Another for the Smartwool hiking socks and good hiking boots.
I have about 10+ pairs of Smartwool socks. I did have to throw out a pair recently, but they were 7 or 8 years old and had been worn a lot.
My hiking boots are a pair of LaSportiva boots I bougt in 1998 and they are well broken in and have hiked more miles than I really care to try and remember. I do however need to send them off to be resoled… I wore the tread off of the Vibram soles.
Also…
-Facial moisturizer and eye cream. It is worth it not to skimp.
-Sunscreen, I found ones that work well (different for face and body) I’ll pay just about anything for them.
-Shoes in general. Cheap shoes just suck on many levels.
-Jeans. If they fit well and look good, I will buy them.
My first Woot purchase was three 256MB MP3 players, almost a year ago. They were nice, but not life-changing like my 30GB iPod. (I say “were” because I gave two of them to my kids, and they’re both lost now.)
Buy another one and a roll of stick on Velcro (Wal*Mart will have that over by the sewing stuff). Stick the Velcro on the top of one mattress and the bottom of another, and you’ve just made yerself a $60 version of them new-fangled $100 double high air mattresses. (The Velcro prevents the top one from sliding off the bottom one.) Plus, if you have guests, you’ve got options - one high bed or two low ones. Just flip the bottom one over so they’re not sleeping on Velcro.
ETA: Oh, yeah, the OP. I’ll add Bare Escentuals/Bare Minerals makeup to the mix. I’ve always been a drugstore makeup gal, and unhappy with it. This stuff is so worth the extra money. It looks like I’m not wearing makeup, I just have great skin!
I totally agree with the assessment of mineral makeup, but I’ve found a brand called Inner Beauty that’s every bit as good as Bare Escentuals, but much less expensive! If you Google Inner Beauty mineral makeup, you’ll come up with links to her eBay store.
Worth the price: my MacBook Pro. It’s not perfect, but it’s fast, good-looking, and the whole system doesn’t come crashing down when some program gacks. I’ve only had it freeze up on me once, and that took just a restart and everything was okay. If you close the lid of the computer, it goes into sleep mode, and when you open it up again, everything is still open onscreen… even if in the meantime you have plugged it into your big monitor at home. It just works.
Thanks for all the responses so far. I’ve enjoyed reading them and learned a few things. Can’t wait to buy expensive bed sheets. I honestly had no idea.
One other thing comes to mind: The Teaching Company. My wife and I listened to a history course on a long car trip and we both thought it was great.
My gym has an upscale section that is 21 and over only and is outfitted to be nicer and more luxurious, better more high-tech equipment and so on. But I would pay just for the 21 and over part.
Unfortunately, now that my under 21 son is here, I’m going to have to downgrade to the “mere” Gold membership, since the idiot accounting department can’t seem to figure out how to allow him to use Gold and me to remain platinum without charging me for a couple’s membership charge.
I’d be paying as if two were using the platinum, but since he’s under 21, he of course wouldn’t be able to actually use it, I don’t mind paying more for adding him, but twice as much? When normally it’s $10 a month for any other member to add a kid? Um, nope.
Skincare products. I have very sensitive and dry skin, and over the years I have come to love the Vichy line of products. I use the Nutrilogie Baume. It’s thick and doesn’t dry out my skin, even when skiing in harsh winter weather.
Couldn’t agree more with this. After seeing my parents and my ex buy expensive stuff for years only to have it languish in a cabinet and get used - at most - once or twice a year, I decided to break the cycle.
My everyday dishes are Waterford Crystal and good Japanese China.
They just feel so good in your hands…especially a cool drink out of that heavy Waterford.
And if one breaks…so what…life is too short to worry about it.
Dropoff Laundry Service: I hate, hate, hate doing laundry. It’s costs a pretty penny, but since I only have to deal with packing, lugging to and fro, unpacking (sometimes - ), it’s worth every penny. I even considered a service that picks up and delivers, but the convenience of dealing w/ laundry only when I feel like it is worth more to me.
A Very Nice Meal Out: I can’t afford Lutece and I’m not talking about going to any expensive restaurant just because it’s expensive. But treating myself occasionally to whatever nice meal/restaurant I like, costs (short of Lutece) be damned, especially since I work so hard, is so worth it. I do this with company or alone.
One business I run is recycling old propane tanks. (We do this because no one else will touch them $$$$$) The valves and connections are yellow brass; this pays VERY well, but you have to get them out of the steel tank. They are installed with thread gunk that really works… wouldn’t want to leak flammable gas now would we? The valves have been there for 30, 40 years plus; they are tight! We went through several sets of pipe wrenches, sometimes breaking 1 a day WITHOUT getting the valve out. The workers at the recycle yard started joking about how many wrenches we would have in the next load of steel! We finally wised up and got top of the line Ridgid (sp?) wrenches.
In over a year we’ve used the SAME wrench on every valve and it hasn’t broken yet. We HAVE bent several “cheater bars” and broken one guy’s arm but the tool has held up through all that we can throw at it.
It tracks sales and coupons and tells you when the best time to stock up is. It has a $1 free trial for 4 weeks. Typically, I save 50% on my groceries.
I’ve recently gotten back into it and the first two weeks I’ve stocked up enough to last me through the end of the month comfortably. As you progress through a 12 week cycle, the amount you need to spend each week lowers. It helped me through some very, very difficult times.
BTW, if you sign up, use my address as a referral, I’ll get a week free.
Cedman–Hire me. Acting like a barely domesticated gorilla is one of the things I do best in this world.
Regarding the OP, I second the tools, quality cars, shoes/socks/boots, work clothes–hmm, on that note its time for me to go into Carhartt salesman mode.
I was building fence in the first pair of CH pants I ever bought. Carrying a spool of barbed wire (~30-40 lbs), I tripped, fell, rolled 8 or 10 feet down a hill, the spool of wire entangled in my legs the whole time. When I got up and collected myself, I saw that my pants had barely been ‘pricked’–If I’d have been wearing jeans before the fall, I would have been wearing shorts afterward. The stuff is Redneck Kevlar.TM
Plus its nice to be able to wear a pair of faded maroon pants and still look like you’re going to kick someone’s ass.
), it’s worth every penny. I even considered a service that picks up and delivers, but the convenience of dealing w/ laundry only when I feel like it is worth more to me.