What's a luxury you bought yourself that you're really glad you did?

I paid a bit more for a bike than I expected. Nothing compared to a Dutch person's weekend bike from what I hear. I got it used but the parts are all high quality, I think.

My life changed to being much more bike centric and I'm really happy with the purchase. The frame is carbon and I carry it up and down 5 flights of stairs 2-3 times a week.

Wireless noise cancelling headphones.

Dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant. It was an incredible experience and one I frequently look back on with fondness.

The back story: for our 25th wedding anniversary, nearly a decade ago now, my wife found a B&B deal at this wonderful hotel which was simply too good to pass up; the only catch was we'd have to pay separately for our evening meal. Well, how expensive could that be, I wondered, especially if we were careful. Reader, we were not careful!

It was wonderful, from the petit-fours, amuse-bouche and starter (a salad, the likes of which I've never eaten before or since), into the main course ("how did they do that to a carrot?") through to dessert and the cheese trolley ("please have as much as you like!" we were told), and finally the petit fours, coffee and port from an ancient dusty bottle. The wine (we chose the second cheapest from the massive wine list, not that this saved us much) was similarly fantastic. I enjoyed every bite and happily signed off the bill with a smile using our emergency credit card.

It was a once in a lifetime treat but one I've never regretted.

My espresso machine nearly 10 years ago. I think it was nearly $500.

I made drip at home and purchased lattes on the road. I bought the machine to make them myself in the morning and load up a tumbler with essentially 2 large lattes.

It definitely paid for itself within 2 years and I switched to work from home so I'm glad I have it today.

Besides using only distilled water in it I do basic maintenance of running coffee cleaner through it every 3 months or so. Never had a issue with it and it still works great.

Best purchase ever. Only downside is I make better "coffee" than most carry out places. I hunt for good coffee when I'm out. Found two shops locally that make great espresso drinks and pastries. I go a few times a year.

Good coffee is a dark black hole to get sucked into.

A dog. They need feeding, visits to the vets that get more expensive as they get older, they make holidays more expensive if they go with you or not, they need toys and time. But despite all that, they like any good pet, make life worth living.

New car. You remember those infomercials with the grey unhappy "before" video followed by a colored and cheerful "after" ? Yup, that's pretty much me nowadays.

My old car was durable as hell, easy to maintain and all that. But my new car has so many creature comforts that I cannot imagine myself without them anymore.

Plus with 7 seats and AWD the entire household finally fits inside, and the mountainous terrain where we live is no longer a problem when the roads start icing up 8n the winter.

I bought a fancy picture in a proper art shop that was around £200. Expensive but it's brought me lots of joy! I'd always loved those pictures and I finally had the money to buy one. No regrets

Split airco in spring last year. I live top floor, flat roof with the living room facing south. Summers get real hot nowadays here, so last year was the first comfortable summer in our apartment in years. In winter we paid a fraction for heating as well. Best purchase in a long time.

Beyerdynamic DT-770 through Custom Cans (v3 acoustic mod and detachable cable). It's the best pair of closed-back headphones I've ever owned both in terms of audio and build quality.

On the flip side is the AKG K240. I bought it because of its legendary status as a neutral open-back, but the bass and low-mids are crushed. The cheap knock-off Samson SR-850 smashes it to bits. Then I learned that Samsung bought and then murdered the original AKG in 2016 and use the brand name to peddle their cheap landwaste products. Fuck you, Samsung.

My noise cancelling headphones make me forget my disability sometimes, especially during bus rides, which used to induce migraines and leave me burnt out to a crisp when getting home from work. A mechanical keyboard made working so much more enjoyable, too

Wacom tablet I guess? I would hardly call it a luxury though, but it paid itself off in no time.

Otherwise my wallets. I've had one for a very long time which was really good quality and then I bought another one which I've had for years too, still in mint condition. Although I'm feeling the itch for a new one now. And guilty as well :/

Probably my two nicer guitars. They aren't especially fancy models, but they were pretty big purchases for me when I got them and have brought me heaps of joy since. Since the experience of playing a musical instrument tends to revolve so heavily around how tiny little details feel, like the strings of a guitar being a little higher or lower above the fretboard or the neck being a little more or less flexible, taking the time and money to find the ones that felt right to me made a big difference (and then adjusting the setup of them further to suit me more)

The two nice ones are an Epiphone Swingster and a PRS SE 24 7-string. The PRS is just fun. It's very versatile in sound, quite happy to do genres other than the metal that 7-strings are normally associated with but absolutely capable of getting angry when I want it to. The extra range of both the seventh string at the low end and the full 24 frets (the most that you'll see on a guitar without getting something very unusual) gives me loads of options to play things how I want. The Epiphone is a little bit beaten up after a fair bit of stage usage, but it still sounds so smooth and I absolutely love how it feels like it's coming alive when played loud. It's hollow like an acoustic guitar is, so when the amp is loud enough it resonates with its own output from the amp far more easily than normal electric guitars. This is how you end up with the feedback whine sound associated with classic rock acts leaving their instruments on stage at the end of a set, but when you're holding the instrument and controlling the feedback you can feel the entire thing vibrating and every sound you make with it can last for ages if you want it to

Edit: I feel like should add my dad's version of this. He has been playing guitar since he was a child and is a big fan of classic rock, so he had a couple of guitars around the house and would sometimes play along whe he was singing songs for me and my siblings as kids. The only electric ome he had was one he bought whe he was a teenager, and while it was functional it was definitely more valuable sentimentally than for quality, and being a busy working dad he just wasn't playing guitar enough to justify spending a lot of money on a new one. He started playing a bit more when I began to learn, we'd sit dow and jam when I was around, but still didn't replace the electric.

One day he was rushed to hospital after a heart attack - a relatively minor one, and thankfully one he recovered from fully, but a heart attack nonetheless. This turned out to be enough for a small payout from his life insurance; money he didn't need by thatpoint in his life aftsr decades of a fairly successful career, an not enough to really do anything big with. So, since he had some unexpected momey and was quite justifiably feeling a bit sorry for himself, he went out to get his dream guitar he had wanted since he was a teenager listening to Dire Straits records trying to figure out how to play them, a Fender Stratocaster

It's not to my personal tastes as an instrument but I can't argue with the quality of the thing, it is really nice

This is going to sound ridiculous, but ... this scroll:

This is a set of bamboo slips assembled in the ancient style (though instead of having the characters and pictures inked on, these are laser-etched into them). I actually have two of these. One of them is the famous 老子 (Laozi) a.k.a. 道德经 (Dao De Jing), but this is the less famous 茶经 (Cha Jing or "The Classic of Tea").

I like both of them, but the tea scroll is the one that I find most comfortable.