Mostly I get printers at the thrift store. For some reason people donate perfectly good working printers. They cost like $15 and all you need to do is find out what kind of ink they use and get some

I have internal curtains and blinds and this actually still works well, at least better than keeping them open. Maybe it would work better with externals but this is still worth doing if all you have is internal

I used to not have AC. I found the best strategy was to open up all the windows at night and let the cool night air in, and then as soon as I wake up I close all the windows, curtains and blinds to trap the cool air in and prevent the sun from heating it up through the windows. If you live in a house that has a basement and central heating, you could add some intake ducts down there and turn your furnace on to fan only mode to circulate the cool basement air into the rest of the house.

GM W-body and GMT platform cars from around 2002-2008 I’ve found to be decent. The GM 3800 V6 engine and 5.3L Vortec V8 are extremely reliable and easy to maintain yourself if you’re into that kind of thing. You can very easily replace the stock radio with an aftermarket unit that has Android auto/Apple Car play and won’t spy on you. Since it’s an American car and so many were sold in America, both new and used parts are pretty easy to find and pretty cheap. The biggest thing that kills these cars is rust, especially if you live in the salt belt, so just make sure you look underneath the car before buying.

Look for: Pontiac Grand Prix, Chevy Monte Carlo, Chevy Tahoe, Buick Regal, Chevy Avalanche/Silverado. A good example of these can be found for under $10k easily and if you look a little harder you can usually find good ones or ones that need minimal work for less than $5k.

Personally I plan on driving these cars until it becomes impossible to find them anymore. There’s a junkyard near me that specializes in GM cars where I can get parts for DIRT cheap.

Currently I have an 05 Avalanche (140k miles) and an 07 Grand Prix (165k miles). Before those I had an 05 Grand Prix which died only due to rust, engine and transmission still strong at 160k miles. They hardly ever have issues, and when they do they are typically cheap issues or issues I can easily fix myself.

Sure - they’re nothing flashy, but the cost of purchase + repairs is almost certainly less than the cost of a new or lightly used car alone. Also, minimal complicated computer systems, and no corporate spying.