Medical treatments, health investments. You don't get eye surgery in the trenches

Buy a Fully FOSS 3D printer. It's pointless to purchase any peice of tech to "avoid future regulation" if it still runs proprietary software you don't control. I would highly recommend checking out Voron printers. Fully FOSS at every level, firmware, hardware, schematics, etc. Voron Design

The catch is that you have to build it from scratch yourself. However, there are many places online to buy high quality premade kits, and the community is massive and thriving, you'll be able to follow guides easily.

I would also buy some bulk, long term digital storage if you don't have it already, and build yourself a simple NAS. The digital crackdowns are coming soon, and you're going to thank yourself for having terabytes of digital media and software that is impossible to get down the line.

ServerMonkey currently has 6TB refurbished enterprise HDDs for $175, and 24TB Seagate Exos CMR HDDs for $625 (even cheaper per TB.) if you don't need crazy performance, you can throw a few of those in an old PC with a few hundred bucks of hardware and be totally fine using it as a NAS/home media server.

Learn how to securely torrent if you don't already. If you're into LLMs at all, download current LLM models that are good at different sizes, even if you can't currently run them on your hardware, they will likely be banned in the near future because they represent a "threat" to the USA's corporate power and influence.

Download a local copy of Wikipedia and other online sites with something like Kiwix. Purchase pre-LLM era physical books on foraging, cooking, home and auto repair, electronics, child care, etc. Highly practical skills that will be useful to know as the general population becomes further dumbed down and reliant on proprietary, corporate slopware.

For those on a very tight budget, used is your friend. Old computer equipment is still quite affordable. You can pick up used t480 Thinkpads on Ebay for $175-$300. If you've got kids who need a laptop for school, pick one of those up and throw Linux on it.

If you're willing to swap, haggle, and hunt locally, you can get even better deals. Check if your area has a government surplus warehouse. When I was a kid, my family lived 15 minutes from one. They had literal pallets of government mini-pcs you could buy, 40 towers for a few hundred bucks. You could buy individual machines for $40-$75 there. Yeah they were old, beat up, janky, but they worked. And as a 14 year old kid who's only money came from doing random yard work for friends and family, it was a gold mine.

Check with your local businesses and schools and ask somebody there if they have "e-waste computers" they are looking to get rid of. Often times they do, and they will happily give you them for free. Normally, they have to pay a company to take those off their hands, so they will have no issue with you just taking them for nothing. I've gotten a bunch of old computers this way over the years. Don't be afraid to even ask the IT department where you work too. Some places have strict e-waste policies, but most don't. As long as there's no storage installed that could contain company/organizational data, they usually couldn't care less if an employee wants to take an old "junk" PC home with them.

Not sure if they're illegal yet, but foreign made routers. I only say that because Trump doesn't want us to have them, therefore we probably need them.

With the way inflation is going, nearly everything is better bought now rather than later. Especially appreciating assets.

You can't consume your way out of this

Before you buy anything make sure you research it first. Start buying things that you own the infustructure for. Don't buy a 3d printer that doesn't support Linux, or buy a 3d printer that won't be effected by the 3d printing laws that try to stop gun parts from being printed.

That logic should apply to everything. If you are buying a IP camera make sure to get one that does PoE and doesn't connect and ping hone to a server before sending you your data. Don't buy a WiFi garage door opener unless you installed the ZigBee switch yourself. You should aim to be able to do everything yourself without needing subscription models or useless internet of things devices.

Things you likely want now before they get further ruined:

A google pixel phone to flash and de google.

A car before ~2013 that you plan on learning how yo repair when it breaks down.

A AMD based PC with a a 16gig GPU. Thats like the absolute lowest end you can use LLM's and defuision models locally that don't completely suck ass. And if you're not much of a gamer or desktop user you can turn this PC into a server and run your own services in docker so you reduce your dependency on apps.

Buying a house is always advisable if you can afford it. And on the privacy front I think it is the best protected space we have. Not just by law but also by robust doors.

Not having to worry about a landlord who feels entitled is also pretty great.

Bidet, it's like 1000 times better and you can worry less about Costco shortages.