Ask Lemmy

This is highly individual, and I have some expensive products to add....

A good dedicated camera, since I got my first proper camera back in 2017 (a Lumix GX80) I have taken tens of thousands of photos per year.

Last spring I upgraded to a Lumix S5 with few fantastic lenses and it has been awesome, and with my S5 and 100-400mm sigma lens I have goten plenty of great photos.

To me my cameras are in my top three ever best purchases, all the things I have went snd done because I wanted to take photos have more than paid for the money invested, perhaps not in direct money for me, but in inspiration and enjoyment.

I am planning on getting the Sony A7 IV as a complement to my S5 as the A7 IV has much better and faster autofocus, I love my S5 for it's amazing colors, UI and overall performance, but as I often go planespotting I need better and faster autofocus.

Damn, that was a lot of text about cameras....

Time to talk about cars...

I bought my first car last summer after getting my license back in 2022 and living alone without a car for 8 years.

It is a 2021 SEAT Leon FR PHEV hatchback and being able to get to interesting places out in the country to get cool photos have been fantastic and really improved my mental health.

It was very lightly used, and has enough performance for me without being exsessive.

I mostly drive on battery and charge up once a week, since I live in an aparment complex we only have shared charging infrastructure, but since it is a PHEV I can still go far when I need to without worrying about chargers.

Personal hygiene products.

If you're into miniatures, be it for painting, playing games that use them, or just showing them off, a resin 3D printer. Make Games Workshop and Hasbro pull their hairs out and have fun with a huge amount of stuff you can print!

A nice Elegoo Saturn 2 or Halot Mage printer + 2 liters of resin are enough to print well over 400 miniatures of 28mm-32mm scales. Even if you account the pre and post print work (putting supports, cleaning the print), it quickly becomes cheaper than buying boxes of plastic minis. The learning curve, amount of things to account for before printing and maintenance are all significantly smaller than a filament printer

Laundry machine, whether at home or laundromat. It’s one household chore that almost nobody does manually in the developed world.

Hot water heater. It’s almost dirt cheap to run, but damn if I don’t love me some hot water.

Refrigeration. Shit is so cheap and ubiquitous, but fucking ice and cold beverages, hell yes.

Cannabis. It’s not free but it’s really not expensive. A little goes a long way these days.

Internet maps and GPS. Usually you don’t have your pay for the maps, or GPS, but somebody has to store and update all that information about places you’ve never been. Also phones and data connections aren’t free. Trips used to take a lot more planning, and getting lost. I think a smart phone is worth its cost for mapping alone. And it also calls people too. And plenty of other amazing stuff.

Depends on your hairstyle, but I used to have my hair cut about once a month for $20-25. I bought a set of electric hair clippers for about $30 more than 15 years ago and learned to cut it myself and have saved thousands of dollars. Its a simple men's cut, so it works for me.

An electric razor or a quality safety razor are also possibilities. I used to use the disposable gillette razor cartridges at about $4 per head, which lasted 3-4 weeks (I used them until they hurt to save money). Now I have both a safety razor and an electric razor (I don't need both, the electric was a gift). The safety razor was $45 and and blades are about $0.10. Blades last about a week instead of a month, but it paid for itself in about a year. I experimented with various shaving creams as well, but eventually went back to canned shaving cream because the time spent creating a good lather in alternative forms was annoying and not worth the savings.

The electric razor may or may not pay for itself depending on how much it cost and how often you have to change the head and the cost of cleaning solutions, but I do enjoy having it for a quick shave. It definitely is not as good of a shave though.

Quality cookware.

Dried beans.

CeraVe unscented lotion.

Sunscreen

$100 a month for family membership to yoga studio

My iron skillets, none were over $25. Some are over 25 years old now though.