Investing in gadgets

[jeffrey]

There are a lot of gadgets that, if you use them, will save you much more money than it costs to purchase them. For example, if you buy coffee at the coffee shop each day and then you buy a coffee maker and instead begin making your cups at home (and no longer buy from the coffee shop), even if the coffee maker is expensive, it will end up paying for itself over time.

What are some of the things that you have purchased that have ended up saving you a large amount of money over if you had never purchased it? What are some of the favorie gadgets you've purchased and have turned out to be a great investment.

[disneysteve]

By far, the best gadget I have ever owned is my iPhone 5. I had an iPhone 3 before that and it was good but it had a lot of unmet potential. The 5 fully meets its potential. For many years, they've spoken about device convergence. This is the device that truly does it all.

Just a partial list of things my iPhone does and which I use it for regularly:

1. digital Camera
2. digital Video Camera
3. video calls (Skype, facetime)
4. e-mail
5. web browsing
6. flashlight
7. both text and voice memos
8. appointment calendar
9. TV and movie player
10. video games
11. TV viewing guide
12. maps and directions
13. music player
14. calculator including scientific calculations
15. social media access (facebook, Twitter)
16. buying and selling on ebay and half.com
17. online shopping (Amazon and others) and price comparison shopping
18. hotel, restaurant, and travel reviews
19. booking reservations for hotels and restaurants
20. listening to the radio
21. white pages for looking up phone numbers
22. getting discounts with Living Social, Groupon, Money Mailer, and more
23. news and weather
24. tracking my exercise regimen
25. profesional apps for medical information (I'm a physician)
26. paid market research opportunities
27. medical continuing education programs
28. clock/timer/stopwatch/alarm
29. oh, and it's also a telephone

[QuarterMillionMan]

I was just about to post a similar thread pertaining to product reviews. You beat me to it (lol).



HAVES

1) Magicjack Plus (very good)
2) Slingbox (very good)
3) Food Saver vacuum (good)
4) Jack Lalanne juicer (good)
5) iphone (very good)
6) CLR cleaner (worthless)
7) Bank apps to deposit checks remotely by smartphone (fabulous)
8) cheap coffee maker but I use Starbucks beans
9) Sriracha hot chili sauce (um-um good)
10) Heinekens (the best, lol)




HAVE NOTS (but not necessarily wants)


1) Tablets
2) Dyson/Shark/Rumba
3) Keurig
4) Soda Stream
5) Food processor
6) Bose sound system
7) George Foreman Grill
8) Biue Ray/Roku/gaming devices

[ShawnaC123]

I bought my ipad mini with gift cards earned from doing surveys and other activities on swagbucks. I now make money by installing apps on it and running the swagbucks mobile tv app. I'd say I've made 60 dollars on it so far since January, so I figure eventually it will pay for itself.

[disneysteve]

7) Bank apps to deposit checks remotely by smartphone (fabulous)

How could I forget that on my list? I deposit all (except one) of my checks via my iPhone. When they first offered it, there was a low monthly limit which made it just a novelty. Once they upped the limit, it became standard procedure. The fact that I can deposit my paycheck as soon as it is handed to me or a survey check while sitting at the table opening my mail is fantastic.

[lorraineb]

bread maker -- I make awesome bread with only ingredients that I approve of -- so much more healthy than most store bought bred for a fraction of the price. Plus once you have freshly made warm bread for breakfast, you'll never be able to go back to store bought bread.

[cschin4]

1. $20 4 cup coffee pot. I dont' go ANYWHERE without first quickly brewing a cup of coffee to take along.
2. Kitchen Aid Artisan stand mixer $300 This thing ROCKS! I never understood why people were so enamored with a mere mixer! But, I finally purchased one and now i make awesome bread, pepperoni rolls, pizza crust, cheesecake, cookies, and on and on! Buy one ASAP! I spent years trying to hand make my own bread, pizza crust but the dough hook mixes so well i never have a bad result. I have a bread maker too and it has replaced that competely.
3. Internet - I LOVE the internet. I do tons of shopping with free shipping on Amazon. Saves me from the $10 worth of gas to drive back and forth to the mall.

[Blessed]

My biggest one is YNAB. Coffee pot, bread maker,computer.

[MonkeyMama]

The last post reminds me...

Quicken. It will save me tons more money than I would ever spend on it. (Not to mention saving time, helping to organize finances, and perks well above and beyond the money saved). I've been using Quicken for 7 years. Which means I am getting to the point if I want to look up the "last time I bought anything" and what I paid, it takes about 5 seconds. The longer you use it, the more valuable it is. Just yesterday I was looking up some purchase from last June - saved me a lot of time and research.

Nook/e-reader - I was never a big book buyer, but am savings tons of time and gas no longer having to drive to the libraries to borrow books.

Roku - we bought one about 18 months ago in order to ditch our cable. We enjoy watching all our shows on the TV, so LOVE the roku. There is plenty of free and low-cost programming to replace the cable.

[Mjenn]

We bought ourselves a Roomba as a family Christmas present & I am in love. If you believe 'Time is money' it has saved us a bunch.

With a toddler, a baby and a dog -- and working full time, finding time to vacuum is a PITA. Now I turn on the robot while I am out walking the dog and come home to a clean house 1 hour later. Truly my favorite gadget this year.

I have also saved a ton of money with our breadmaker - While I don't use it quite as much as the first year we had it, we have really cut down our bread purchases and learned to bake our own bread even without it. But also nice to throw in the ingredients and wake up to fresh bread.

Kitchen aid - this was a gift, so can't say it was a savings - but I use it all the time to bake. Recently, now that I am on maternity leave, instead of going to the store to buy cookies, I will just see what we have at home, throw it into the kitchen aid and voila, a new kind of cookie. Yum....

Iphone - I'm now into my 3rd year on the same phone and have a great plan so I am paying about 20 dollars a month for internet and calls. It was great while I was working, since I move around a lot to different clients I had my computer in my pocket. Saved me from having to do more work when I got home, as I could do work on the train.

[shaggy]

By far, the best gadget I have ever owned is my iPhone 5. I had an iPhone 3 before that and it was good but it had a lot of unmet potential. The 5 fully meets its potential. For many years, they've spoken about device convergence. This is the device that truly does it all.

Just a partial list of things my iPhone does and which I use it for regularly:

1. digital Camera
2. digital Video Camera
3. video calls (Skype, facetime)
4. e-mail
5. web browsing
6. flashlight
7. both text and voice memos
8. appointment calendar
9. TV and movie player
10. video games
11. TV viewing guide
12. maps and directions
13. music player
14. calculator including scientific calculations
15. social media access (facebook, Twitter)
16. buying and selling on ebay and half.com
17. online shopping (Amazon and others) and price comparison shopping
18. hotel, restaurant, and travel reviews
19. booking reservations for hotels and restaurants
20. listening to the radio
21. white pages for looking up phone numbers
22. getting discounts with Living Social, Groupon, Money Mailer, and more
23. news and weather
24. tracking my exercise regimen
25. profesional apps for medical information (I'm a physician)
26. paid market research opportunities
27. medical continuing education programs
28. clock/timer/stopwatch/alarm
29. oh, and it's also a telephone

No offense to the Apple owners, but I would argue that although it *can* do all those things, it doesn't do them particularly well.

And one thing it won't do is hold a charge if you're doing all those things.

(Not to pick on you, Steve, but it had to be said).

[disneysteve]

No offense to the Apple owners, but I would argue that although it *can* do all those things, it doesn't do them particularly well.

And one thing it won't do is hold a charge if you're doing all those things.

(Not to pick on you, Steve, but it had to be said).

I've had my phone since December and have never had a problem with my phone holding a charge.

I also find there are numerous things (some on my list, some not) that are actually easier and faster to do on the phone. Things that I used to go to my desktop or laptop computer for, I now do on the iPhone on purpose, sometimes even when I'm literally sitting in front of the computer.