It seems most anything I buy these days causes me to either want or need something else connected to that item, so the money originally spent on the extras eventually exceeds the cost of the original item.  

I learned the hard way that our Culligan-softened water kills Keurig coffee makers.  The first pot lasted three or four months, I think.  Keurig replaced it at no cost, but that one died even a quicker death.  Actually, neither of them totally died:  We still use the second one, but we can only use it with our ground coffee in a little wire basket, because the K-cups stopped working on both Keurigs.  The wire basket let a few of our grounds through, so I ordered tiny filters for them; I found those on Ebay at 1/3 the price of Amazon.  Ss you can see, even though I don't buy K-cups, that Keurig keeps me spending money anyhow.

Then there's the Instant Pot.  I wanted to make a cheesecake in it, but I needed a special pan that would fit inside the IP, so I got that.  Then I read that if I cooked foods with onions or other smelly ingredients, I'd need two silicone rings; one for smelly foods, one for desserts.  So I ordered a couple of extra silicone rings.  This week I realized how helpful it would be to have a glass lid for the Instant Pot and ordered that.   I could go on, but I'll spare you the rest of the details.  Why is it everything I buy leads to me buying more "stuff"?

Of course I'm going through the same thing with Gabe, but I knew that before I got him.  Dog food; the usual costs of owning a puppy, like neutering and vaccinations; grooming and boarding; and so forth.  He does cause me enough smiling and laughter to make it worth the money spent, though.

Here's another problem I've had with using an Instant Pot.  I'm finally getting comfortable with it and finding recipes with accurate amounts and cooking times:  The first time I cooked a chuck roast in it, I googled recipes to find out how long it should pressure-cook and I found everything from 35 minutes to 90 minutes for the same size roast!  I figured I'd start with 45 and go from there, and ended up re-starting the cooker at least three times before the roast was done.  Even then it could have used a little more time.  The learning curve everybody talks about is, in my case, related to the fact there's too much wrong information around.  I needed to learn the right times on my own, as it turns out.  

Another problem, now that I'm using the Instant Pot so often, is I'm so excited to try making the next luscious meal that I tend to go ahead and cook it, forgetting half of the stuff I cooked yesterday is sitting in the refrigerator as leftovers.  Then I have two meals of leftovers to juggle around so they don't rot before I reheat them!  If you've been reading my blog awhile, you know I hate throwing food away.  Any recipe I make has at least two meals' worth of food, since it's just the two of us and we don't take seconds.  I think after we eat the kraut and kielbasa today at noon, I'll be at liberty to make something new again.  I'm thinking broccoli and cheese soup.

While I'm on the subject of my new-fangled contraptions, I found a recipe for my bread machine (which has never forced me to buy anything extra except bread flour and yeast, by the way) that's the best I've made yet.  The directions say to let the yeast dissolve in water, but after reading a few of the reviews, I didn't do that.  The bread rose high and delivered a nice, soft loaf of white bread just like I used to make by hand in the old days.  If you're interested, the recipe is HERE.  There's also a recipe we like that uses a mix of bread flour and whole wheat flower:  Honey-Wheat bread.  

With all the horrible things I'm hearing on the news lately, I think I'll just crawl back into my cave and pull the hole in after me... not a difficult task for a loner, and I get better at it the more I practice it.  Meanwhile, I bid you peace.