Your best and worst buys?

Trish

Trish

VIP OAP
Tidying up a kitchen cupboard today and I came across a part from one of the worst buys - a juicer. I imagined sitting on the balcony in the summer, sipping healthy concoctions of freshly juiced fruit. The reality was that by the time it had been set up, the fruit chopped and juiced, we would have been better to have bought a carton from the shops and saved ourselves the washing up!

On kitchen appliances, I think the airfryer is one of our best buys, we use it all the time. The little silicon liners were also a really good buy.

Moving out of the kitchen, I love my spin bike. When I was thinking of buying it, the trainer at the gym grinned and said they are good for hanging your clothes over - apparently, most people buy things like exercise bikes but rarely use them. Not true for me. :)

I am sure there are many other best and worst buys in my home but, what about yours? :)
 

Lady Luck shone on us the day we bought this house. If our asking price, or close to it, is realised, we stand to make a substantial profit.
Worst buy was the brand new Austin Maxi car that I bought in the 1970's. A pile of junk that ate money, lasted about five years, finally sold it for about the same as scrap value.
 
About 15 years ago I bought a second hand radio cassette recorder for £1 at a car boot sale. I still use it and it still works superbly.
People who visit me usually say to me, "Those were obselete yonks ago, is it just an ornament?"
They raise their eyebrows when I switch it on.

The worst buy was a so called 'modern' digital microwave, it went to the recycling bin 15 months after I bought it.
 

horseless carriage said:
Lady Luck shone on us the day we bought this house. If our asking price, or close to it, is realised, we stand to make a substantial profit.
Worst buy was the brand new Austin Maxi car that I bought in the 1970's. A pile of junk that ate money, lasted about five years, finally sold it for about the same as scrap value.
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Shame about the car but, hopefully the potential profit on your house sale will make up for it.

We have neighbours who are in the process of selling/buying and it's such an expensive process. Worth it though, especially if you make a few bob. Good luck (y)
 
timoc said:
About 15 years ago I bought a second hand radio cassette recorder for £1 at a car boot sale. I still use it and it still works superbly.
People who visit me usually say to me, "Those were obselete yonks ago, is it just an ornament?"
They raise their eyebrows when I switch it on.

The worst buy was a so called 'modern' digital microwave, it went to the recycling bin 15 months after I bought it.
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You remind me that I also have some handheld MP3 players - we used to use them at work. They were expensive to buy at the time but, when we got new technology they were binned. I kept mine. I also have a Sony Walkman MP3 player, small and weightless, I used to take it to the gym. Actually, I am going to charge it today and start taking it on my walks.

I think it was circa 1980's when a friend of mine bought a state of the art washing machine - it was computerised and came with various disks for the washing cycles. That machine cost a small fortune and rarely worked! Admittedly the machine looked impressive but, I was glad I didn't buy one! :)
 
The worst was a 1980 Yugo. It's not an exaggeration, it spent more time in the shop than I did driving it. Driving along, it would just die. The dealership spent more on trying to fix it, than I did buying it. There's an intersection of 5 roads, and the damn thing would always die in the middle of the intersection. I had to be towed. People aren't exactly friendly when you're blocking traffic.
Car wise, my best buy is 2021 Hyundai Elantra.
 
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Our air handler that was bad from day one and they kept sending out the maintenance crew and finally after replacing all the parts, it worked right.

Our best car buy is out 2015 Dodge Dart GT.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
The worst was a 1980 Yugo. It's not an exaggeration, it spent more time in the shop than I did driving it. Driving along, it would just die. The dealership spent more on trying to fix it, than I did buying it. There's an intersection of 5 roads, and the damn think would always die in the middle of the intersection. I had to be towed. People aren't exactly friendly when you're blocking traffic.
Car wise, my best buy is 2021 Hyundai Elantra.
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My co-worker had one and she was always late for being broke down somewhere.
 
I’ve had a few worst buys because I am always willing to try new things.

The most dangerous purchase was the 1973 Mercury marquis that my son‘s father and I bought brand new. That car did not like to stay running.

Our son was a few months old baby and I had a doctors appointment for him. I was pulling away from the stop sign near our home and the car just quit in the middle of the intersection —— the middle of the intersection.

Thankfully, in those days that intersection wasn’t too busy. I was able to get the car started and going again. that was the last time I drove it because we got rid of it.
 
Hmm. . . one of my best is my George Foreman grill. I've gotten so much use out of it. Also my Toyota RAV4, a 2006 model still going strong at 135,000 miles (🤞).

My worst buy is pretty funny: two tiny dolls (about the size of a thumb) for my daughters one Christmas. They would chatter and sing, but it was completely annoying! For one thing, they sang completely out of tune and sounded very strange. There was no way to shut the darn things off, and they would just randomly start chattering or singing some weird, off-tune lullaby.

My ex finally got completely fed up one day and, after the girls had gone to bed, smashed the dolls with a hammer out in the garage. :ROFLMAO: He's a pretty mild-mannered guy most of the time, but these dolls were driving both of us over the edge.

I can't remember if the girls ever asked what had happened to them, but boy, those things were annoying.
 
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Best: 2005 Chev Express Van 3500 (bought in 2017. Not the extended one. 😭😭) with only 80,000 miles on it. (Christian college van) Now at 164K.....

Worst? There's so many small buys I regret.

Amazon wire storage shelves. Tips had to be filed down to stop poking cans.
1985 Chev Van tranny went out 5 days after purchase. $700 repair bill
Contract to buy land in Missouri. Deal went south, lost $4,000

Sometimes I would get gifts that were quite annoying, one was that duck that talked. After 2 weeks I pulled the batteries out of it and after 2 months I threw it away. Nobody asked me where it went everybody kind of understood how annoying they were after a bit.
 
I remember another useless buy! A set of suction corner shelves for in a shower or bathroom. It looked good and seemed to be held strong on the wall but, in the middle of the night we heard a crash! I thought someone had blown the front door off! The shelves had come off the wall!
 
I think for the pure fun factor and fond memories associated with it I would say my best buy would have to be this little motor home. We bought it the year we retired and traveled all over the US and Canada in it. You could park it in a normal parking spot and take it just about anywhere. Wish we had kept it.

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Luckily they weren't expensive, doggy steps so I wouldn't have to pick him up every night. He would not use them because he is a Jack Russell and jumps every other step coming up and down them. These felt unsafe to him. I couldn't even trick him by trying to lead him up them with his Laser Light. He just stood there waiting for the beam to get back down to the floor. :rolleyes:
 
Worst car: the 1973 American Motors Matador Station Wagon we bought new. It wasn't yellow, but it sure was a lemon. We owned it for one month short of three years and had 144 work orders on it. We finally had to go into arbitration with the dealership to get stuff fixed. We won, but it was still a huge hassle.

Best car: the 2003 Toyota Corolla CE I bought new. I drove it for 14 years before I traded it in on a Corolla LE. Outside of the ordinary maintenance and replacements (tires, battery, filters, etc), that 2003 NEVER had anything go wrong with it. I'd probably still be driving it but I was lusting after some bells and whistles and the old one didn't have any.
 
Trish said:
Tidying up a kitchen cupboard today and I came across a part from one of the worst buys - a juicer. I imagined sitting on the balcony in the summer, sipping healthy concoctions of freshly juiced fruit. The reality was that by the time it had been set up, the fruit chopped and juiced, we would have been better to have bought a carton from the shops and saved ourselves the washing up!

On kitchen appliances, I think the airfryer is one of our best buys, we use it all the time. The little silicon liners were also a really good buy.

Moving out of the kitchen, I love my spin bike. When I was thinking of buying it, the trainer at the gym grinned and said they are good for hanging your clothes over - apparently, most people buy things like exercise bikes but rarely use them. Not true for me. :)

I am sure there are many other best and worst buys in my home but, what about yours? :)
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I had a TV to watch when I had a stationary bike.
 
Jules said:
@MoBeans, our small motorhome could be in one of the best things we ever bought. Had it for 27 years. We only sold it because of health reasons. Loved it. Saw lots of Canada and the US.
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27 years, wow. We only did it for 10. My second best purchase was when we bought a larger four season Class C to replace that smaller van and continued the travels. Both were made in Canada by the same company and were considered top of the line as far as quality. When we finally sold it a guy in Canada wanted it so he hired a professional RV inspector. The inspector showed up and he said that he usually only did big expensive Class A RV inspections but he had heard about the quality of this brand and had always wanted to see one, so he took the job.

He spent 8 hours, going over every square inch of it. He took 500 photos and wrote a 300 page report (mostly pictures). We didn't hang around to watch and were sweating it because at that point the motor home was over 12 years old. He finally called to tell us he was done and he asked why we were selling it. He said he couldn't find s single thing wrong with it. I miss that life as I'm sure you do too.

REGENCY final day IMG_2040.jpg
 
I purchased an '02 Audi A6 new. It was beautiful, fantastic to drive and well-finished, but it had so many issues. Up to that point, I'd always owned Japanese cars and just wanted something German. The brakes started to squeal badly after a couple of months. The fuel gauge stopped working. A tire blew and they had to order a replacement from Germany. Their service was a joke. I traded it after 6 months for something Japanese and, needless to say, took a huge loss.

Ironic that I've now owned Audis again since 2009, but they have been rock-solid.
 
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