The Louisiana.

A very long time a ago I shelled out some cash monthly for a cut rate web hosted Linux virtual machine.

I learned all kinds of crazy valuable stuff on that thing.

Edit: For those that want to do this today, the service was Linode, and a cheap rough equivalent is AWS EC2.

College. For me, anyway.

Bose QC35 headphones for me.

They felt extravagently expensive at $300. But I've had them for 7 years now, wear them a few hours each day, and they still work like new. They sound amazing and the noise cancellation has had a tremendous positive effect on my sanity as an apartment-dweller.

Every year I buy a replacement set of earcups for like $15. I'll keep using them until they poop out.

Wireless devices. 📡📶📺📻

Everything on my desktop looks so clean now. ✨

A cheap pendrive I already used to install four ISOs, two of them pirated.

My toaster oven. By far it is the one small appliance that sees use nearly everyday for something.

Sometimes I'm reheating pizza, toasting a bagel, using it as a small oven when I don't feel like waiting for my big oven to preheat. It's so versatile I don't know if I could live without it.

My passport

Not return in terms of money, but in terms of hours of use and enjoyment my Android tablet is probably at the top of the list since I use it every day.

If we are are actually talking money, then my 3D printer had been used to make many times it's original purchase price. If we are talking about total money then my first house has gained the most value.

My cold brew coffee pot.

It makes about 2.2 US quarts of cold brew in a batch. It’s plastic, but I’ve used it consistently for over 6 or 7 years now.

It has a center sleeve/filter for putting grounds in. They should be coarse ground, but I’ve used Cafe Bustelo (espresso ground brick) and had good results.

Just let it soak for a day or two in cold water.

Now, I don’t use it per the instructions. After it has appropriately steeped, I pull out the filter, empty it, rinse it, and put the empty filter in a 2qt pitcher, and run the coffee from the brew pitcher into it. This leaves a little extra which goes right into my cup.

I then immediately prepare a new brew pitcher and drink out of the 2qt.

That cost me $30 back then, and I brew 2-3 pitchers per week. I don’t know what that works out to in Large Dunkin’s, but I’m sure it has paid for itself, several times over.

A subscription to a specific podcast. Each episode is at least two hours long, sometimes up to four. I don't care. I love it and eat it up. There are barely 5000 subscriptions to the podcast and while I wish the podcast was bigger so the host's could get the recognition they deserve, the community built around it currently is great.

Also, it seems like $700 is the limit to a purchase being great for people. That's interesting.

Bitwarden for $10

Probably Rocket League. Bought it for 20 bucks in '15 and I have about 1500hrs of total playtime.

I paid $120 for a year of PS+ Premium in January.

If I add the cost of every game I played for 4+ hours I got off that service, it would total over $1000. Even more if I include shit I installed, played for 10 minutes and didn't like.

Even with the recent price changes going up by a whopping $60 for the tier I am at, that's still worth it; assuming they continue to add new shit at the same rate.

With how often I see people bemoaning subscription services, there are still some that are very worth the cost if you're actually utilizing the service often.

$100 (probably around $120 now) Hakko soldering iron and good solder/flux.

I had cheap irons for years and thought I sucked at soldering. The Hakko heats up in seconds and melts solder like magic.

Got it for rc hobby stuff, but I've also fixed countless toys, bluetooth speakers, light fixtures, etc. I've even done some jewelry repairs with silver solder.

Fixed my Nintendo, Sega, Sega CD, Atari, and Gameboy from when I was a kid. Still need to get around to fixing my OG XBOX.

Toothbrush

Probably my PC