Submitted 7 hours ago by Grumpy404@lemmy.zip to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
So i went to a focus group purely to provide feedback, now i have a 75 dollar giftcard which i have to select and withdraw but im not sure what to put the money towards? my older brother also got one. Yes i live with parents so most of my living needs are already covered.
What would be the smart thing to do here? what would you suggest and why so?
Who is that in the image? whats the story behind this image?
That’s a man that used to have $75. Now he has corn.
Use it for whatever will bring you the most pleasure.
How to wisely use $75.
Step 1) Send it to me.
There is no step 2.
Whatever you spend it on, may I make a suggestion, if you have a little extra money yourself? Spend the gift card money, yes: buy something you'll enjoy, share that joy with the people who got it for you, let them see how happy they've made you.
Then take the card that the giftcard came in, put in $75 cash, and put it in a special place. Do that every time someone gives you money or a giftcard. As I've gotten older, a lot of the people in my life have died, gotten ill, or moved away. Sometimes, when I'm feeling sad or depressed, I'll go to my little drawer of cards and pull one out at random. I'll re-read the message, and think about the person and the love that we shared at that time, and I'll take the money and do something special for myself, to cheer myself up a bit.
Then sometime in the next few days, I'll get the same amount of cash from the bank, put it in the envelope, and replace it in my stash: the caring we felt for each other at that time was true (regardless of how things eventually turned out), so the cards give me a little emotional boost and the cash lets me do something for myself that I'd normally not spend money on. It helps me feel better, even if only for a little time.
[I'll also be honest and say that sometimes I've run out of money, and something will twinge and I'll remember I have this little stash of cash, and having that has helped me get through some slightly tough times. But I always put the money back in the cards when I can afford it.]
That’s really beautiful.
In the humble words of Bender B Rodriguez, you could buy one 75.00 hookerbot or seventy-five 1.00 hookerbots.
Food bank?
If you (or your parents) like to cook, you could get some choice steaks (or other high-end ingredients) and make a nice meal that the whole family can enjoy.
Could also get a nice game controller if you’re into video games. Most first-party controllers seem to cost about $70 these days.
I dunno what the “smart” thing to do with $75 would be; $75 isn’t a whole lot of money in the grand scheme of things so investing it wouldn’t exactly pay dividends any time soon. Maybe buy 1GB of DDR5 RAM and in a year it might be worth $75,000 if the market continues its current trend.
Classic Lemmy answer. RAM and steaks.
you could get some choice steaks (or other high-end ingredients)
That’s hilarious because this saver was gonna say, “Chickpeas. Lots of chickpeas.”
A nice butt plug ☺️
To be fair, good silicone stuff basically lasts forever. BIFL butt plug time?
Give it to your parents for taking good care of you.
Have ok dinner somewhere? $75 won’t get you to a good place. But it may get you into an ok one.
Depends on your priorities and needs, but 75 dollars should cover most of the bill if visiting a nice restaurant
This makes me sad. About 15 years ago we could go out as a family of 4 to a nice-ish restaurant for just entrees for just under $50 before tip.
Inflation is 88 percent since y2k. Excited for a 50k a year job out of college in the year 2000? That’s 90k now. 7.25 minimum wage from 2000? Should be at least 13 now. It isn’t, should be.
People are alway “oh, money doesn’t go as far as it used to”, but they don’t get how dramatic it is.
Jesus, where? That sounds like a dream from the 90s.
An HOKC Finka-C is almost exactly $75 on Amazon right now.
Apropos of nothing, really.
I have a couple of these. It is a good stabber for the money.
You’re advising a young man to buy a combat grade knife? For what? If it would be utility there are so many other good options such as decent multi-tools in that price range. So that leaves defense. But a knife for defense needs serious training or otherwise any situation is quickly dangerously escalated by drawing a knife like that. There are more productive ways of spending 75.
Cripes, this argument again. Give it a rest already, people.
I don’t know about you but I’ve never used mine for combat and I’m unlikely to be in a position to try. Despite the inherent ridiculousness I do occasionally EDC mine, but mostly I use it as a folding camp knife.
There are oodles of other perfectly cromulent knives to recommend, of course (just ask me how I know!) but I zeroed in on this one for the sheer perversity of its selling price being near enough to precisely OP’s available figure.
If you’re going to be that way about it, might I recommend a Leatherman Skeletool which is also currently about $75.
Sell it, or buy and return items to make cash, invest it.
Can i have a example of some of the investments you said? are you saying i start something like a ebay?
For investment, something like fxaix (Fidelity 500 index) or vti (Vanguard Total). You need a brokerage account. $75 might be too little to seed an account, depending on the company. Schwab, Vanguard, Fidelity, Robin Hood.
Don’t buy a single company, don’t by meme stocks, don’t buy a mutual fund with high expense ratio, don’t buy “money market fund” or similar.
Thermapen is on sale for $75 right now. https://www.thermoworks.com/thermapen-one/
Best food temperature probe out there. Might not sound like a big deal, but you'll get so much use out of it if you cook meat (including fish).
Not long ago that would feed you McDonald dinner for a month.
What you should do its find a good gift card buying site, there are a few. Choose the card that gives the highest cash payout. Save the money.
75 isn’t a whole lot. If you don’t have a financial management tool yet, you should put it towards that.
Look for something with no fees. I believe Sofi has no fees and might not have a minimum amount. Their app is also really easy to use.
A local credit union is also a good choice since you can physically talk to a person when you have questions.
it’s a giftcard
Buy Bitcoin.
Better to wait a year or two for the current cycle to hit it’s low. Or just DCA.
Buy stuff on ebay and start trading to bigger and better things. If you work at it hard enough, you’ll end up with trading items worth thousands without having spent more than $75.
This is what I do. I recently bought 3x rx480 graphics cards for $90 total and 3x office PCs for $150 total and sold for $450 total. You just have to watch for deals.
I also made !flipping@lemmy.world for this kind of stuff, but it’s basically dead as lemmy is mostly anti capitalism and sees flipping as dirty.
Trading in existing items is not exactly capitalism … that’s just plain old bartering.
Capitalism, especially the modern form, is when you use your existing or inherited wealth to buy or develop companies who generate wealth from the work of other people to create brand new products or services. It’s exploitative because capitalists take the hard work of many people who create brand new products and then claim full or majority ownership over those products without having done anything except claim ownership.
What you are doing is taking old discarded things that either have no more value or lesser value and taking your own effort and time to recreate value and barter it to someone else. The only person you’ve exploited in the transaction is yourself … but you reap all the benefit. And no one can go back and say that the product that you just traded is stolen profit from the previous owner … the previous owner had thrown it away and didn’t value it any more or even considered it trash to be thrown away.
Flipping isn’t capitalism … it’s just good economic sense for the individual.
Unless you turn it all into a multimillion dollar business with employees, real estate and a corporation … it isn’t capitalism.
Wow, I thought that had become basically impossible to profit off of ages ago.
Drugs.
What are your hobbies?
gaming, building computers, rpgs such as dnd, mild card collecting.
And a person with THOSE hobbies is on Lemmy??? Well I for one am shocked. SHOCKED I SAY!!!
…not that shocked actually. Next you’ll tell us your linux distro, and a fight will ensue over which distro you should switch to.
Do you have a 3D printer? $75 won’t buy one in full, but it can help get a decent entry-level one like an Ender 3 V3 SE. If you already have one, maybe some filament.
Also, a Raspberry Pi can be used for some nice things. I love my Home Assistant setup, for example!
I’d suggest taking a look at what roll20 has to offer if you want to play virtually with your friends.
If the rasp Pi is too much (per your other comment), you might have fun with a few esp32s and some basic sensors if you want to get into the embedded electronic space. The entry price is lower then the rasp.
Get some meth and a cheap hooker and have a party.
Take an online course.
Many of those should be free through public libraries!
FUCKING_CUNO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 hours ago
Buy as many stick on googly eyes as you can and put them on everything you see
HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
We have a winner!