Things you "bought", which actually paid for themselves

Mary Stetler said:
My potato masher, my non electric coffee maker, tomato seeder, a crock pot, . ( broke the lid but found one at St Vincent de Paul) my canning set up...The list could go on forever. ;)
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Need you to be our "shopper", Mary, sounds like you know how too. That's a great selection, "especially" when they end up a "benefit", to you.
 
Jake Smith said:
Need to get one of the "old farts" cards like you.
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Just a heads up, they aren't $10 anymore. They're $80 now... However, if you or anyone in your friends or family who will be traveling with you that has even a partial mobility disability, the America the Beautiful Access Pass is free which covers all entrances fees for Federal Fee Areas, as well as a 50% discount on campground fees, etc. I've had mine for over 30 years and it saved us a ton of money on entrance fees. It was called a Golden Access Pass when we got them. (C had one too.) There are also free passes for Gold Star Families, Military Personnel and Vets.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
I think most of my husband's tools and my kitchen stuff (utensils and pots/pans) fall into this category. I know I have been using the same cast iron and stainless cookware for at least 30 years and some of it much longer.
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Cast iron pans just keep getting better and better, when you keep them seasoned right. We have about five that been working great for us for about 45 years. All that stuff you're mentioning falls into the category, "Beth".
 
I have a large collection of cast iron, as I used it exclusively when I was single. After marriage, wife found much of it uncomfortably heavy for her, so we bought a lot of stainless steel stuff, much of which has lost handles over the past 50 years. After the kids were gone, I bought her a set of smaller stainless, but we still fall back on the cast iron when everybody comes home. #3 son has asked that I pass all my old cast iron to him when we are ready to get rid of it. Some of cast iron may be older than I am, as I probably picked some up in thrift stores and flea markets in the old days. I also have a treasured Old File knife that I found in a pony barn behind a house I once rented in Illinois. Apparently these were made for professional butchers in the 1950s and are revered by some who know of them. That knife was once promised to son #2 but since he essentially has abandoned our family, the knife will probably also go to son #3 if he wants it. The knives were not made form old files. The steel is much softer than that and holds an edge very well and is easy to sharpen. Much of this stuff cost me nothing, so it really paid for itself over the years.
 
Ken Anderson said:
We used cast iron almost exclusively.
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Don Alaska said:
I have a large collection of cast iron, as I used it exclusively when I was single. After marriage, wife found much of it uncomfortably heavy for her, so we bought a lot of stainless steel stuff, much of which has lost handles over the past 50 years. After the kids were gone, I bought her a set of smaller stainless, but we still fall back on the cast iron when everybody comes home. #3 son has asked that I pass all my old cast iron to him when we are ready to get rid of it. Some of cast iron may be older than I am, as I probably picked some up in thrift stores and flea markets in the old days. I also have a treasured Old File knife that I found in a pony barn behind a house I once rented in Illinois. Apparently these were made for professional butchers in the 1950s and are revered by some who know of them. That knife was once promised to son #2 but since he essentially has abandoned our family, the knife will probably also go to son #3 if he wants it. The knives were not made form old files. The steel is much softer than that and holds an edge very well and is easy to sharpen. Much of this stuff cost me nothing, so it really paid for itself over the years.
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I use stainless steel cookware for soups, stews ,pastas dishes.
Although things we fry are huge cast iron fry pan, and like your wife that is getting heavy for me to take off hanger over stove, I no longer attempt that, if arm or hand went out it would bust me in the head.
Although cornbread isn't cornbread cooked in anything but cast iron.
 
That was one of the things I bought Cindy for Christmas in 1999. Every year I would ask her "What would you like for Christmas?" She almost always said the same thing "Anything for the kitchen." After a few years, I stopped asking. She particularly liked it when I bought her cast iron pans, Chef quality knives, KitchenAid stuff, and all the little things I could think of. Our kitchen was pretty small, about the size of a king size bed, but it had a ton of quality gear. I paid close attention to how she shopped, and got some pretty good deals myself. I bought a $600 set of knives at Costco for $150 in January, and stuck it in the place where one of the backseats in the car would fold down into.

As time went by, and she accumulated more and more stuff, we turned the dining room into a prep area, tripling the size of her kitchen. If we were going to move into a house that small today with just the amount of stuff she had, forget about everyone, it wouldn't be big enough. Of course, I should talk... I had just as much if not more computer gear, audio gear, guitar gear, bicycling gear, etc. And almost all of our stuff was used a lot, and definitely paid for itself many times over.

Except for all the camping gear I bought in 2020 to 2023 for a bike trip the never happened. That stuff is sitting in my closet collecting dust...
 
Axel Slingerland said:
Dare I ask how much that cost? My grandparents were Professors at Auburn University and I got a tuition waiver. And it still cost me a small fortune for a year.
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I went to Ohio State, and in the mid 60s it was a bargain. Full time total for the first year was less than $500. Today it's about $14,000 for in state students, and about $42k for out of state. Land Grant colleges used to be great
 
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