My Favorite Purchases of 2015

Tis the season of grotesque consumerism and year-end best-of lists! I thought it’d be fun to combine the two and bring you: My Top 10 Favorite Purchases of 2015. Instead of ranking them, I’ve sorted them by purchase price in descending order.

#10. Our House

Price: $340,000. I’ve experienced only minor amounts of I’ve Made a Huge Mistake since July, and those have been more about the neighborhood than the house. I still think we made a good decision! Whew.

#9. Frye Carson Lace Up Boots

Price: $298 / Link. In my experience, Frye boots are worth the money. These awesome shit-kickers are sturdy and comfortable enough to wear everyday – without treating delicately – but streamlined enough to look good with tights and dresses. (The upturned toe isn’t as pronounced in real life, and it flattens with wear.) If you live in Chicago, the Frye flagship store is heavenly: the staff is super nice, they have ALL of the boots in ALL of the colors, and they do free repairs for life.

(Pictured with a delicious waffle + arugula + bacon concoction I bought from a food cart in Portland, Oregon.)

#8. Bosch RS7 11 Amp Reciprocating Saw

Price: $79 / Link. This saw is a beast. I bought it for basement demo (more on that soon, I promise!), and it cut through wood and metal with remarkable ease. Despite the power, I feel really safe using it – it’s heavy, but easy to hold and operate. Here’s me caressing it lovingly, wearing glasses on glasses and a college boyfriend’s band t-shirt.

Side note: I love camelcamelcamel.com for Amazon price tracking. You simply copy and paste the Amazon URL and it shows you the item’s price history. This saw, for example, fluctuated $40 in December 2015.

I always check here before buying bigger ticket items on Amazon. If it reveals that the current price is higher than average, I set up a price alert so that I’m notified when the price falls below whatever amount I specify. You don’t even have to create an account; just enter your email address.

#7. Nest Learning Thermostat – 2nd Generation

Price: $75 / Link. I was always diligent about setting our previous apartments’ programmable thermostats on an energy-efficient schedule, so the Nest’s auto-learning function wasn’t actually a huge sell for me. The three things did sell me on the Nest were:

• Auto-Away: If we’re not at home, the Nest disregards the schedule and automatically adjusts the temperature to save energy.
• Remote control: When we’ve been out of town, it’s super nice to be able to heat up the house before we arrive home.
• ComEd Rebate: ComEd currently offers a $100 rebate for smart thermostats.

When the 3rd generation Nest came out, the 2nd generation model dropped in price. I didn’t want or need the 3rd generation’s bigger screen or higher resolution (I’m not watching Netflix on it), so I snagged the 2nd generation for $175 and the rebate brought it down to $75.

#6. Ryobi 90-Piece Drilling and Driving Accessory Kit

Price: $27 / Link. I bought this kit based on The Sweethome’s recommendation and it’s been great. It’s had everything that I’ve needed over the past few months with the exception of drilling into granite. Turns out those bits are literally made of diamonds.

#5. Duralex Picardie Tumbler Set

Price: $20-$30, depending on size / Link. Buying new glasses was something I had been looking forward to with home ownership. Jarrod is comically clumsy, and our glass collection dwindled as he broke them, but I didn’t want to buy new ones until we moved. I am now very happy to own these. It’s another Sweethome recommendation. They’re purportedly nearly impossible to break; I’m excited to test that with Jarrod. So far so good!

They come in a range of sizes. 5-3/4 oz is pretty small: we’ll use them for wine, or when we have kids visiting. 10-1/2 oz is great for Manhattans. 16-3/4 oz is perfect for water. They stack, which is nice because we don’t have a lot of upper cabinet space. They don’t nest as closely as pictured on Amazon, though – that’s some Photoshop wizardry. Just a heads up!

#4. How Your House Works: A Visual Guide to Understanding and Maintaining Your Home

$18 / Link. Super helpful guide! I wish I had read it before we did our home inspection – I would have had a much better understanding of what our inspector was pointing out about our plumbing, electrical system, etc.

#3. Hot Shot Men’s Knit Hat, Blaze Orange

$5 / Link. One of the weirder events of my life happened in September. Some friends and I had gathered after work to have a drink on our friend Katie’s rooftop deck. While we were up there, a barely-pantsed resident stormed up, wielding a knife, warning of an intruder with a gun. He was truly terrified. He wore a bright orange cap and black leather sex cuffs, and no shirt or shoes. He claimed his pursuer was in the stairwell. He was clearly on a bad trip and we didn’t really believe the gun story, but also didn’t want to test that.

So, we were trapped on the roof with him, 20 floors up. We called 911, calmed him down, learned his name was Nick, took away his knife, helped him “barricade” the door (half-heartedly, with a deck chair), and waited 25 minutes for the police to arrive. Meanwhile, he called his mom. It was kinda adorable.

The cops finally showed up and confirmed that there was no armed intruder in the stairs or Nick’s apartment. We were free to go. End of weird story. It was scary at the time, but is now funny.

That night I bought everyone matching Bad Trip Nick hats to commemorate the experience.

#2. Cree Soft White LED 60w Replacement

Price: $4 / Link. I replaced all of the light bulbs in our house with these LED bulbs. The light quality is very nice: warm without being yellow. Thanks to a ComEd subsidy, you can buy them in Chicago for only $4 each, which is a steal when you consider the estimated yearly energy cost is $1.20 with a life expectancy of 27 years (based on 3 hours/day).

#1. Scanner Pro App

Price: $2.99 / Link. Currently only $0.99! This app was great throughout the home buying process, which required a lot of signed and scanned documents. It’s especially handy for sensitive information you may not want to run through your workplace scanner and network. I manage our lives in Google Drive, and I use this to immediately scan and upload documents; e.g. an auto mechanic invoice to our Superoo folder, or a fencing quote to our Hauslermo folder.

Happy New Year!