Asklemmy

House insulation.

I live in Australia where the minimum insulation required by law is a long way below inadequate, and many cheap contractors go below the minimum because it's so hard to prosecute them.

I already had solar and a house battery, so the next obvious step was replacing the insulation. With my already very low electricity bills I cant say that it literally paid for itself (although it would have without the solar and battery), but it has made the house so much more comfortable. On some summer days, the AC would be using 7kW and barely keeping the inside temperature down to 30°C/85°F. Now it uses 3-5kW and the whole house stays comfortable.

Also, finding and patching the massive gaps from the previous "landlord special" house extension made a huge difference to the temperature of that room, and explained how lizards had managed to get inside.

Ditched gaming chairs, got an ergonomic office chair with several adjustment points.

It's mesh seat and back, so its breathable in summer, gentle and supportive. I sit upright with no back pain. I lock it in place upright if I'm not using the armrests (eg: controller). Comfortable enough you quickly forget its even there, which is what you actually want in your practical furniture.

Every 'gaming' chair I've used cost almost as much, was a sticky pleather mess that flaked within months, pneumatics shot within a year, weird 'racecar' leaning back, fucked up my neck. But hey, at least it was in garish pointless colours? (Also, fuck those chairs that have the little 'edges', are they supposed to cup me in my seat Luke a cot? Because they get in the way).

I will never game in a gaming chair again. Quality ergonomic office chairs are DESIGNED for sitting in for hours at a time, and it shows. I've converted several others now.

Setting up a fully automated system to download, track and organise Linux distributions onto a NAS under the stairs. I used to subscribe to a bunch of services that would provide access to all sorts of Linux distributions for a flat monthly fee, but I realised that I often was only really interested in one or two specific Linux distribution so I really didn’t need to pay for these services.

Now I just download the Linux distributions that I actually want to install. It also prevents my kids from endlessly installing different Linux distributions. Not really a productive use of time.

My motorcycle has paid for itself many times over in terms of the enjoyment I get out of riding it. It's something I can recommend to anyone, and lets you see the world in a way most people never will.

• Epson Ecotank Printer

Has ink tanks so money isn't wasted on cartridges and the printer is actually initially expensive unlike those printers that make money back on ink catriges

• Hammer Drill with the proper bits

Makes it easier to mount shit to bricks, goes in brick like butter if you're using the right drill and bits

I recomend Ryobi Hammer Drill & Bits

• Air Fryer

I've stopped using my oven and only use it rarely for things that I don't want blown apart thst I can weigh down with a fork or spoon like Pizza for example

• Refillable Japanese brand pens and mechanical pencil

I recently got these to aid in Japanese study and refillable pens are more economical in the long run

And Japanese brands go hard on the quality of stationary and I got introduced into the cult of stationary obsession with this

I'll edit my comment if I can think of anything else

Put 11.6 KW of solar on the roof. I'll hit break even next year. Should have 15-20 years left of use.

A book. Teach yourself Perl in 30 days. (Edit - may have been 21 days)

I bought it around 25-30 years ago. I have dyslexia and autism and have had problems learning from books in the past, but something about the way that was written just clicked for me.

It allowed me to write some pretty cool software, including a huge system that ran a large animal charity for a very long time, tons of automation software and scripts, and several full webuis. Indirectly it led me to a new career where I write perl every day.

(I can write in many other languages now, but that was the keystone of everything for me)

50ft electric plumbing snake. Cost $60 and saved me $200+ bill first time I used it. I've used it for friends and family as well, making its value well over 10x in savings, not just my own.

I guess my bike? Have saved loads of money on bus tickets and it's much more reliable too.

Sewing machine pays for itself quite quickly as paying a tailor to repair your clothes is like 1/3 the cost of a brand new sewing machine, so just repair like 3 items of clothing to get your money back.

A local NAS for storing all my files, especially if you consider all the value I deprived from Google and Microsoft by not engaging with their cloud bullshit. Even if you don't, I paid like $500 CAD one single time for a 16 TB server hard drive and $300 for a consumer hard drive I'm using as an offline emergency backup. Meanwhile just 2 TB of Google Drive costs $139.99 CAD per year. I wasn't able to find pricing for 16 TB but assuming it scales linearly (like if I had 8 2TB accounts since Google seemingly doesn't offer any higher capacity for individuals), that would be $1,119.92 per year. Even factoring in the hard drive enclosure and the server itself, they've paid for themselves in literally half a year. That's saying nothing of the kind of internet connection I would need to match the read speed of a mechanical hard drive on the local network. I could literally upgrade my entire house to 10 gigabit with the money I saved.

I got a hot air rework station with a soldering iron many years ago.

The things I've repaired with it are so numerous, I cannot even recount them all, but here are a few:

• an assortment of gaming controllers
• a ghetto blaster from the 1970's
• a few gaming consoles (Xbox 360, PS3 "Fat Lady")
• retro technology (at least two 3Dfx Voodoo's and a rare Abit motherboard)
• a full-metal eBook Reader (Sony PRS-505) that will probably survive an atomic fallout
• a Panasonic broadcasting camera from the 1990's (because it looked cool and I wanted it to work)
• a few LCD monitors

Even though some of that work was just replacing old capacitors, I have saved so much money by buying "broken" stuff and fixing it up. No regrets. Over the years, I paired the station with a hotplate and a solder sucker and now I could probably open up an electronics repair shop. But I mostly do these repairs for fun. Fixing things calms my mind and soothes my soul.

A bicycle. No gas to pay, no parking fees, no insurance, and I can do most of the maintenance.

Camping hammock, it's what I sleep in most nights. My body complains when I have to use a mattress

My solar panels have. Literally.

I have a kegerator that isn’t seeing much use as I don’t really get full kegs of beer anymore these days. We were buying cans of seltzer by the case and I figured I could just make my own. So I got a new 5 gallon keg for around $100 and some connectors and stuff. Got my co2 tank filled. Filled the keg with water and cranked the pressure up. After a day or two I had decently carbonated water. Pour a glass like you would a beer, add a little lemon or lime juice for flavor and boom. Seltzer. Been doing that a few years now. Between the co2 fills and the water from my tap it probably costs me $2-3 per 5 gallon “batch”. Compare that to $10-15 for a case of twenty four 12oz cans.

I'm going to say my $50 charcoal grill. I've had more propane grills fail on me in 5 years, and charcoal grill keeps going. I know its terrible for the environment.

My Casio A 168 - I like watches and typically I would opt for more expensive ones but I still marvel at the amount of watch you get for this kind of money. The design is great, very comfortable to wear, very precise and has a very good battery lifetime and background light.

Someone else already mentioned a safety Razor.

My iron pan - much healthier, more ecological and will last longer than I will ever live.

Obviously my bike. Saved so much money on it. Although I still need to figure out what I should do with my very rusty chain. Should I replace it?

DE-razor I shave with a new blade every second shave and it's still cheaper than any other shaving method that I've tried. On top of that the shaving soap last for ages (literally years) and the shaving experience is fantastic if you get the right razor.

Don't go down the fancy road to start with though. I have some expensive stuff that I don't use and have fallen for a cheap razor from temu and proraso green soap. Also just a nylon brush works fine for me to lathe up the soap

About 3 years I bought a mechanic set of ratchets and wrenches and some other tools for changing my own oil and some other auto repairs. All in I spent about $500. In July, I changed my own brakes and rotors and 2 vehicles I own. On that job alone I saved over $1000 dollars. Not to mention all the times I changed my oil. I also changed my spark plugs on one of my cars and found a gasket leak that I also fixed which was probably another $500.

Best investment of my life.

My tractor has more than paid for itself.

• Smart Lighting - My mum replaced most the lightblub in our house with Philips Hue. Nearly decade on and still using them which as an Autistic, I love that I can tweak the lighting to however I want from an app and compare to regular lightbulbs, it doesn't give me as much sensory nightmare as I find some of the lighting to be really harsh and distracting.
• Noise-cancelling Headphones - Often use it if I'm in sensory overload, walking as I tend to listen to music as well as being on the bus to distract myself which otherwise, I start panicking how full the bus is.
• Desktop DAC & Bookshelf Speakers - Always find changing volume on OS itself to not be perfect as it too low or high for my liking. I can simply tweak the volume knob of my Desktop DAC to get the volume just right. Also great way to listen to music

A lot of my work gear is sort of pricey but it keeps me safe and working. Usually pays itself off within a month or two and will last at least a few years.

• Beefy Laptop
• Rechargeable tools (especially the Impact Driver)
• Local library membership

I bought a big pack of eneloop rechargeable batteries a decade ago and they are just within the last year or so starting to fail.

My Nancy pelosi stock bot has done really well

Hair clipper. Paid for itself in two uses. It's been years.

The modem. At some point ISPs started charging a rental fee for their provided modem. When I noticed it was 12 dollars a month, not sure what it might have gone up to by now. You can buy a decent modem on the lower side of a hundred ish dollars. Pays for itself in the first year.

First thing that comes to m8nd is my Pitbull head shaver. I s(h)aved several hundred euros on simple head shaves, 2 minutes a time.