My first computer was an ex-rental Mac Plus. I paid all of $350 for it in 1990 I think. 1MB of RAM, no hard drive, a single 800K floppy, keyboard from a 512 with no number pad, and a bulky mouse. But it was MINE.
I sold that Plus for $200 on Greensheet and upgraded to an SE from Sun Remarketing for $549 in 1992. 2.5MB RAM, 20MB HD, single 800K floppy, Std KB, and ADB mouse. Love that computer. No more playing with floppy disks all over the place. I loaded my stuff on the hard drive, and that was it!
My next computer was more awesomeness, but also much larger. In 1993 a friend wanted to trade, *EVEN UP*, my SE for his IIx. He needed his desk space back. So I went out and got a used 12" RGB monitor for $100 and was good to go. I now had 5 whole megabytes of memory and a 40MB hard drive. AND COLOR! It was crazy good.
I bought my first car, a 1975 Cutlass Supreme with two cracked heads and terminal rust in 1994 for $100. Sold it a few months later for $250 after rebuilding the top of the engine and trying futilely to patch the quarters. Used that money plus the proceeds from selling the IIx to buy my first NEW computer. This was an LC III from MacMall with 4MB of RAM and a 160MB HD. I didn't care about losing a meg of memory, I wanted that hard drive space and tiny footprint. Since I sold the 12" RGB with the IIx I also picked up an Apple Basic Color Display. That, looking back, was a really CRAP monitor. But I enjoyed that LC III for the next four years.
In 1998 I went on an eBay Mac buying spree. All in all, I ended up with a Plus, an SE with two 800K floppys, a II 2/40, a IIcx 1/80, a IIsi 2/40, a IIci 5/80, an SE/30 which didn't power on, a few LC and LC II models, and a stack of Centris 610's. One of those 610's stayed with me and I finally sold the LC III along with some of the others. Then I moved from Ohio to Texas and my parents donated the rest to Goodwill, thinking I wasn't coming back for them. When I came back, I was pretty upset because I had bought a logic board for the SE/30 and now I had to resell it unused.
The Centris 610 was upgraded to 36MB RAM and a 250MB HD (which I still have) soon augmented by a Duo 280 I got dirt cheap on eBay because it had no charger. I got a charger local in Dallas for $20 and loved that little laptop. By 2001 I got rid of the Centris 610 and picked up a computer I would have for four more years, a used Power Mac 6500/225 with no hard drive. I put in my 250MB from the Centris running 7.6.1 and loved it. Later I would use OS 8.5 on a 4GB HD which would be the first hard drive I would crash.
I also went on another 99-cent to $9.99 eBay computer buying spree in 2004 and ended up with a ton of 6100-7100-8100-8500-7600-4400 models. A guy basically emptied his garage of Macs into my Aerostar van for $60. I paid about $2 per computer. The 4400's sold for good money on eBay. The rest got abandoned when I went homeless in October 2004, except for the 6500, one 15" Apple display, and one keyboard and mouse.
In 2005 when I got married, my wife let me do it again. Another storage unit full of Power Macs. I made sure to get every 4400 I could find, too. And I made enough money to pick up an iMac DV SE. That worked fine for a year and in 2006 I found the ultimate CL find. A Power Mac G4/400 for $60. I still can't find them that cheap today in running shape! That served me for a year, I sold it for $150 and downgraded to a G3/300, then moved to PC.
I've since had a Gateway ML6230 ($349 at Best Buy), eMachines eTower 600 Celeron ($50 CL special), Dell Optiplex GX260 (P4 1.8, 3 of those for $60 shipped), eMachines EL1200-06w ($215 on eBay), a police seized Acer Aspire 5920 ($160ish), and my current pair of laptops:
Acer Extensa 5230E laptop, upgraded to a T4300, used as a desktop with 19" LCD
eMachines D620 laptop, bone stock for now, shopping for a 4450e/4850e CPU
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