Another fan of Youtube Premium here. I follow a dozen or so channels and the ads are beyond annoying. Not only that, ads increase the viewing time of an episode by a non-trivial amount. Even when you have the option after a few seconds to “skip” and ad, having to do that over and over again just started to piss me off. Premium also provides the ability to download videos and access to youtube music.
Smoked sesame oil and Tabasco sauce. I get more than a year’s worth of both for less than 10 bucks, and just a few drops of either are enough.
Hmmm. Moving to the kitchen…
Rice. Cheap, and a little goes a long way.
Agree about Smoked Sesame oil.
For me, and anyone who travels more than a few times a year:
Airline Lounge membership(s). At least 1-2 times year, a lunge membership “pays for itself” in food and comfort in a chaotic airport, personal attention in solving my travel issues, or just the ability to decompress.
Smartphone. Another must-have if you travel with any regularity. Changing arrangements on the fly, finding things in a strange town, early warning, and communication to and from people waiting for you.
Flowers, either cut or grown on our balcony. And the fountain that hummingbirds dance through.
My Ortlieb rear panniers for my bikes. They were expensive, though I have no recollection of the exact cost back in1997. However, guessing maybe $200, amortized over 26 years, has been about $7 or $8 a year for something that has been virtually bomb proof and has supported, and still supports, my year 'round bike commuting over those years.
Prior to their purchase I had probably bought two or three sets of panniers over ten years that were rife with problems.
It’s a lot pricier (although I got my office to pay for mine), but the Remarkable 2 tablet is a digital notepad that feels like writing on paper. The difference being that you can easily email your notes. It’s sort of an indulgence, but I give it a favorable review.
As to the OP, I’d definitely have to include my smart phone - it’s indispensable, and it’s truly amazing to think about how “pocket computers”, coupled with the proliferation of the internet, have changed society.
Also, I’d say my rice cooker. I don’t use it to make rice, but I use it all the time to make oatmeal (I get the steel cut kind), and it’s simple to use it to steam vegetables. You could do other things, I’m sure (steamed fish!), but so far the only other use I’ve found for it was to use the bowl to contain a salad.
I may not be a good shopper, cellphone-wise, but I feel like I create bang for my buck by choosing decent ones then running them into the ground, so to speak. Mine is 5 years old and still doing great.
…I hope I didn’t just jinx myself…
I started an online subscription to the New York Times prior to the last election, and I spend probably too much time on it, especially the “Morning briefing” that shows up in my inbox each day. I feel more connected to the happenings in the world, support good journalism, and I get easy access to Wordle and Spelling Bee. I live in Minnesota and I get the state’s biggest paper (the Star Tribune), but only on Sundays. It carries lots of articles from NYT and the Washington Post (which I also have as an online subscription). My renewal period just came up, and I had to decide if it is worth it. It is.
My bike.
After years of beaters, I finally bought a new bike in 1982 and it’s still going strong (it was a Trek). I commuted across town most days for forty years, except when it got too icy out. Now that I’m retired, most days find me on a long ride.
And it cost a whole $350, plus occasional tune-ups.
I bought a “Grocery Pannier” (sized to fit a full grocery bag) from a Mpls. company, Banjo Brothers. $50 thirty years ago ($69 now), still using it regularly.
I’m cheap, so bang for the buck is pretty much my goal in life. I love the fact that I can do hobbies/sports that don’t take a lot of expensive equipment.
I play on a soccer team at a city park. I bought basic shoes thirty years ago, and that’s it. No fancy duds, just a t-shirt and shorts.
My bike paid for itself decades ago, so I can hop on it and ride wherever I want to for free. No spandex, no pricey shoes, no clip-ins.
And no fancy road bike (if I need a bike ten pounds lighter, I could just drop my beer belly and be lugging ten pounds less around… preferable to buying an expensive bike).
I do think about an electric bicycle, easier on the ol’ knees, especially when fellow geezers are passing me on hills, coasting uphill.
But instead I think
“I wish I had a motor on this thing… oh, wait, I’m the motor. I just need a motor that’s in better shape.”
When we bought this place in 2018, the first thing we did was pay a thousand bucks to have a catio put in.
Our cats use it daily, and now that we have an idiot cat who never got the memo about hating water, we can have their water fountain outside.
We have cats because we love them and like seeing them happy. We get daily enjoyment from the cats enjoying the catio, so I think it counts.
A good video game.
In my specific case, State of Decay 2. I have north of 4500 hrs playing it and, at full price, cost only $40. So the price of two movies at a theater which would have been maybe 4 hrs. But I actually got it for free as a present. Also it’s free on gamepass.
Oh, that reminds me. Gamepass is a hell of a deal. Hundreds of games to play for only a few bucks a month. Maybe you’ll find your SoD2 on there.
For me it is driving and sight seeing, and going for hikes. A tank of gas is $125 for my Jeep and that can go 450-500 miles.
And I’ve been a member here since I joined then years ago. $5 is an entertainment bargain.
I wish I still had my motorcycle, but that was sold a couple of years back.
I’ll third /fourth/fifth the air fryer. We use it at least five times a week…sometimes for entrees, but most often for vegetables. I never really liked Brussel sprouts until my wife started doing them in the air fryer.
But the biggest bang comes from my Eufy Robovac X8 robot vacuum. We have two dogs and I was resigned to having to vacuum at last every couple days to keep the dust/fur bunnies down, especially in the hardwood floor hallways. In fact, I keep two stick vacs at opposite ends of the house for that reason. I was aware of the earlier, more primitive robot vacs and had dismissed them without ever trying one. One day, out of frustration with the constant vacuuming, I bought a renewed Eufy X8 for $240. I was stunned at what a great job it did! It uses LIDAR to map the house and is bizarrely “smart” about vacuuming. For example, it circles each leg of my coffee table keeping the sweeping side brush against the leg, then goes back and forth underneath to get everything else. It only took about a week of letting it map the house and adjusting a few problem areas. On the first cleaning, I had to empty it three times. Now it can do everything without getting too full, though I have to run it every night on an automatic schedule. It is extremely satisfying to get that big fistful of dog fur from the dust cup each morning when I empty it. The hallways (and every other room) looks great!
Automobile tire inflator that plugs into dashboard’s 12v socket. Especially because one of my tires that I’m too cheap to replace has a leaky valve and needs to be topped up every 3-4 weeks.
If the valve is leaky those sell in a 4-pak for $2. Properly termed a “valve stem core”.
If you need to buy the tool to remove/replace the valve stem core those sell for $2 also and then you’ll have it forever. It will take you about 5 minutes to deflate the tire, replace the valve stem core, and re-inflate the tire. Which can be done while the tire is mounted on the car and the car is sitting on the ground on the tire. No jacking required.
If the stem (the rubber covered stiff tubular thingy the valve cap screws onto) is leaking versus the wheel now you’re talking real money: $4 for a two-pak. But you need a tire store or service station to perform the replacement for you. Which takes a pro with the right tools just a few minutes.
If you have reason to suspect the problem is really in the valve, I’d totally invest the $2 or $4 and the 5 minutes trying to solve it. If that is unsuccessful, you’re not out much.
We got a Ninja Foodi multipurpose toaster oven/air fryer a few years back, and that thing is great. It air fries decently, it toasts things decently, it does a fine job of baking small things, and so forth. It’s turned out to be good at everything it claims to do, which makes it extremely versatile.
I used to make cardboard scratch pads at work. The Turbo was grudgingly bought over twenty years ago, I did not like the idea of paying for a scratch pad but the ball in racetrack is irresistible for kitties. Second cat using it, as did the first, playing with it every single day. Makes me smile every time I see kitty laying on side thwacking away at the ball.
Similar story for me. Grew up on used bicycles, and shortly after starting grad school in the early '90s I spent $600 on a pretty high-quality mountain bike. I spent the next six years riding like a demon: commuting, pleasure riding around town, trials-style riding (Madison’s Capitol police were not happy with me riding full-speed down the stairs), trail riding in Wisconsin state parks and in Michigan’s UP.
And then…
After I finished grad school, I bought my first motorcycle. A brand-new BMW, $16,000. It’s difficult to put into words how much bang I got out of my buck. I’ve written about it previously:
I used to have a bike like that, and I used to ride it like that. Custom saddle with backrest, barbacks, and a few other tweaks made it fit me perfectly, and after 130,000+ miles of riding it and wrenching on it I had grown intimately familiar with it. Took a trip from the upper Midwest to California, and several trips to the Rocky Mountains and the desert southwest. Track day. Saddlesore 1000. Every kind of weather, from “goddam it’s hot” to “WTF, it’s actually starting to snow.” I did feel that kind of unity; it was my horse. When I stopped somewhere for lunch, I’d sit where I could watch it - not for security reasons, but simply because I liked looking at it. And not just because it was pretty, but because looking at it brought up a ton of memories of all I had been through with it. For me, all of the scratches, dings and scars weren’t depreciation; they were a storybook, a historical record of all the adventures we had been on together.
I like my current bike - it’s more powerful, has cruise control and a heated seat and other things my old bike did not - but I have a much stronger emotional connection with my previous bike.