Using a ratio of satisfaction/cost, what things do you score highest? They must be things with a retail price (e.g. tap water doesn’t count, but purchased bottled water does; a free view of a mountain vista doesn’t count, but entry into a paid state park does), and they must be things that you purchase at least semi-regularly, even if it’s just once per year or so.
Here’s my shortlist:
Wondrium. $20-USD per month. “Wondrium is a streaming media production company that produces educational, video and audio content in the form of courses, documentaries, and series under two content brands – Wondrium and The Great Courses.” This is my favorite and most watched streaming service, therefore my favorite form of passive entertainment (my active entertainment is NSFW ). I usually watch 2-3 lecture series simultaneously and never have a problem finding lectures that fascinate me on this great service. I consider $20/month a bargain.
Kroger® Breaded Butterfly Shrimp 32 oz. Regular price: $15.98, but I only buy when they put it on sale for ~$10.45. I love shrimp and 2lbs of large, easy-to-cook shrimp for this price is a good buy in my book. I simply put 6-8 shrimp in my air fryer, along with 3 frozen hushpuppies (Savannah Classics Sweet Corn Hushpuppies are as good as homemade), and air-fry for 10 minutes. I serve with sweet chili sauce and/or my homemade cocktail sauce, and a serving of Kroger® steam-in-the-bag vegetables (also cheap, but good). Quick, easy, affordable, and quite tasty. 1 bag of shrimp provides me with many meals and Kroger® Delivery puts them on sale often enough to keep me well supplied.
Audible. $14.95 per month, which gives 1 credit/month. 1 credit = 1 book. “Audible is an online audiobook and podcast service that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content.” As a silly senior citizen, I now prefer to have my books read to me, rather than reading them myself (a regression to early childhood, I suppose). 1 book per month aligns perfectly with my reading requirements, and Audible has virtually every book and podcast that I desire.
ChatGPT-4 only costs me a few dollars per month, but has increased my freelance transcriber income by about $3,000 per month - absolute game changer.
I love journaling and writing thoughts down on old-fashioned paper, so the few dollars I spend per month on plain paper (even just a loose sheaf of printer paper will do) are worth it many times over.
I love meandering about on the subway, and the rides here are very cheap, so whatever pittance amount I have to put on my subway card every month are also far more than worth it.
I’ve started using ChatGPT 3.5 as an assistant for my post-retirement career: web design and social media production. My main focus (and talent) is creating engaging info-graphics and videos (mainly with After Effects and Cinema 4D) for clients. But, it’s tiresome making fresh copy content for clients on a regular basis, so I started using AI for that purpose—and it does a great job. It even includes appropriate emojis and hashtags in the content it generates. This allows me to spend more time on what I love—graphic design.
I’m toying with the idea of upgrading to the paid ChatGPT-4. Did you find it a worthwhile upgrade?
I guess I’ll be the first to say it. SDMB. I do spend too much time here, but I learn a LOT. And if I have a question that I can’t Google, it comes here.
I’m going to say my FoodSaver vacuum sealer. I purchased one about 5 years ago. After about 3 years it broke down and the company sent me a brand new model as a replacement. So my initial $120 investment has gotten me 5 years (so far) of use, and I use it daily. It has saved me a lot more than $120 in food and other costs.
The first thing I thought of was Spotify premium. For $10 a month I can magically and instandly access pretty much any song or artist that I desire.
Way back when I remember having to decide whether that Henry and the Horndogs CD is worth shelling out $15 for. Now, if I want it, I have it now and I have it “free”.
Air fryer. I’m on my third one. I live alone and could probably just get takeout, but I love to cook - even just for me. I can cook a lot more than just fries and chicken wings without babysitting things on a stove or in an oven.
We had some friends over and I BBQued Saturday. So maybe it’s because I just finished the last of the pulled pork in a delicious pulled pork sandwich, how about the humble pork shoulder? Still dirt-cheap at less than $3 a pound, and with time and some seasoning, it transforms into a big batch of crowd-pleasing meat.
Unlike the more expensive beef brisket, which can be temperamental to BBQ just right, It’s relatively simple for a novice to BBQ. Just cook low and slow, get the internal temp up around 200, and it’s magically delicious. Not a BBQer? Crock pot or Instant Pot it.
We all have something that provides much more bang for the buck than probably anything else we own, but it’s so bloody obvious that no one even mentions it: our computer. In my case, the utility is probably even greater than for most, because I spend so much of my life on it, so it did occur to me.
I have a number of different desktop and laptop computers and tablets, but my current desktop and current tablet get about 99% of the use. And I tend to be on one or the other most of the day and much of the night. The desktop has a big IPS monitor and a fantastic sound system, a fast processor and lots of storage, a fast internet connection, and in a word, it is my everything system for work and play, information, music, entertainment, talking with folks on the internet – everything. What a miracle, when you stop to think about it, and it would certainly appear that way to anyone from only about 30 or 40 years ago.
And the tablet is my equivalent entertainment system in bed, in constant use for watching movies or TV shows. The screen is so close to your eyes that the effect is rather theatrical, actually a better presence than watching a large-screen TV. I use that tablet so much that it’s a wonder that the battery still works after several years.
My wife and I had spent years grousing about the ads on YouTube until the day it dawned on me that we spend hours watching YouTube every day, so it was absolutely worth it to pay for YouTube Premium and see all of the ads simply disappear, for both of us. Money well spent.
Now we can grumble about “Before we get into that let me share something about our sponsor…”
Amazon Prime seems a harder sell at first glance: they jacked up the price recently, and the charge appears as a lump sum every year, so it seems more costly, but when split into months it’s not that expensive.
And most of my packages arrive within a day or two, with a pleasant number arriving overnight. From time to time I receive packages a few hours after I order them. This might not be worth it to others, but it is worth it to me.
The extended warranty on my travel trailer. Bought it brand new January of 2022. 2 issues arose the first year. In July the AC quit working. Fortunately we were camping in an area where we really didn’t need it. The manufacturer referred us to a dealer for repairs and they would need the trailer for 6 to 8 weeks. The dealer was also 75 miles from home. We had camping trips planned. I called our warranty company, they said no problem. The day after we came home from our trip, 2 guys showed up and installed a new unit. Our only cost was a couple bottles of water.
While the AC was being repaired, I told the guys about our black water tank not draining correctly sometimes. 3 weeks later the same 2 guys showed up and replumbed the black water and both gray water tanks. They upgraded everything from 2" to 4" piping. Haven’t had a problem since. The extended warranty paid for itself and I still have 6 years more coverage.
Yes, computers are a good answer. Not too many years ago, I’d buy top-of-the-line, cutting-edge computers for >$5k. But, as time goes on, computers get more powerful, and prices drop. Now, I don’t bother with cutting-edge, I just go for near-top level for a fraction of what I used to spend.
And, I’m now a fan of buying refurbished from trusted sites, like Amazon, who offer a 3-month no-questions-asked warranty. I’ve bought a number of “excellent condition” refurbished products and I’ve yet to be burned (knock on wood). In fact, I just ordered a refurbished Galaxy S-21 Ultra cellphone which is being delivered today (to replace my aging refurbished S-9). I recently bought a refurbished Dell i7, loaded with ram, a powerful graphics card, and plenty of Vram (I use a lot of memory-intensive graphic programs in my work) for under $2k, and it gets the job done. I also bought a refurbished HP Spectre x360 touchscreen tablet and work it out heavily. I couldn’t be happier with the purchases.
So, yes, you can get a lot of bang for your buck with computers and cellphones, if you’re a good shopper.
My desktop computers were typically bought from online sellers like Dell and Gateway, and in one case I built my own (still have that one operational in the basement). But funny you should mention refurbished, because my current desktop computer is a Dell Optiplex refurb purchased from the Dell leasing division as an off-lease return. I happened to be looking for a good high-end laptop for someone else on the Dell refurb site and saw this great deal on a desktop for myself.
The configuration was basic but it had a fast Intel i7 quad processor in a mini-tower case with loads of USB 3 and USB 2 ports front and back and was readily expandable; I upped the RAM to 8 GB, replaced the small HDD with a Samsung Pro SSD plus a 2 TB HDD and ended up with a great desktop for $400 plus the cost of the add-ons. The Optiplex is a solid, well-built business system originally selling at a premium price, and this thing has been a superb performer and flawlessly reliable. As a bonus, it’s so incredibly quiet that you can barely even tell it’s on. Not a gaming system unless I add a high-end graphics card, but I don’t do gaming and this is a great performer for my needs that was almost free. Definitely my best computer purchase ever.
). I usually watch 2-3 lecture series simultaneously and never have a problem finding lectures that fascinate me on this great service. I consider $20/month a bargain.