Ask Lemmy

Paid for a colon repair to fix diverticulitis. 10/10. Can eat fajitas again.

Had to pay, because American.

Steam deck!

A 14 TB HDD to throw on my Plex server. Went with a cheap option from serverpartdeals.com.

I was using a 4 TB for the longest time and had to go through and delete stuff every month.

A high quality desktop easel for my girlfriend's art. It makes her feel more competent and professional which increases her confidence in her her art, and the amount of joy she gets from making it, which, in turn, makes me happy

I got a kickass drill press. May not seem that interesting but when you step in front of that puppy, fire it on, crank that lever down and put holes of all sizes in any and everything that's not bolted to the ground, you feel the raw power and adrenaline pumping through your veins. Your conciousness is immediately elevated to that of a hindu goddess and you begin to lift from the ground, effortlessly floating 2 inches off the ground as all turns bright white extending into infinity. Also, your wife gets super pissed.

Food. It has also been my only purchase this year.

eBike fo sho, it's not even a good one but I haven't driven a car in months.

Speaking of, here's a shameless plug for !micromobility@lemmy.world

I bought a house. It's not my first house, it's my fourth, but it's my favorite by far. It's smaller than any of them, it cost more, but it met all my criteria.

I'm not sure this counts but paid off all the cars, credit card, and medical debt. Only the mortgage left. Paying bills has never been this easy! And all the extra cash is pretty great too.

Nice try, IRS.

I'm in the office one day a week and pay someone to visit and walk my dogs twice a week. I do it twice because it's fun for me to be at home and see how happy they are when their friend and walker comes to visit.

That $40 I spend for them to have a buddy come walk them is 100% the best money I spend every week.

We bought a modest playset in the backyard. It cost a lot but the value of having kids play outside when we can't orchestrate a trip to the park yet keep them away from screens while we can get stuff done around the house is priceless

My bidet. My girlfriend has Crohn's so not only does it get its fair share of use, it's the best feeling

My best purchase was a gift for my 13-year-old daughter- a record player. She's into a lot of different music, but almost all of it from the 80s and before. Her favorite musician is Todd Rundgren. We were able to find 3 albums of his in a local used record store too, which I consider part of the purchase even though it wasn't until a little while later.

Starlink. Went from effectively no internet to fantastic internet. It's life changing not having to drive into town to use my banking app and send emails. I feel like I'm finally living in 2023!

This one particular painting that I've been staring at on Saatchi Art for three entire years. It's the first time I've purchased something expensive that was not also practical, and I'm really happy I finally did. It makes me really happy.

Baldurs gate 3.

Probably this clone of RSP1 from AliExpress for just €20:

Direct image link

Seems more sensitive on HF than direct sampling with RTL-SDR and has up to 10MHz of bandwidth. But due to software support, RTL-SDR still wins. This only works well with SDR++, or if I had Windows, probably SDRUno, since that's official software for SDRPlay devices. But I am too lazy to bother with Windows.

Finally bought a proper L-desk for my home office. Prior to that I was using a basic folding table with a keyboard tray attachment.

A nice bicycle. I've easily ridden 2000 km this year on it, improving my fitness, saving me money on transportation and providing me lots and lots of entertainment.

The only problem is that I'm hooked now, and I will definitely be upgrading to an even better bike. Oh well.

Got myself a proper hiking backpack. An Osprey Exos 58L. Shifting much of the weight to the hips makes a massive difference and my back was very happy!

Dreame L10 pro robo vacuum / mop. I rooted it and run Valetudo on it so it doesn't use a proprietary third party cloud service. It works very well and my floors have never been cleaner!

Water pick, was using floss sticks (already a huge improvement from flossing normally) this was the first time they suggested I only need 2 cleanings (how many my insurance covers) per year.

Signed up for usenet. Easynews. £30 for the year. Great way to get Linux distros...

New laptop for myself. I've spent years using my phone and work laptops. I have a VM on a cloud provider I use for personal storage, tinkering, etc.

Dell XPS 13 Plus, got it fully loaded but with the least amount of storage available. Immediately upgraded the NVMe to 2T and installed Linux.

Despite making a descent income, I'm weirdly averse to spending on myself. In any case, totally worth it, it's been a month and I use the machine every day.

One year of Playstation Plus Premium bought in January.

Or maybe the vet bill from my husky's pyometra surgery. She would have died without it.

Cheap CarPlay tablet for my car, far cheaper than replacing the head unit but the quality of life update has been well worth it.

My Steam Deck, no doubts

A handful of good fountain pens, a few inks that I really love, and good paper. Those are fairly small amounts of money, and ongoing purchases, but good tools that just work and make me happy when I use them are highly valuable to me.

The priciest pen - which writes amazingly - is not necessarily the one I value most. I get the most use out of a $17 pen, and a $25 pen - multiple of each, really, because i must have allllllll of the inks.

Doesn’t take much - or much money spent - to make me happy, really, and I consider that to be one of the few positive aspects of adulting. Once I figured that out and started focusing on quality over quantity in general, life improved dramatically.

Shokz bone conduction headphones. Amazing listening to podcasts without anything plugging up my ears!

A Saxophone.

Hip surgery. I had hip dysplasia and had surgery in July to help rid myself of the pain it was causing. Omg that a fucking relief.

New Nintendo 3DS XL.

I wanted 3DS so bad when it came out and for some time in high school, but I've finally decided to drop some cash and get one this year, I love that thing. I would seriously consider it the best handheld of all time, it just feels so right in hands (The C-stick isn't that bad either, like some people say, although one on my 3DS needs replacement) and games are great as well.

Of course I've also modded it straight-away to run unofficial firmware, because screw Nintendo. And I've recently also had fun porting my project (that runs on LÖVE) to 3DS :)

I’ll also throw Phantom Liberty onto the pile. Fun game to play. Especially after experiencing the slow pace and old mechanics of Starfield.

A UPS. The power grid being very unreliable where I live, the power gets cut about once a week. This innocuous little thing has protected my work and 3000e of hardware from at least 30 cuts since I bought & installed it, for a total cost of 120e. Absolutely the best investment I've made recently

I bought my son a entry level Mt bike, cost me about $1200, but now he rides with me! Easily the best thing I've brought this year