Things you bought that you've never used

In My Humble Opinion
1

I bought a 21" monitor last year after the office went into “Maximum Telework” mode and they sent me home with a teeny 11" Dell laptop. I was going to set it up as a totally separate computer station, but it turns out it’s just easier to plug the laptop into the 27" monitor connected to my own PC that’s already set up and just switch inputs as necessary.

I have a very nice, extremely heavy bench vise that I got a crazy deal on years ago, and have yet to have occasion to use it.

I bought a Ryobi cordless nail gun a few years ago on sale. It fires 15 ga finishing nails. I’ve played around with it, used it on some scrap wood just to screw around, but I haven’t yet found anything that I can really use it on. I don’t really do much trim or baseboard work. I really just bought it just to have it.

I have a bad addiction to the iTunes store. I am very disciplined about only buying movies when they’re $4.99, their lowest price, and Apple does put good movies on sale for $4.99 very frequently, but even with a 1000+ movie collection, I still add a couple more every weekend or two, and many of these movies I’ve owned for many years and have yet to actually watch. My justification for doing this is I AM interested in watching that movie, and I think nothing of spending five bucks on anything else, like a soda and a snack at the store or a beer at the bar, and that stuff will be gone in a few minutes, while I’ll own this movie for life (or whenever Apple’s license agreement with the studio ends, whichever comes first). And since I’ll own it for life, there’s no hurry to watch it.

Movies on that “owned but unwatched” list include:
Apollo 11 (2019 documentary featuring just old footage and audio recordings)
Avengers: Endgame
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
Combat Obscura
Creed II
Hobbs & Shaw (the Fast & Furious “spinoff”)
Green Book
Independence Day: Resurgence
Kedi (2017 documentary about feral cats in Istanbul)
A whole mess of Laurel and Hardy movies most of which I probably watched a long time ago but don’t remember
LEGO Movie 2
The Longest Day
Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation
Spiderman: Far from Home
X-Men: Apocalypse

Admittedly, not exactly the greatest lineup of movies there, but again, five bucks!

I also have a large number of games I’ve been collecting on Steam that I have yet to play, for the same reasoning as above. Good games, like Red Dead Redemption 2, all of the newer Wolfenstein titles, Middle Earth: Shadow of War, all of the Metro games, Watch Dogs 2, …all very prominent, high-quality titles that I purchased on deep discount and have yet to install or play. Some of them I was waiting on to get a better computer, which I have, but I still haven’t played any of those games.

What do you own that you’ve never used, and why?

2

Chloroform.

3

My gf asked me to research GoPro cameras and accessories, which I did. I made a recommendation and she placed an order.

Once everything arrived she wanted me to RTFM, learn how to use the device, then teach her. I’ve been otherwise occupied. So she has a state of the art system to video her horse riding adventures but everything is still in the box.

4

A few years ago I bought a smart thermostat from my power company’s online store. The store had a special offer at the time where the thermostat came with a free Google Home Mini. Years later, I’ve never even opened the box for the Google Home. There’s just something I don’t like about voice activated devices. It just feels weird to me to talk to a computer.

Also from the utility company’s online store, I bought two aerators for my bathroom sinks as a cheap way to conserve a bit of water (one for each bathroom). I installed one in one bathroom, but it turned out the kind I bought doesn’t fit the sink in the other bathroom. Since it only cost like a dollar or two it wasn’t worth the effort to return it, so I just have it, sitting there in the bathroom drawer.

There are several books I’ve bought at used bookstores, thrift stores, etc., and never actually read. I bought a book on gardening, stuck it on the shelf, and never opened it. Whenever I have gardening questions I just go to the internet.

This last one is technically something I bought, used once, and never used again. Back in 2010 I bought a very large, kind of pricey suitcase, thinking that I wanted to do more traveling. I used it for a work trip to India that year, but I realized for the type of leisure travel I like to do a backpack works much better. I never used that suitcase again. Well, I store things in it, but that’s not really its intended use.

5

Gym memberships. Sure I used them at first but then it lagged off and I kept paying the monthly membership fee.

Then there is that Atmos clock that I never used because I live too close to railway that shakes the house enough to throw it off.

6

A fire extinguisher.

7

Last year I went on holiday to France. The French favour wild beaches with no hireable sunbeds, and I can’t stand just lying down on a towel with no shade, so I spent plenty cash on some special portable flatpack sunbeds and an awning that I can carry while on a bike (it was an area big on cycling).

When we got to the beach, the tide was about 2 miles out, and it stayed that way the whole trip. We never spent any time on the beach.

This year, I went to a part of Greece where I knew there would also be no sunbeds, but the beds I had bought were too big for a suitcase, so I bought some smaller sunbed seat things and took them.

When we got to the beach, there were, in fact, very nice hireable sunbeds, much more comfortable than our chairs, so we hired those instead.

At this rate I will be able to open a beach furniture shop.

8

Several “Great Courses” DVDs.

9

An air tank. Was planning on using it for airbrushing, but never did.

10

Some doggie toothpaste. The vet recommended we should start brushing their teefies, but I find it hard to believe it’s going to make a difference. Especially given the unlikelihood of me doing it with any frequency.

11

:rofl: My vet once tried to give me a set of cat toothbrushes. I told him unless you’re either giving me a suit of armor or are planning to come to my house every day to do it, that’s not happening.

12

1978 Fiat Spider

13

Some years back I heard about this pen that would record a meeting (or anything) and, that if you took notes on a special pad, would coordinate the note with the time that you took it. I thought it would be great for boring meetings at work. However to use it you’d have to basically listen to most of the boring meeting again, so I have the pen and the pads in my desk still. I kind of used it once, but it hardly counts.
Excellent thread topic, by the way.

14

A large bag of chips every time we go on a hotel vacation. Because, if you’re eating in restaurants and then you get peckish late at night, you can’t raid the fridge - so have yourself some chips. But if you’re eating in restaurants, you’re probably eating more than you usually do, so you don’t get hungry, so you don’t eat the chips. (But if you didn’t have the chips you would get hungry, of course. That’s the way the mind works.)

When we’re back home you can raid the pantry or fridge if you need to, and find something a little healthier than a bag of chips. So they don’t get used.

Well, that’s not entirely true. What happens to the bags chips? Maybe we’ll give them to someone who’ll enjoy them. Or they’ll be put out when friends come round, or taken out on a group picnic, or something like that. I’ll have a few of them. But most don’t get used - by me.

j

15

Baby shoes

16

What Never? Well hardly ever.

The complete set The Story of Civilization by Will and Adriel Durant. I started the first volume, but it seemed to be just one assertion after another with no supporting evidence or examples.

A mantel clock from the late 1970’s. I swear that one day I’ll either fix the mechanical mechanism that’s in there, or convert it to a quartz movement.

17

Ha! That’s why I keep a pack of cigarettes stashed away somewhere in the house. If I don’t own cigarettes, I’d want to smoke, or at least that was my reasoning when I was quitting, and it worked for me. Just having them but not smoking them was enough to calm my craving for it. But then again, in that sense, I am “using” them, as their only purpose is to just exist.

(I quit many years ago and would be perfectly fine now with throwing them out, but at this point, it’s become a trophy)

18

I bought a bench router, oh, 15 years ago or so, with the intention of getting into woodworking.

It’s in the garage. In the box.

mmm

19

DVDs in foreign languages, to learn them. Netflix is better.
Coffee table books. But that is what they are for, aren’t they?
Life insurance. Cancelled it long ago. Probably my worst investment so far.
A drawing board, not quite as beautiful as this one. But still plan to use it some day.

20

I did exactly the same. I had a pack for years.

Damn, you’re right - I am using the chips!

j