Your biggest money saver?

[pegkerr]

What one-time purchase has saved you the most money over the years? For me, it's my Krups El Primo espresso maker. Instead of wasting $3.50 for a cafe Mocha at a coffee shop, I can whip one up in the morning for a fraction of the cost. I have saved hundreds of dollars, perhaps thousands, with that one $50 purchase.

And you?

Cross posted to poor_skills.

Comments

[kokopoko.livejournal.com]

How do you make cafe mocha? I got an espresso last year and haven't figured out how to make all those yummy drinks at Starbucks yet.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I start the espresso, and foam the milk when the espresso gets up to the little line. I put about three tablespoons of the heated milk in my cup, add the sugar and a heaping tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa (adding it to heated milk rather than cold milk makes it dissolve easier). Then I pour the heated milk and the espresso into the cup. Voila.

[tiellan.livejournal.com]

One-time purchase? ... that would have to be the Food Saver. Or the Slow Cooker. Or both.

With the Food Saver I can buy the cheaper mondo meat packages then seal up the meat individually or in pairs for later. When I cook a big meal, I can seal up the leftovers in single-serving packages for lunches.

With the Slow Cooker I can make one or two big dinners, then save the leftovers for lunches and dinner-on-the-go.

Two other big choices we made, but they weren't one-time purchases, was getting rid of our second car and switching from regular to pre-paid cellular phones. Technically the minutes are more expensive on pre-paid, but we also limited our cell usage and paid about $10-15/month for cell phones instead of upwards of $45/month.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I made two purchases, each of which saved me incredible, staggering, amounts of money, neither of which I use these days.

My bicycle cost $200 in 1990, one of the early hybrids (part mountain bike, part road bike, part clunker.) It let me go anywhere in town. It let me shop anywhere in town, with a backpack and two big wire baskets. I finally sold it for $60 when I realized handlebars were never going to be good for my hand again.

My electric space heater cost $20. When I was renting cheap apartments with inadequate insulation, I could turn the heat down to a level I could afford and wear heavy clothing...but that meant not being able to *sleep*. It meant being too miserable to take my clothes off and relax if I wanted to take a hot bath, or my sweetie came over for the evening. The space heater let me close the bedroom door and be warm enough for a few hours. I don't use it now, because heat is included with my rent. But it's in the closet, just in case I need it later.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I finally relented and got my son a cell phone- and the pre-paid Virgin Mobile plans are great! Given that he isn't using it to chat with friends, more stay in touch with me as he comes and goes and has activities after school, it's worked out great and isn't very expensive at all- I think I've spent $40 since the beginning of August!

[annieways.livejournal.com]

It's not really a one-time purchase, but a yearly subscription to AmericanGreetings.com. For $13/year I can make unlimited greeting cards. $13 doesn't go very far anymore when purchasing greeting cards.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

The one-time purchase that has saved me the most money EVER has been my Toyota Prius. It's a hybrid car and the gas mileage is AMAZING! So, with gas prices soaring out of control, I've saved a TON of money and only have to fill up every few weeks, in spite of the fact that I do a lot of running around to work, shuttling kids, etc.

In fact, I just drove from LA to Nevada this past weekend (almost to Vegas) on less than half a tank of gas.

I love my car. I've had it 3-1/2 years and wouldn't trade her for anything.

[perimyndith.livejournal.com]

I am also going to have to go with our cars. In my family, no one ever buys new cars, or even newish used ones. My parents and my brothers have only ever (in the last 30 years) bought cars that were 8 or 10 years old when they got them. I swear they spend half their lives and so much money keeping those "great deal" cars running. My husband and I don't know much about car repair so our first car after we got married was 3 years old and in great condition. Our next car was a modest compact but it was brand new. We still have the last car, too, but now it's the "family loaner" that everyone else drives when theirs are in the shop again. We paid more up front but in the long run we've saved time, money, and hassle.

[moodyduck.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine does that too. Instead of stretching a little to buy a decent car, he gets cheap junkers and spends all his time and energy for weeks at a time fixing them up. And then they break down constantly in really inconvenient places like the middle of the desert in August. Yet he swears by not having to ever make car payments. I don't get it.

I bought an inexpensive, year-old car and never have had any trouble with it.

[loup_noir]

A beer making kit for my husband several Christmasses ago.

Seriously, it would be a basic toolkit. Tim can repair just about anything with a few simple tools.

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

I have a vaccum sealer I bought for $60 (FoodSaver) and I can now buy meats in bulk, break them into servings and freeze them without fear of freezer burn for two years. I also make homemade 'frozen dinners' that Evan defrosts when he's home and so no stopping at Burger King. It's amazing. Everything tastes awesome. And buying in bulk means that I save trips to the grocery store and tons of money. Also investing in a stand alone freezer, one that opens from the front ($400) has made it a snap to find frozen food.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

It's much bigger than the kind of one-time purchase you're talking about, but buying Toad Hall paid back financially for all of the 20 years I owned it, and it put $160K in my pocket when I sold it.

The house was both cheaper and more secure than paying rent, more so with every year that passed.

On the smaller side, the pictures I've taken with my digital camera in the last two years would have cost over $3500 in film and developing if I'd taken them with the camera I had. That's 10 times the cost of the digital camera. But I wouldn't have taken the pictures, 'cause I simply don't have that kind of money to spend on photography. And the benefits from the joy experienced from having taken those pictures is worth even more to me.

[naomikritzer]

I'd also have to say my house. We bought in 1996 in a Minneapolis neighborhood that seemed undervalued to us -- it was near the river, had nice parks, and (critically) didn't get much airport noise. We were a little bit concerned about the defunct and boarded-up video rental place three blocks away, but the other businesses on the corner seemed stable and we hoped things would improve. The former video rental place is now the Riverview Cafe and Wine Bar, and three years after buying our house, we were paying less on our mortgage than we would have been paying in rent (rent on an apartment, not a comparable house).

For me, an espresso maker would not be a good purchase: my every-day beverage is ordinary coffee (I use a four-cup maker I bought for $5 at a rummage sale in college). I do buy fancy drinks at coffee shops, but when I do that I'm not buying coffee, I'm renting space to sit for a couple of hours. It just so happens that my rent also gets me a fancy beverage.

[flynd.livejournal.com]

And the benefits from the joy experienced from having taken those pictures is worth even more to me.

Yes. Money is important, and saving money is important, but knowing when to spend money -- knowing when it will improve your life (and what else is money for?) -- is, to me, the most important thing of all. (Frugality is not wasting yourself on what doesn't matter).

I feel the exact same way about my digital camera. As a die-hard amateaur photographer who raised herself in darkrooms, there's just something I don't like about digital prints -- but the ease, and security, and next-to-nothing cost of taking digital photographs has made my life so much more enjoyable.

It's a different kind of freedom, and so much worth the initial investment.

[chef-chopper.livejournal.com]

I'd say it's a toss up between two things. My smoker, and my hand crank die meat grinder. Both cost less than $10 (one at a thrift shop, the other at a rummage sale), and the amount of money I save in doing charcuterie at home instead of buying ground meats, sausages, and so on is really great. Also, it allows me to really have fun with stuff. I'm going to make Scotch eggs today for instance, but I can also do pates terrines, smoked vegetables. Add a home made salt cure and I can preserve meats, like curing prociutto or making jerky, or smkoe any kind of fish.

[catmcroy.livejournal.com]

Switching addictions from smoking to knitting.

A ball of yarn (one of the huge jumbo ones of cotton yarn that I can knit for a solid MONTH or more out of and not run out - I'm about half way through one and I've done about 8 washcloths out of it) costs the same as a pack of cigarettes. It's healthier and at the end, I have something productive (plus they make great presents so everyone in my life is getting hand knitted washcloths for Christmas).