Mine… My Xbox 360 slim only costed 129 euro back in 2012 and to this day still work like brand new, you would think that the disc drive would stop working but no. Never had the need of open it or clean it’s insides. Still great, I just don’t use it anymore since I feel it’s outdated and loading speeds are better nowadays.
I bought a fancy US made spatula for my grill. They make a smaller cheaper one that I added on impulse. That little guy is a champ and gets 5x the use of the big fancy one.
portable clothes washer and dryer: they’re both 20 years old now and i bought them used on craigslist five years ago and they’ve already paid for themselves multiple times over. regular sized mobile washers and driers are normally 2x the price of traditional washers and driers, but they’re 1/2 the price used; i got lucky and mine were 1/4 the price.
mobile clothes washers are driers are great because they don’t require any special electrical, water or drain hookups that traditional washers and dryers require so you can use them anywhere where there’s electricity, running water and a drain. i hook mine up to the kitchen sink for the washer and use an exhaust hose w a window for the dryer whenever i need to do laundry; then i use their built in wheels to put them in the closet when i’m done.
their regular sized capacity means that i can wash the same tings that that a traditional home washer and dryer can do, but since they use regular 120 volt electric plugs instead of the special 240 volt washer/dryer plugs, they take longer to finish; but still worth it, especially in a rental situation where you can’t install traditional washer & dryer electrical and plumbing hookups.
portable?? can you share an example of what you mean, this monkey brain is having trouble unserstanding
the driers are self explanatory and you don’t have to bother with anything beyond plugging it in if you get a ventless designed dryer.
this video shows how you can connect a portable washer to both a kitchen sink, like i do it, and to traditional washer/dryer hookups.. there are many different styles of portable washers; the smaller ones are more affordadable; but their small size limits their usefulness and this video only focuses on the traditional sized ones.
this one seems to be a decent AI generated review of the smaller/cheaper ones.
What the f I never hear of that or knew it was a thing. My goodness I could have used that years ago… sounds awesome!
they’re not advertised much in the united states and i think it’s because the profit margins are bigger with the traditional home washers & dryers since portable ones require more more machinery and electronics to clean clothes, whereas the traditional ones rely on your home’s specialized power grid and plumbing along w simpler machinery.
they’re more common in places where 240v grids aren’t as plentiful like latin america and asia; which is where i learned of them.
also know that well known appliance company branded ones (eg magic chef, black+decker, maytag, lg, speed queen, ge, etc.) are the same as the off brand ones, but w a company logo and price tag attached.
My Nintendo and controllers from 1987 still work.
Ski goggles, and they’re still good. I got them like 10ish years ago after having to walk put in some serious sub-zero harsh January wind that was making my eyes hurt. $40, now my eyes are fine and my glasses stay nice and snow-free.
I’ve lived in Chicagoland all my life and sometimes the winters can get almost Minnesotan, so it pays to have some quality eye protection.
being born probably.
Idk, seems hard to argue, i didn’t pay for shit, and now im just here, causing problems.
You didn’t pay for shit? Lucky you. I’ve been oayibg through the nose ever since I became an adult and i still got shit to show for it
Being born is “free” but being alive is not
The family xbox360 of my house was probably cheap enough. Haven’t played it in a while, but it’s definitely the greatest console to grace my life. Definitely the most played console throughout my life (PC/phone not included). I absolutely love it, especially since it’s where all my Hitman Blood Money/Absolution, Castle Crashers, Sonic Unleashed, and Borderlands 1 saves are trapped.
This also reminds me that I should probably find a way to back up my saves and account besides just a thumb drive because there’s currently no xbox online service available anymore and I have around 1.5+ decades worth of stuff on there I don’t wanna lose.
Edit: also a leather wallet I got from Walmart sometime around 2012-13. I don’t know how long a wallet should last, but I would never expect a wallet I buy today toast even a fraction of the time this has. George brand, says Italian Leather beneath the brand name, don’t believe it that it’s actually Italian leather because there’s no way a Walmart would ever have something that nice.
My first Chromecast i bought years ago for 20$. It’s still faster than the Google TV with a remote and I quite like to use my phone as a remote.
LTT screwdriver - although quite expensive has been a great tool when moving a few times, and for everything really.
An old receiver I got used, for 30$ has been with me for 5 years now, and it’s sadly starting to misbehave, but I can’t afford a new one ATM so I’ll suffer through it as it powers everything I throw at it with ease.
I’m 41. As a college going-away gift I suppose, my dad bought me a basic screwdriver where the bits can be flipped for larger and smaller Phillips and flat heads, all stored in the shaft. It’s got a floral handle. That thing is both my husband’s and my favorite screwdriver despite having acquired many more tools in the interim, and it probably cost four bucks back in 2001.
I finally got one of these after using my normal bit-swap screwdriver with no ratcheting about a month ago and I’ll never go back
Bonus: craftsman make one that will ratchet the same way no matter what way you twist it. Just hold the ring and twist, screw goes in. It is amazing
I ordered my first Chromecast the day they were announced (Amazon exclusive at first BTW).
It was a different time with Amazon. They got confused in the rush or orders, and sent me like 7 emails in 20 minutes all contradicting each other about my order. I was mostly curious when it would arrive, so I called to see if they had any idea, since them emails ranged between 2 weeks and 4 months.
They apologized for the confusion, overnighted one to me, and refunded my money.
Amazon’s customer service 11 years ago was excellent to the point of irresponsible.
I love my version 1 Chromecast! I feel like the “cast to TV” feature that’s built into TVs is hit and miss. And I swear my TV objects it’s own ads into things I stream.
Where my Chromecast, it displays my desktop/tab without any issues.
Your question is a little too narrow for my tastes. Some of the best cheap purchases that I’ve made are things that I still have now. They haven’t worn out or broken or become useless.
In 2001 I bought a new cast iron fry pan for $20 that I use on regular basis and it’s marvelous. Around the same time, I bought some used silverware from a thrift store and I still use that everyday.
Two other purchases that go back more than 20 years are my pocket knife and my 1/4 inch hex driver, both of which I bought new but were not particularly expensive and they are working wonderfully to this very day.
FWIW, we cleaned out one of the out buildings on my family’s rural property which was built in 1903. I found some rusty cast iron pans. Reconditioned them and use them all the time. They are at least 115 years old.
I grew up in a third world country and one of the first gift my immigrant relatives got for my parents was a microwave oven. That was way back in the early 90s when almost nobody in my country knew what a microwave oven was. The same microwave had been going strong for more than 30 years before the buttons finally broke last year. All for around $200 back in the day.
steamdeck is proving worthwhile and I don’t usually splurge for things like that.
Minecraft
I wish Minecraft had an in game play counter… Well… I mean I’m glad it doesn’t but I kind of wish it did. I’ve been playing since 2011 or so…
I probably have more than a year in actual game time… lol
They have scoreboards you can program in. Made a jump counter once and proceeded to gawk at the number of times I jumped in game after a year or so.
Prism has a counter for total time you’ve had Minecraft running.
I don’t remember the program but there is a script you can download that calculates it for you
i easily have somewhere between 5000 hours, and 10000 hours in minecraft to this day.
What an incredible game.
in terms of play time, i have a server that i have a little over a month of playtime on. I have several launcher instances with well over 500 hours of playtime, and i’ve been playing semi regularly since i’ve originally owned the game. So safe to say, damn good investment.
Bitcoin basically any year prior to now. You probably think it’s a scam or not useful or whatever, but it’s had a continuous average trend of growth for 15 years no matter how you measure it (market cap, number of nodes, transaction volume, etc). So apparently a lot of other people including large investment banks disagree. If you thought it would disappear next year because it’s a bubble, you’ve been wrong 15 years in a row and it’s maybe worth reconsidering. Bitcoin’s market cap places it in the top 25 countries by GDP, higher than Sweden! If you’re curious about pros/cons/FAQ and myth-busting around it check out http://bitcoin.rocks
Pretty much everything negative you’ve heard about it is wrong, terribly un-nuanced to point of being wrong, or about something that isn’t bitcoin. Scam cryptos rugging people? Not Bitcoin. Stupid monkey JPEGs selling for a million dollars? Not Bitcoin. FTX/exchange collapses? Not Bitcoin. Slow transactions and high fees? Not Bitcoin (thanks to Bitcoin lightning), transactions confirm in under a second for pennies in fees. Anybody can print Bitcoin? Nope, the supply is capped at 21 million coins. People with the most coins control the network? Nope, amount of coins is totally unrelated to network consensus and rules. Boiling the oceans? It moves trillions of dollars in value every year using < 1% of energy, mostly from renewables (as they are cheapest) and helps even out demand curves/incentivizes provisioning renewable electricity. Makes electricity cost more? Nope, it makes electricity cost less because miners only buy the cheapest electricity possible (off-peak hours) so they don’t compete with regular users. That means you aren’t paying for “un-used supply/capacity” with your bill because your grid always has a buyer for any surplus electricity generated.
Rei tent I got for 50$ at their parking lot sale. I’ve used it 4 or 5 times a year for 7 or 8 years now and still in great shape.
I got a kite from REI’s returns sale. The people before me didn’t like the color. I have enjoyed that kite for almost 20 years.
I’m still loving my iPod Classic. I got it a little Bluetooth dongle so I can listen via my hearing aids. I find iTunes beyond irritating though and am always looking for an alternative for adding music.
Back in the day, I installed Rockbox on mine. completely eliminated the need for additional management software, just drag&drop my music via a file explorer.
Ooo I haven’t thought of Rockbox in a long while!
I still have my SanDisk mp3 player for audiobooks. It feels more straightforward to use for that purpose and the battery lasts for like 3 days of listening and is lighter than my phone.
Oh man… I didn’t even think of flashing the old iPods I have. But now… I might seriously fix the one that I prepped for a SSD.
My nintendo DS lite. Played countless hours in it and it‘s still very good. Battery life is also still a couple of hours which is very impressive considering it‘s 15 years old.
My dslite sat untouched in a drawer for at least 4 years, booted straight up without me even having to charge it when I pulled it out. Amazing little device
