Adulting sucks, but grandparenting is great. Just bought the expresso, soft serve, and old Hamilton blender. Along with the dispensers. Not pictured is a an old hot fudge warmer dispenser, and ice shave machine, and new popcorn machine. Granddaughter loves it. Says it like living at the movie theater.

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That's how I keep our water bill down too.

This beast put my pin fund into nonexistents. But it works amazingly.

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I feel everyone's pain. After agreeing on a set price with the wife, our new build came in, oh 200K over that with furniture and extras. Already sold my Metallica Roadcase Edition ( really regret it ) and now I think I need to sell a couple more too. At least the kids education is taken care of but I'll be trading or downsizing my collection for awhile now..

I recently added a keypad lock to my front door, invaluable if you have teenagers going in and out all the time.

I've had four contractors run when they measured our circa 1939 front door.....Gave up

Well this refugee "adopted us" about 4 months ago.I figure for the cost of food and shelter I could have acquired a P.O.S Raven at the least.Anyway nice doors guys

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I'm also in the HVAC replacement club!

One of our compressors went out last year. Since we have dual zone there's two of *everything*. The systems were approaching 20 years old so we (*cough*, the wife) wanted to upgrade ALL of it. So two new compressors, two new furnaces, all new larger ducting on the second floor, etc. The only thing I insisted on were new wi-fi enabled touchscreen thermostats so at least I'd have something nice and shiny to look at inside the house!
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Speaking of water heaters, have any of you made the move to tankless? I get conflicting views on the merits

Who needs a new Stern-Pro when I could get this instead

The kids love it.

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Wife says, “how are we going to pay for our daughter’s SCUBA?”

I bust open my PayPal account and pay the whole course off with a recent Pinball Sale.

Wife hasn’t said a word about my “hobby” since.

I could’ve bought a Flash Gordon with that money!!!!!!

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I've had a few close calls recently.

1. Both the compressor and air handler stopped working on the ac this summer. Total cost to fix was under $20, capacitors both times. Did the fixes myself, so figure I saved enough for a pin by not getting ripped off.

2. My 4runner has 376k miles on it. Started stalling during idle about a month ago. Put in new plugs and cleaned a bunch of stuff, nothing helped. Put in fresh gas, hasn't stalled since. Actually sounds as good as ever and zipping up the hills again. So was a blessing in disguise. It will bring me no joy when I do finally replace it. Will no doubt be thinking that could be an Oktoberfest, Munsters and Willy Wonka instead.

Traded 2 pins for this. Son will have a “cool” car down the road.

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new roof!
leg operations!
constant bills!

the list goes on and on

I am grateful for what I have though

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only 2!!!! Holy-ish. a BBB and a Kingpin or what?!

Wow...on both accounts! Roof looks great and hope all goes well in your recovery! We all should feel grateful for each and every day.

The only real reason to switch is if you really want an endless shower device.

Sold my tron pro to fund the house down payment three years ago
Sold my No Fear last year to fund my bathroom remodel
Paid $6500 to convert from oil heat to gas heat; should save us long long term but sucks to dump a NIB amount of cash on a steam boiler
Dropped 28K on an SUV too. But at least I finally have a Pin hauler!

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I recently got married and will be going on a honeymoon next month.

You bet your ass I've computed what pins I could have purchased with that 20k.

The only saving grace is my wife loves pinball

I feel your pain, our new front door is getting installed tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I would have preferred to buy a nice new ACNC.

Just had pretty exstensive sinus surgery done and next week I’m getting a tumor taken out of my thumb - due in part to an injury received while working on my BTTF pin.
Going for the out of pocket max on my insurance this year! WOOP!

Two words: Foundation repair

$7,200 to rebuild 4 concrete steps and two brick piers that flank them on my 1911 Craftsman style house.

That's only the latest. Gotta get the 3 story beast painted this summer. That will easily cost more than a JJP game. I do love the old money pit though, with all the wood and leaded stained glass.

So tonight I'll cry in my beer while our brand spankin' new Total Nuclear Annihilation continues to kick my ass. Man, i have not been so hooked on a game in ages.

Don C.

I remind my parents often, best gift I ever got! Doing the same for my kids when the time comes.

Quite a honeymoon! But I bet there's other saving graces too

Screw that...way more fun playing with blobs of Mercury
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Wow! I'd snap that up for 12k in a heartbeat!

Man, i'm glad I am not alone about making these "adulting" choices to make the family/wife happy. Nice projects everyone.

We recently built a pool that sure as hell would have filled my garage with the pinball machines on my wish list. Photo taken from my rooftop... Still plenty of landscaping to do. This is where I come in.

Go figure, you can still build a pool in the middle of the desert in California while droughts are happening...

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you left out the "then bitch about the costs of, and lack of, water".

How bad does a girl have to look for fixing her base makeup to cost a huge amount?

Hopefully the girl doesn't require 9 steel piers set into her face to get the kitchen to be level again.

I thought this was a Munsters Mod !

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I can relate to this thread. 2018 had a few maintenance items

New front door. Man they can be expensive... public service announcement prevent rot at the bottom of the door frame or it will cost you a pin or two

New water heater, some new plumbing to go with that water heater

I swear I have a sign on my forehead that says” Charge me $5000.00, please!” It seems like every house project, medical expense..... you name it, costs over $1000.00. It never ends.

In the past year...

- Son's first year of college.
- New roof on house.
- New windows on house.
- Used car for daughter.

In the past two weeks...

- New snowblower.
- New washing machine(delivered just today).

Add all that up and it could have been six Stern Pros. LOL. Ugh...

Adulting isn't so bad. Sold a restored CC that paid for half of this about 9 years ago.

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Been paying off multiple medical bills since August, totalling over 5k. Had to get an emergency apendectomy, so yeah, that's definitely more important than another pin. Proudly been paying it off without relying on the popular online fundraiser method. Gofundyourself.

Ouch. No insurance? Hope you are healing quickly.

This is after insurance. Could've been much worse!

Don’t you just love those high deductible policies ? This becoming the new normal in insurance.

Holy Cow AJ. Didn't hear about this, but glad to hear you are still alive!! Took an expensive ambulance ride 4 years ago for what I thought was an appendix, but turned out to be kidney stones!!

Thanks man! The crazy thing is I went to the urgent care for something completely different (stomach illness) which I have had a recent history of. They did a scan to check my gallbladder, found nothing, but informed me that my appendix is ruptured. It was an entirely separate issue! They wanted to put me in an ambulance to go to Chandler Regional, but I told them 'no way'. Luckily my aunt and uncle drove me since I was on so much morphine.

You guys are killin me with the pretty VWs...

I've wanted my dads 64 Ghia for the last 20+ years....he sold it a couple months ago and its been very sad

Too bad he wasn't interested in trading some pins for it. Lol.

I wanted it SO bad, but he had to move it on, and I couldn't give it what it deserved right now. Got sold to a guy that does high end restorations on VWs....so, maybe I'll see it again some day...just not in my price range

Now....back to looking for that 85 Chevette I want again....no power brakes or steering or transmission there either, but more room for this big guy than a VW

Same boat here, redid my taxes three times, same result... Then a few days later I got to take advantage of my new higher medical insurance deductible, bonus!

PInsiders are wonderful!!! I was woken up at 6am to 50+ MPH winds this morning. Walking to the kitchen I could hear and feel the wind blowing through my front door. Sat down to check internet and clicked on this post. Laughed out loud when I saw the first pic. I have the same POS door!! I just sold 2 pins also to free up some cash.

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With these 60 MPH wind gusts buffeting my house barns and woods, I feel damage coming on that will require “ adult spending”!