Expensive guitars. It turns out that my white Les Paul Custom (~$4,000) wasn't really so much of an advance on the Korean-made $350 guitar-store-used-rack find.
Still. I only lost 500 bucks when I sold it. (Where was that 'biggest financial blunders' thread again? ... cough)
Shit. You beat me to it.
I must respectfully disagree...to a point. A Google search yielded this; I suppose it applies to most things:
Did anyone notice that in this graph, as price levels off, quality goes to infinity? That's hilarious, I'm trying to come up with a real world example, but infinite quality is kind of hard to find ;). Now, plotted with the axis reversed, I can see it...
Have to say I disagree with the person talking about an espresso machine here. I have a Gaggia Classic and MDF grinder and have easily made over 3000 lattes with them over the years. Suppose we all get value from different things...
Our espresso machine is a Breville Cafe Roma. Cost 150$ CAD when we bought it 4.5 years ago, and has made 3+ espressos and lattes a day since then. Rough calculation is that the cost of the machine is averaging out to around 3 cents per coffee... Not terrible. And it's going strong, no repairs needed, very little maintenance (the occasional decalcifying with vinegar, that's it. Excellent latte supplier all around.
My parents have a coffee maker that they paid about 2800$ for (one of those schmancy ones where you pour in milk and beans and a latte pops out). They've had it for 2.5 years. It has broken down MINIMUM once a year (expensive repair bills - I recall them mentioning they'd spent a grand on repairs over the time they've had it, and they're frustrated with it) and they actually buy demineralized water to use in it so as to minimize the repairs ($$ water for your $$ coffee maker). They make 3 cups of coffee a day, on average. That's over 1.25$/cup of coffe FOR THE MACHINE, PLUS the expensive water, milk, coffee beans... honestly, at that point, I can see a Starbucks run every morning being comparatively affordable!
And the killer: the coffee my machine makes is BETTER.
In short: I have no regrets about my espresso machine, and would likely replace it with one of the same if it gave out (or a stovetop model. I like those fine too. It's just that my husband melted the last one into the stove by forgetting to put water in it while half-asleep, and we thought a plug-in model would have less risk of setting the house on fire). But never, ever would I buy an uber-schancy all-automated model. They're expensive as hell, make Starbucks look affordable, and produce mediocre coffee. No thanks.
