shape. I’d probably get another ten years of use out of them, at least, but my feet seem to have shrunk - even with two pairs of socks, they’re now swimming on me.
I guess I have to go out and spend my own $120 to get a smaller size next time. I’m pretty sure it’ll be worth it, though.
It was a present, but my graphics tablet. It was $100 and came with Photoshop. I use both all the freaking time. It’s quite possibly my favourite posession.
I feel ya, Kyla on the Docs. They will last until you die. Most excellent pair of boots I ever bought. It took a little while, but they’ve paid for themselves.
Actually AAA Gold for me. My FIL buys it for the whole family every year but it would still be worth it even if I bought it on my own. It has saved my ass in major, big ways in dollars, time, and hassle several times in the last few years. There is something to be said when you have blown a tire with no spare in Bumfuck, Florida at 1:00 am and you just call the AAA number. They have someone pick you up in a flatbed and take you to a destination 93 miles away while you sleep, drop your car off at a recommended service station, take you to where you want to go, and have your car arranged to be fixed first thing the next morning. All for free.
You can get tons of other benefits out of that thing if you try too.
