One of the joys of hitting the garage sales is that it gives me the opportunity to try out items with minimal investment. For example, a few months ago I was interested in getting a rice cooker. I shopped around a bit, and I worried that the twenty-dollar special at Target might simply be a piece of junk. While I was still pondering this purchase, I spotted a rice cooker at a garage sale that was new, still in its box. I asked one of the newly minted graduates how much she was asking, and she told me, “Uhhh, five bucks,” and then added that her mom had bought it for her, but she had never used it. Good fortune had befallen me, and I gleefully snapped up the secondhand appliance. It works like a charm, and spending five dollars, rather than twenty or more, it was easy to try out a new gadget.

Today I spotted a Camelbak hydration pack at a garage sale, priced at five dollars. Five dollars seems like the perfect price point for taking a chance on a potentially useful item. I’ve eyed them at sporting-goods stores, but thought the price point was too high for something that might not be terribly useful. The low-end ones like this one start at about twenty dollars and approach a hundred dollars. I inspected the bladder, and it didn’t seem too gnarly. I reminded myself that a regular bike bottle costs about five dollars at the bicycle store and that the bladders can be replaced, so I decided to take the plunge. I’ll have to see if it’s something I’ll use, but at least I didn’t spend too much money.