A fighter jet would be really cool for bringing to the daycare

New front porch, ours is rapidly deteriorating.

Most of the most frustrating things I want are home renovations. I wish we could do them & get more years with them, but it’s way out of reach at the moment.

Home assistant setup.

We have a few Alexa and a ring camera, neither of which I trust but dont have the money or wherewithall to replace with something closed

I’d kind of like to get a pen plotter that can use fountain pens.

The problem is that I don’t really want to spend a lot of time callibrating and tinkering with it or deal with devices that phone home. Bantam Tools makes some, but they’re substantially more expensive than similar devices.

And I’d kind of like to have one with a pressure sensor that can automatically callibrate draw height for a given run. And an automated tool switcher with some kind of standard attachment to stick on various pens. Not really commercial, off-the-shelf stuff for that. People engineering their own DIY stuff with 3D-printed parts, yes.

And I don’t really know whether I’d use it much or if it’d just wind up gathering dust. In all honesty, I have three existing alternative options, all of which are cheaper:

• Write software to generate plot, get digital output. Doesn’t have the neat look physical pens produce.

• Same, but print output. Same drawback.

• Generate image, print, manually trace with fountain pen using light tablet. Have done this, but it’s tedious and time-consuming, and my human hands induce imperfections.

I certainly do not need one. But dammit, I’d like to play around with one.

EDIT: Oh, and one with an automated paper feeder would be cool too, but that immediately sharply limits options and increases price.

A car. I live a few kms away from the nearest town and drive a borrowed one (with a horrendous gas mileage…)

A modern PC build. Can’t afford a new GPU or RAM. Mainly so I could actually get some use out of a monitor that isn’t fifteen years old.

A Fairphone when I have a fully functioning but old crappy Samsung phone.

A FUCKING HOUSE

I have no disposable income. the list is long. name brand soda. little plastic doodad so it keeps a toilet puck from dissolving in the full tank between flushes. on the high side an electric bike. honestly even when I had income coming in the steam frame is to rich for my blood. I got a steam deck after a year or so when the price decreased and that was when tech part prices went down over time.

Plenty of things, but the first that came to mind was the same as OP. The Steam Frame looks really cool, but at the price it’s a whole thing.

Same for other electronics - a Framework laptop, building a new desktop (good luck to me there), a Steam Deck.

Lots of newer video games. It’s easy to turn down some of them, because I know I haven’t made time to play a lot of what I already have. Likewise for books in general, where money isn’t a bottleneck but time and space are.

Pokemon cards - just recently had a mini-convention day here in town with a bunch of collectors/vendors selling. Made me really want to go back and fill out my weak collection of WotC classics, but the price (vs how much I care) is a bit prohibitive.

Literally anything. Clothing. A bed. A UPS so I can safely update my six year out of date BIOS that is causing issues snd the constant, random power outages here don’t make me feel safe enough to just do it whenever. A car. Insurance for a car. (Or being able to afford to live in a city with good public transit) Gender affirming care. A place to live. Privacy. Safety.

Oh yeah and my cancer meds that I am forced to live in poverty for and the threat of losing then dangles over my head if I lose my medicaid. Which is possible now.

Healthcare

Motorcycle. I had my previous one for 17 years and travelled many kilometers with it. However, it has worn down up to the point of the replacement parts being more valuable than what the bike would sell for. In other words, it was a write-off. As I ride my bicycle to work and I have too little leisure time already, I simply cannot justify buying my own motorcycle again.

Fortunately, my FIL has several and will lend me one if I want to.

I really want to do an electric conversion of a Geo Tracker.

One with a blown engine showed up on Craigslist for $1k two weeks before my daughter’s due date.

Next time.

So many fountain pens.

A new NAS.

A new keyboard (my wife took my mechanical board so maybe I’ll actually get this. The keyboard maxes at three simultaneous keys and it’s killing me).

Everything to make my basement game room a reality.

A desk (currently using a borrowed old folding table from the in-laws).

Several books (like the annotated Lord of the Rings).

Resin 3D printer.

Instead of any of those I’m saving for an anniversary gift for my wife and to replace our cutting board which is about to split.