What budget purchase ended up being your best buy ever?

I was travelling in Japan and needed nail clippers.

All I could find is this cheap pink Hello Kitty grooming kit.

These clippers are the best I've ever owned.

They have stayed sharp and functional for 20 years.

I'm very protective of them. Everyone in the house knows

you don't touch Dad's pink Hello Kitty nail clippers. And if you do, you perish.

A guy said there were a bunch of bricks in his backyard he wanted to get rid of. Five bucks for all

of them if you'd come and pick them up because they were larger than regular

bricks and very heavy. I grabbed a friend and headed out because I needed some cheap bricks

for the edging of my garden. Guy's house was across the river and in some really run-down

looking neighbourhood. Really glad I grabbed my friend at this point. We pull up and the guy

is waiting outside. He looks like he's 80, but I know he must have been a

35-year-old guy who just smoked 10 packs a day. So the guy takes us to his backyard and shows us

the pile of bricks, which turns out to be 50-plus antique Louisville fire bricks. So I look at the guy and

tell him, I'll take half of them, and as payments I'll give you $20 and some advice. And of course, the guy is looking

at me like I'm an idiot, but he accepts my money and helps me and my friend load up about 30 bricks.

After I close my truck and get in the car to drive off, I tell him to Google the antique fire bricks

and adjust his Craig's List listing. I went back to look at the listing a few days later,

and he had changed the price from

five bucks for the whole pile to five bucks per brick, which was the going rate at the time.

Nowadays, they go for 20 bucks per brick. Best Buy Ever. A seed packet from the dollar store. While

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