What's the best face-punchable purchase you've ever made?

[MandyT]

I think it would be fun to learn about what luxury purchases others have made that they have found to be really, really worth the expense! I will go first. :)

1) I absolutely adore our Roborock robotic vacuum/mopper, bought on sale for $550. I really do enjoy cleaning, and spend an awful lot of time on it, but I find the floors difficult to keep up with. We have three cats and a small dog, plus a teenager and his friends here a lot. (and dark flooring that shows a lot of dirt)

I set up the vacuum to run on the first floor every night at midnight, and once a week it does a mop cycle. I also carry it to the second floor as needed for a vacuum and mop cycle. I make my own mopping solution… Happy to share the recipe if anyone wants it.

I'm super picky when it comes to cleanliness, and have been very, very happy with this purchase. Every morning I wake up to beautifully clean floors. Of course they get junky during the day, but if it gets that bad I can run the vacuum in whichever room needs it. The Roborock very efficiently maps out your house so you can send it anywhere quickly.

2) I have an $800 Chilipad. This is a pad you install over your mattress, beneath the bottom sheet. There is a machine next to the bed that can pump hot or cold water through tiny tubes in the pad to heat or chill the bed. I run VERY hot, even before the hot flashes kicked in--in the winter I sleep with the window open and a fan on--and this finally helped me get some decent sleep. As a bonus, I don't run the air conditioning as much in the summer. The pad covers only half the bed, so it doesn't bother DH.

How about you? Do you have any purchases that others might consider face punchable but I have been totally worth it for you?

[eyesonthehorizon]

The big one: I have way, way more house than I need, in terms of both raw square footage & purchase price (I dove in just before the peak of the market.) My justification was it had the location I wanted near many friends, groceries, parks, & our library. I run it so efficiently it's on par with a small apartment for energy usage, & efficiency will only increase as we continue to insulate & improve it (a slow-going DIY, in part due to my stubborn case of OMY syndrome.) Despite near-catastrophic idiocy on the financial front, I don't think I'll regret this one, I hope.

I maintain a car "in case" even though I no longer commute. I will almost surely regret keeping it so long when I do sell it. I'm counting this as a purchase because at present it could sell for a 40% premium on what I paid for it.

I bought a Vita-Mix blender, terror of the MMM boards (I use it all the time & never regretted it for a second. I grew up with the standard Oster type & the smoothness I can get matters a lot to me.)

I think we should rejoice in mocking ourselves when it's expensive, but also give regard to things that are so normative & small-scale as to not seem mock-worthy, just to exercise critical thinking.

E.g. I have paid for far too much double-walled insulated glassware & too many insulated steel mugs. The whole collection cost me under $200. They're wonderfully useful & beautiful as well, which is my consumerist weakness: something which accomplishes both practical & aesthetic elegance distracts my critical brain with shininess & causes me to fork out cash all glassy-eyed. I like the way they look lined up in the cabinet, full on the table, the way it shows off the color of my tea or wine or my perfect homemade cappuccino! But this is definitely facepunchable. I never get them all dirty at the same time, even when I slack off on washing up all week; I could have gotten by with half as many, or fewer.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

We bought a house in the bay area, and opted for an even pricier neighborhood to bring our commute down to under 10 miles. It was the "cheapest" house in our neighborhood, but regardless, beyond face punch worthy. To truly cap off the punches, it's paid off.

[Dicey]

We bought a house in the bay area, and opted for an even pricier neighborhood to bring our commute down to under 10 miles. It was the "cheapest" house in our neighborhood, but regardless, beyond face punch worthy. To truly cap off the punches, it's paid off.

Heh, this was us, ten years ago, except DH could walk to work, which was rare indeed in the Bay Area.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

@Dicey - I can bike to work on a trail, with about 1  mile of city driving first. I got out of the habit during COVID, but it's a really great location. Which means, of course, all of the $$$$.

[MandyT]

Oh man, I was thinking of small things (like @eyesonthehorizon 's Vitamix)! We did recently pay off our mortgage after a windfall. And we knew it was face-punchable but we didn't care.

When we went out on our own in our early 20's, we got into about $3k of debt. I wasn't able to find a job right away, and we endured those calls from creditors that bordered on harassment. Today $3k sounds like nothing, but back then, for us, it was huge. We went through Consumer Credit Counselors and paid it back over three years. Ever since then I have hated debt, and when we need to incur it (for example, for a medical expense) we always try to pay it off as quickly as we could.

Not only did we pay off our mortgage early...I also pay off 0% loans ASAP, for example for medical or orthodontic payment plans. Again, I know it's stupid and I don't care.

Today we are DEBT FREE. No mortgage, no car loans, not even a medical payment plan. The feeling we get from this is priceless! We are free.

[Dicey]

@Dicey - I can bike to work on a trail, with about 1  mile of city driving first. I got out of the habit during COVID, but it's a really great location. Which means, of course, all of the $$$$.

Sweet!

[BeanCounter]

New kitchen and first floor remodel when there wasn’t anything broken in the house. It was just dark, outdated and full of wall to wall carpet. It was horrendously expensive but my white cabinets and hardwood floors make me happy literally every day.

[MandyT]

New kitchen and first floor remodel when there wasn’t anything broken in the house. It was just dark, outdated and full of wall to wall carpet. It was horrendously expensive but my white cabinets and hardwood floors make me happy literally every day.

I'm with you! I find the look/feel of my home to be very important. Decorating, refinishing, etc. are hobbies for me. Can't wait to post about my DIY bathroom redo (which saved me like $3-4k over hiring someone, getting new tile & vanity, etc.)...waiting for the floor to sure enough to put the toilet back in. :)

[Sandi_k]

We bought a house in the bay area, and opted for an even pricier neighborhood to bring our commute down to under 10 miles. It was the "cheapest" house in our neighborhood, but regardless, beyond face punch worthy. To truly cap off the punches, it's paid off.

Oh, 12 years ago we bought a house adjacent to the "Bay Area". It increased my one way commute from 9 miles, to 54 miles. It was 30% more expensive than our Bay Area starter home - but it's our WOW home.

To be really face-punch-worthy, the old house (in Oakland) is now worth $1M more than we sold it for, in the throes of the foreclosure crisis.

On the other hand, we would never have been able to leverage up in real estate if we *hadn't* sold - and bought! - in the throes of the foreclosure crisis, because the new house has appreciated $700k from its purchase price.

With Covid, I have control over when and how often I actually do drive in to the workplace. Usually 2x per week, instead of the old 5x per week, pre-Covid.

No regrets. At all.

[ixtap]

I live on a boat and DH is currently designing a custom boat that will probably cost about 1/3 of our nest egg.

If that isn't enough for you, we also own a Dyson boat and car vacuum. Amazing little thing and helps us keep everything so much cleaner than before, both daily and during projects.

[Laura33]

Well, clearly it is my StupidCar. 

But the one that is immediately in mind, because it is ongoing, is my house.  It is 3500', on over 3/4 acre, with 4 Br/3Ba on the second floor and three "extra" rooms on the 3rd floor that you could count as bedrooms if you really wanted -- with one kid in college and another leaving in 1.5 years.  We are now rebuilding after a fire and have received $1.2M in insurance to rebuild, for a house that cost us half as much.  The smart financial move would have been to take the money, sell the house as-is for whatever land value exists, use maybe half the total proceeds or less to buy a smaller and cheaper place, and pocket the rest.* 

Instead, we're going to use probably every penny rebuilding.  Because I love my neighborhood, where I have a 16-minute commute and my husband's is even shorter, where we can walk to whatever we need, where DH has his woodshop, and where we're near an airport for our future retirement travels.  Because we're totally spoiled, and we know ourselves well enough to recognize that if we'd bought another place nearby, we'd have spent close to the same amount remodeling it to be the way we liked.  Because I couldn't stand the idea of selling an 1885 house as a teardown.  And because, dammit, I love my house.

On the one hand, it kills me to watch so. much. money disappearing into the void.  On the other hand, I have gotten ok with it by telling myself that I worked and saved for 30 years specifically to put myself in a situation where I did not have to choose the financially optimal route if I had an important reason not to. 

And at least the house will finally have some functional insulation (full foam ftw!). 


*Yeah, if we didn't rebuild, insurance could demand about half of the money back, but apparently they never do.

[MandyT]

@Laura33 , if I had an 1885 house I wouldn't want to ditch it either! Talk about face-punchable...we have a very small chance of buying back our old 1900 house in New England and using it as a rental (it's a hot rental market there)—and then maybe retiring there in the future. However, we'd have to take out a mortgage on it unless we wanted to shell out like 1/4 - 1/3 of our nest egg, and it's not a great time for rental mortgages I think...

[dandarc]

Probably the Leaf - facepunchable because of how it came to be more than in isolation as a car purchase. We had cut back to 1 car for our 18 months when we lived in California 2018-2019, and that worked extremely well there - was able to find an apartment close enough for me to walk and fill in with Lyft very conveniently the few times each month where a 2nd car would have definitely made sense. But upon our planned return to Tallahassee Florida, we found almost immediately that the routine wasn't as conducive to a single car - this falls squarely on me as my wife at the time clearly needed a convenient form of transportation whereas with me working remotely, I could have figured out a way to be happier working at home, and while Tallahassee as a whole isn't very walkable, we're in a relatively convenient location - within about 1 mile of our house have lots of various businesses that meet a lot things I leave the house to do.

So the mustachian thing to do was "toughen up / take some time to figure out workable schedule" or at most "buy a scooter or eBike" which both cost a lot less and solve 95%+ of what the Leaf does within our lifestyle, and yet I spent $6,000 on the car + $1200 to transport it + $800 to put a circuit for charging on the house + taxes and registration and insurance. And that was the best deal I could find on a Leaf by several thousand dollars at the time even with having it delivered. So face-punch worthy decision.

But wow do I love that car - still giggle some times just driving it around 3 years later, and I enjoy finding ways to charge it for free, or seeing how far I can extend the range (with the chargers in Crawfordville, we can get to our closest beaches and back without worrying too much about range - those aren't free but basically same cost per kwh as charging at our house). Probably the first car I've ever owned that was more than just a convenient way to get from A to B.

[jeromedawg]

I think it would be fun to learn about what luxury purchases others have made that they have found to be really, really worth the expense! I will go first. :)

1) I absolutely adore our Roborock robotic vacuum/mopper, bought on sale for $550. I really do enjoy cleaning, and spend an awful lot of time on it, but I find the floors difficult to keep up with. We have three cats and a small dog, plus a teenager and his friends here a lot. (and dark flooring that shows a lot of dirt)

I set up the vacuum to run on the first floor every night at midnight, and once a week it does a mop cycle. I also carry it to the second floor as needed for a vacuum and mop cycle. I make my own mopping solution… Happy to share the recipe if anyone wants it.

I'm super picky when it comes to cleanliness, and have been very, very happy with this purchase. Every morning I wake up to beautifully clean floors. Of course they get junky during the day, but if it gets that bad I can run the vacuum in whichever room needs it. The Roborock very efficiently maps out your house so you can send it anywhere quickly.

2) I have an $800 Chilipad. This is a pad you install over your mattress, beneath the bottom sheet. There is a machine next to the bed that can pump hot or cold water through tiny tubes in the pad to heat or chill the bed. I run VERY hot, even before the hot flashes kicked in--in the winter I sleep with the window open and a fan on--and this finally helped me get some decent sleep. As a bonus, I don't run the air conditioning as much in the summer. The pad covers only half the bed, so it doesn't bother DH.

How about you? Do you have any purchases that others might consider face punchable but I have been totally worth it for you?

I bought the S7 for us and for my in-laws during a pre-Black Friday sale - $312 each refurbished though. I found it difficult to figure out how to use and the initial mapping is irritating. Other than that, I think it's great and has really good potential to help keep crumbs off the floor especially with small kids. The mopping feature is eh... I guess with most mopping robots though you're going to be expected to do some level of 'interventional maintenance' whether it's pre-wetting pads, rinsing them after, refilling the tanks, etc. Of course, the S7s that have those docks seems interesting but they are 2-3 times the cost of the regular one *on sale*
My in-laws haven't figured out how to make theirs useful. They are technically challenged so we will likely just need to setup a cleaning schedule for this thing to run. That is, if my partially blind MIL doesn't trip over it and injure herself while it's cleaning... this nearly happened a couple nights into it while I was trying to map the thing at their new place. I'm not sure how much I can seriously expect them to do the maintenance and prep of the mopping pads - they keep whining about how they want a good mopping robot. I don't know if there's a mopping robot that exists that's fully hands-off and that will be much easier to use than this. 

Outside of that, I bought a Kamado Joe Classic on sale (got it down to around $325-350ish after tax and cashback IIRC).  The brisket I made was amazing though, so it was worth it...LOL

There are plenty of other face-punchable purchases I'm sure I've made but if I started listing everything, it would get way too long. Hahahaha

[joemandadman189]

i have several but wont mention them here as i dont want to be kicked off the forum, tar and feather style

[MrGreen]

I could be a candidate for the Face Punch Hall of Fame. In college I bought a 1978 Camaro because I thought it was cool as shit. Right after college I wrecked my daily driver which was a Hyundai Tiburon. I loved that car but bought a Honda Civic to replace it. About six montns later a new model year of the Tiburon came out with this awesome orange color. I was making really good money and I felt like I had the car payment to spare. So I bought the Tiburon too. My wife and I lived in a townhouse with no garage and I owned a '78 Camaro, a Civic, and a Tiburon, with car payments on both the Civic and Tiburon. My wife had her own car. Oh the idiocy of being 22!

[MandyT]

@jeromedawg Oh man, I love my Roborock!I would have liked to get the one with the self-cleaning dock, but yes, that's way too expensive.

I set it to start running after everyone is in bed, so we don't risk tripping over it. I run it upstairs when no one else is around.

I kind of enjoy making the mopping solution, and I dampen the mop-head the evening I plan to run a mop cycle (which I set manually, because otherwise I'd forget to do that stuff and it would run without any solution).

I agree about the mopping feature...but as picky as I am about cleanliness, and as much as I otherwise enjoy cleaning, mopping is the one area where I fall short. We have a large house and I hate mopping. Actually, I hate setting up for mopping with the bucket and so on...the mopping itself isn't so bad. Anyway, an "eh" mopping once a week is better than a great mopping...never. :D

[curious_george]

1. Blendtec blender.

I make smoothies daily from frozen fruit.

First I was given a blender, it burned up.

Then, I bought a blender at a thrift store...it died.

Then I bought a brand new blender from wal-mart. It quit working.

Then I bought a ninja blender from sams club. The motor died.

Then I bought the most expensive Ninja blender from sams club. The motor died. I took it apart and found that they used plastic gears internally for the motor output which were stripped of their teeth. Son of a b&$#!

Then I bought a blendtec blender which has been running great for years.

Even my spendy pants co workers were making fun of me for spending more money on a blender than what I spent on my T.V.

2. Purple Mattress. $1,000 dollars - I bought this when the mattress first came out and it was worth more than my car.

I can at least say this is a great mattress that has held up absurdly well so far. It still feels exactly like new.

[YK-Phil]

I probably spent over $30K on maintenance over the past seven years to keep my 1995 Mitsubishi Delica van on the road: one engine rebuild, one engine swap, one transmission swap, and a few "small" repairs here and there (I don't tally anything under $1K). I should have walked away when I first made eye contact and I face punch myself every single day since we met. But to her defense, she is beautiful even in her current beat-up condition and she took us on the most memorable road trips throughout the Americas.

[JAYSLOL]

Well, I don’t budget, and I definitely tend to buy a lot of things I don’t need, but I have a few basic guidelines that keep me sort-of in check.  I only buy something if it’s a deal, and not like “20% off at the mall” deal, I mean it really has to be a bargain so much so that whatever it is I could immediately or sometime down the line resell whatever it is for at least what I paid for it.  It has has to have some kind of real use, not decorative crap or luxury that doesn’t provide any utility or value, so a lot of items that people are posting like quality blenders etc absolutely fall into that category that I think are okay to splurge on.  Lastly, obviously I have to have the cash for it AFTER I’ve already hit my aggressive savings goals. 

My most anti-mustachian purchase for sure was an AWD SUV, but I bought it used (a 2006, bought in 2013), and it was an excellent deal, and it’s a mid-size import not a giant American monstrosity, and I live in semi-rural Canada and use it year round, and it gets used hard to haul stuff and do work, plus I maintain it myself and have saved a crazy amount of money by doing all repairs and maintenance. 

Probably the next dumbest was a boat, but like the car, I got a great deal on it used, is a very reasonable 14’ aluminum with a small motor, and I pretty much only now use an electric outboard with it, and after owning it for 15 years I could still probably resell it for 50% more than I paid for it, and have spent very little on it over the years ($25 a year for trailer insurance, a bit of fuel when I use the gas outboard, and the odd can of spray paint to touch up the paint on it, and one new set of tires for the trailer a few years ago.)

[MandyT]

A very attractive, very fast, very expensive Italian. He was too fast and too sexy for the mean streets of LA so I got rid of him...eventually. His name was Ducati. I miss him sometimes ;-).

🤣

[couponvan]

My second dishwasher and 60' refrigerator/freezer combo. The oversized appliances have brought me immense joy. Especially during COVID when everyone was eating at home.  It cost less than the cabinets would have installed, but it's still in a massive face-punch kitchen.

[AMandM]

Up until now I have resisted the urge to buy a robotic vacuum, but this thread is making me weaken.

[MandyT]

Up until now I have resisted the urge to buy a robotic vacuum, but this thread is making me weaken.

@AMandM DO IT DO IT DO IT. I would get one for the upstairs as well, but I feel like a total spendthrift. It's so nice, especially with pets and a kid, to wake up every morning to clean floors.

[Metalcat]

Up until now I have resisted the urge to buy a robotic vacuum, but this thread is making me weaken.

Well, the cheap robot vacuums that you can get on sale for around $200 work extremely well. Mine is an iLife, and we use it almost daily because of my dust allergy. We've had it for at least 5 years now, and it's still going strong.

A robot vacuum doesn't have to be a ridiculous purchase, especially if you have allergies. Just don't get sucked into spending a fortune for totally unnecessary features that don't make it several times better than a basic, cheap model.

[MandyT]

@Malcat , does yours mop as well? If so, next time I'll look at that one.

[Metalcat]

@Malcat , does yours mop as well? If so, next time I'll look at that one.

Technically it does. I've never used it though because it just dribbles water on the floor and runs a microfiber pad over it. It takes me very little time to spray mop my floor instead.

[Loretta]

I think it would be fun to learn about what luxury purchases others have made that they have found to be really, really worth the expense! I will go first. :)

1) I absolutely adore our Roborock robotic vacuum/mopper, bought on sale for $550. I really do enjoy cleaning, and spend an awful lot of time on it, but I find the floors difficult to keep up with. We have three cats and a small dog, plus a teenager and his friends here a lot. (and dark flooring that shows a lot of dirt)

I set up the vacuum to run on the first floor every night at midnight, and once a week it does a mop cycle. I also carry it to the second floor as needed for a vacuum and mop cycle. I make my own mopping solution… Happy to share the recipe if anyone wants it.

How about you? Do you have any purchases that others might consider face punchable but I have been totally worth it for you?

I have drunk up all the Koolaid for my Tesla.  Driving it makes me happy in ways I didn’t even know were possible.  Seat warmer, good acoustics, remote starting and defrosting, a panoramic sunroof, comfortable seating for all the adults I need to haul around.  And it’s electric. 

[Metalcat]

I posted this already in the other similar thread, but I would have to say our single biggest luxury, which eclipses everything else is having a second home, which is actually bigger and substantially nicer than our primary residence.

[Gone Fishing]

More dumb than a huge luxury, but we bought a new dishwasher once to replace the broken one.  Hooked up the new one and it didn’t work either.  A light bulb should have come on at this point (see what I did there?), but it didn’t, and by the time it did, the old dishwasher had left the premises. I figured the wiring must have been damaged somewhere, so I wired a cord with a plug and plugged it into an outlet.  About a year later, I moved a house plant on the counter and discovered a switch behind it!

[poetdereves]

I can think of two off the top of my head.

First, my house. It is big and pretty and we spend a lot of time here, but it is also a fraction of what we were approved for and less than 10% of our annual spending.

Second, my mountain bike. At this point, with everything on it, it is worth more than the car it is usually mounted on on the way to the trails, but it gets used multiple times a week, keeps me healthy, helps me get my kid outside a lot, and I spend the time on the trails with close friends every time. 100% worth it to me.

[bacchi]

1) Like Laura33, I also have an expensive sports cars. It's hella sexy.

It's now almost old enough to vote, though, and replacement parts cost a lot. Plus, we can get by on one car so I really should sell it at this point.

2) A new laptop. I don't really need a laptop -- I can use SO's laptop for things I can't do on my phone.

[halfling]

Probably paint for our apartment. I will have to paint it back before we move out but I was tired of waiting to customize our space just because we don't own!

[jeromedawg]

@jeromedawg Oh man, I love my Roborock!I would have liked to get the one with the self-cleaning dock, but yes, that's way too expensive.

I set it to start running after everyone is in bed, so we don't risk tripping over it. I run it upstairs when no one else is around.

I kind of enjoy making the mopping solution, and I dampen the mop-head the evening I plan to run a mop cycle (which I set manually, because otherwise I'd forget to do that stuff and it would run without any solution).

I agree about the mopping feature...but as picky as I am about cleanliness, and as much as I otherwise enjoy cleaning, mopping is the one area where I fall short. We have a large house and I hate mopping. Actually, I hate setting up for mopping with the bucket and so on...the mopping itself isn't so bad. Anyway, an "eh" mopping once a week is better than a great mopping...never. :D

The thing I don't like about the Roborock is the sensitivity with it when it comes to floor rugs/runners or 'foreign' objects on the floor (one good example is slippers) . There have been times where it has eaten slippers/socks that were left and gets jammed. Or it'll trip up part of a rug, get it bunched up, then get itself jammed. I wish the sensors on it were a bit smarter in that regard. On the flip side, I suppose this is good in the sense that it encourages you to pick up and declutter your floors before engaging it in a cleaning (or at least a full cleaning). Our house is cluttered (especially with two young ones who like to leave random crap around) so it hasn't worked too well for us. But if you're super minimalist and can keep the floors clear, this is good.

I still haven't committed to a full mop cycle yet - only in the kitchen and part of the dining room so far but I'll get there one day lol.

[MandyT]

Yeah, my husband goes to bed late so he does a quick tour of the downstairs and picks up anything the vacuum could get caught up on. So far so good, except…

The very first time I ran it, I noticed that our dog had pooped on the wood floor. The vacuum was making a beeline for it almost like it could sense a poop was there and was on a mission to run it over. I raced over, but it was too late. (Would have made a good slo-mo scene: "NNNNOOOOOoooo oo o!") Thank goodness our dog is a Chihuahua so at least it wasn't that much poop, but I can think of a lot of things I would rather do than take apart a poop-filled robot vacuum and bleach every part.

[MacGyverIt]

I think it would be fun to learn about what luxury purchases others have made that they have found to be really, really worth the expense! I will go first. :)

1) I absolutely adore our Roborock robotic vacuum/mopper, bought on sale for $550...

2) I have an $800 Chilipad....

How about you? Do you have any purchases that others might consider face punchable but I have been totally worth it for you?

Same same.
We bought a refurbished robovac since we have two dogs with fur (fur sheds vs hair less so), well worth it. Refurbished for such items is the way to go!

We broke down and bought a Chilipad after DW was suffering from menopause-related heat misery.  A monthly bonus that covered the cost. We both have MUCH better sleep as a result, so it was worth every penny. We live in a hot and humid area so opening the windows only works for about a week out of the year, so cooling our sleep and getting a full rest has paid off in our overall productivity and quality of life. 

[VanillaGorilla]

I bought my wife an engagement ring that cost nearly a month of pay. It's custom made with an unusual gem and overall is nothing like anything out there. I was reasonably FI at that point and still saved 60% of my income that year.

It's very specific to her, very unique; she loves it. It means a lot to us both. 5/5 would buy again.

[MandyT]

We broke down and bought a Chilipad after DW was suffering from menopause-related heat misery.  A monthly bonus that covered the cost. We both have MUCH better sleep as a result, so it was worth every penny. We live in a hot and humid area so opening the windows only works for about a week out of the year, so cooling our sleep and getting a full rest has paid off in our overall productivity and quality of life.

@MacGyverIt Yes! I was a hot sleeper all my life, and now I feel like I'm roasting from the inside. The Chilipad has been so great. DH gets cold easily so I bought a twin-sized pad that covers just one half of the bed. The bad news is that it's been intermittently making a loud noise, which I have to figure out how to fix.

@vanilla_Gorilla That is so sweet! I've been mulling over the idea of having my promise, engagement, and wedding rings—the latter two of which are antique family jewelry—melted into one new design. Some of the diamonds have fallen out of the settings and gotten lost, so I don't even wear them...and I'm not much of a jewelry person, so combining three rings into one would be a perfect purchase for me!

[simonsez]

Waterproof (also floats) bluetooth speaker with decent sound and reasonably long-lasting battery capability.  I wanted something that could hold its own sonically while also be extremely portable/not-bulky (and I preferred the model to NOT have smart/voice-assistant technology).  I can palm it in one hand and have a beverage in the other hand and walk out to the back patio for some vitamin D.  A full charge lasts around 20 hours at medium/high volume which is perfect for a camping weekend or float trip where we wouldn't have outlets.

I have the JBL Xtreme 2 (and prefer it over the JBL Xtreme 3).  I think it was $250 or so several years ago although the price did fluctuate quite a bit (I think it's cheaper now).

This thing has been everywhere and is a champ.  Great sound that can function as great background or if you need to pump some tunes, the mids and bass hold their own.

My household listened to 70,000 minutes of music apparently on Spotify in 2022 (or the first 10 months of 2022, however they calculate it for those year-end recap thingys) and the vast majority of those minutes were made better on the speaker no matter if that was on the beach, at the lake, at the pool, tailgating, on the sun porch, the patio, or inside.

I think the price could've been double and I'd still be thrilled with the value gleaned thus far.

[GuitarStv]

I paid a UPS brokerage fee one time because I was too lazy to drive down to the Canada Border Services office.

For Americans, you might not be aware of UPS brokerage fees . . . UPS (and FedEx as well as DHL) charges you a fee for performing the action of bringing you a parcel from another country.  You still have to pay taxes and duties above and beyond this fee.  If what you ordered wasn't too expensive then they will charge you only about 30$, but they also charge 6$ to collect this fee at the door.  If your purchase was expensive, the fee can blow up to about 500$.  All these fees are also taxed.

You aren't legally required to pay this fee.  If you don't want to, you have to refuse delivery from UPS, then contact the UPS head office and get import shipping documentation (usually this is a big hassle and involves multiple emails/phone calls).  Then you just drive to the nearest Canada Border Services office (for me, this is about an hour drive each way), stand in line and hope that it's not too busy, then pay whatever taxes/duties are due on your parcel, then get Canada Border Services to stamp your papers, then take a picture of the papers and email them to UPS.  Then UPS will give you your package.

If you ship via regular mail (British Post, USPS) then of course none of this happens.  There's no real need for the fees, several years ago the Canadian government streamlined this procedure for all couriers . . . so it takes them less than a second to do customs clearance.  But it's a PITA to fight, so the couriers depend on people giving up to make some extra dollars.

[Finances_With_Purpose]

Waterproof (also floats) bluetooth speaker with decent sound and reasonably long-lasting battery capability.  I wanted something that could hold its own sonically while also be extremely portable/not-bulky (and I preferred the model to NOT have smart/voice-assistant technology).  I can palm it in one hand and have a beverage in the other hand and walk out to the back patio for some vitamin D.  A full charge lasts around 20 hours at medium/high volume which is perfect for a camping weekend or float trip where we wouldn't have outlets.

I have the JBL Xtreme 2 (and prefer it over the JBL Xtreme 3).  I think it was $250 or so several years ago although the price did fluctuate quite a bit (I think it's cheaper now).

This thing has been everywhere and is a champ.  Great sound that can function as great background or if you need to pump some tunes, the mids and bass hold their own.

My household listened to 70,000 minutes of music apparently on Spotify in 2022 (or the first 10 months of 2022, however they calculate it for those year-end recap thingys) and the vast majority of those minutes were made better on the speaker no matter if that was on the beach, at the lake, at the pool, tailgating, on the sun porch, the patio, or inside.

I think the price could've been double and I'd still be thrilled with the value gleaned thus far.

It sounds like you're getting a ton of value out of it, so I can't think of it as very face-punchable.  It's not bad to enjoy a few things that bring tremendous value. 

I'm sitting here listening to a 1958 Van Cliburn performance of Rahcmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 on vinyl, which they haven't produced since who knows when and which probably costs a few bucks to acquire (it was a gift), but it's definitely worth the extra few bucks to me.  It's all about valuing things properly.  Be frugal in all the places you don't care as much about so that you can spend a little more where you do (RE, and maybe a few things that bring joy along the way).