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Blaze (he/him) @sopuli.xyz

2w ago

What's a stupidly expensive adult purchase that you now swear by that you would buy again in a heartbeat?

52 comments

I had my house renovated to make it more like what I want. The cost was mind boggling. But holy hell, I really like my house now.
- What kinds of renovations did you do?
  
  The big change was I had the stairs moved.
  Without making a huge story of it, my house has pretty darn large pull-under basement that you access by a garage door. But, the space was cut in half by the stairs. One the one side you could mostly squeeze a car in, but the other side was largely wasted space. So I had the stairs moved to the other side of the house. Now I have a pseudo 3-car garage (2 bays to work on project cars, and room to pull a 3rd in behind them in a pinch).
  Mildly interesting, those stairs were moved on purpose by the original owner during the design phase. I actually have the original blueprints, the stairs were supposed to be off the kitchen. Makes me wonder if the next owner will move them again. hah.
- I'm 100% behind this. You spend enough time there, make it perfect

(Second hand) Electric car. SO MUCH MORE FUN to drive, even in traffic, than petrol or diesel, and so much cheaper to run (by a factor of five or six) because I have cheap overnight electricity, but it's not the money, it's the joy of driving. Never going back.
- I hate driving, but my EV is miles ahead of any gas car I've driven

Simplehuman lidded step-open trashcan.
Why in the fuck would anyone spend over $100 on a damn trashcan?
We got tired of the plastic ones we were buying breaking, and they were around $60 to begin with.
It holds the bags properly with none falling in. It has built in storage for empty bags inside. It is easily cleanable. The lid opens and closes smoothly, no slamming open or shut. When closed, it keeps any odors inside.
It's been the main trashcan in the central area of our home for four years and is still going strong. So many others we had would only last maybe half a year.
- Heck yeah. I don't know what brand mine is, but we also splurged on a fancy trashcan. Foot operated. Metal casing, so it's heavy and doesn't shift around when you're trying to use it. Like you said, it holds the bag properly. I'll never go back.
- On the other hand, I've been using a cheap garbage can without the lid and it's been good. Mind you, my home is sealed well against flies and if flying bugs become an issue, I'll probably grab the lid. But since water is able to evaporate out of it, it doesn't stink that much. It also helps that I leave food in the fridge until I'm ready to take the garbage out.
- Omg I had two of these cans and loved them so much

Running my own storage and personal media server.
- I've been debating trying this but I'm not an IT expert, so feeling overwhelmed and nervous to even start. Do you have any guides or websites that you could recommend?
  
  If you go with a out-of-the-box solution you don't really need much expertise. You just click through a series of almost self-explanatory installation steps and it just works. I'd recommend Synology. It's very simple and just works flawlessly with minimum effort.
  Now, this is lemmy and the foss/privacy people will probably have me crucified for saying that ... so if you care about that, I'd suggest scrolling/asking in !selfhosted@lemmy.world.
- Yeah I'm stuck on the "expensive" part still. I built one, but very quickly ran out of storage. I'm looking to buy some 18tb drives but holy hell they are expensive.
  
  I’m looking to buy some 18tb drives but holy hell they are expensive.
  Well, I'm running 9x 20TB drives ...

Geothermal heatpump
- Holy shit where do you live??
  
  Urban setting in eastern Canada.
  It was about 30k all included. Maybe 23k after subventions.
  Got rid of the oil furnace, and it now costs me about $650 for heat and AC for the whole year.
  And the old furnace did not do AC.
  It's been about 4 years and the return on investment was initially planned at around 10-12 years in... But that was when oil was $0.80/L and it has more than doubled last I checked.
  Rather simple really... vertical well routed to a heatpump installed where the old furnace was.
  More than the savings, it is much more comfortable as the temperature is more stable, we now have AC for the summer, there's no smells, no refills, barely any maintenance other than air filters... 10/10 would recommend.

My house probably. By far the most expensive thing I own.

Dehumidifier. Best thing I've ever bought for the house I bloody love it
- Opposite here, I live in the desert and a humidifier adds enough thermal mass to the air to make cooling reasonably cheap in the summer.
  
  What do you mean by "a humidifier adds enough thermal mass to the air"? I would think that increasing the heat capacity of the air would increase the cost of temperature regulation.

Meds I guess 😔
But also PPE for riding a motorcycle

Water heater probably? Having hot water when we need it is really nice.
- Heat pump water heater in the garage is a blessing in summer months

I got my husband a water kettle for his birthday the first year we were dating, and it’s been a great investment. It’s got a gooseneck spout, heats water to multiple temperatures and is worth every cent of the ~€45 I paid for it. We have great, consistent coffee every day, thanks mostly to the kettle
- I recently got a kettle when I switched to drinking more tea and less energy drinks. It is so convenient and easy to use. It's faster than my old tea pot I used on the stove.

Chamber vacuum sealer.
Espresso machine with E61 group head and flat burr grinder.

A house. Fuck moving every couple of years. Fuck landlords (especially the corporate kind). Hell yea having the ability to make changes and improvements. Obligatory: https://m.xkcd.com/905/

Reald... oh wait, that's not what you meant, right?

Is a badass computer an adult purchase? 🤔

Winter tires on their own set of wheels. Expensive upfront, but easy to switch out twice a year at zero additional expense. I run summers half the year and winters the other half, so I'm usually on the best tires, temperature wise. Safer and more fun driving all around.

I bought a $400 Blendtec blender a few years ago and I fucking LOVE it. Smoothies all the time. Frozen daiquiris and other mixed drinks. Occasionally use it to puree ingredients to make a broth. The only "weak" point is that the motor in it is so strong that sometimes it can try to torque itself around on the countertop, so it's a good idea to keep one hand on top while it's running. The comparison with any of the blenders I ever used before isn't even close.
- They had an amazing advertising campaign with the videos. They were fun to watch.
  
  Will It Blend?
  The answer is always "Yes."

52 comments