Garage sale system

When I was building my media room my wife gave me an impossibly small budget for electronics, after purchasing my televisions I had barely $1,000 for everything else. In order to make this work for me, I spent hours on Craigslist/eBay/forums flea markets and garage sales.  This also lead me to hone my diy and repair skills in returning much of the equipment to its original condition.  While my system cannot compare to some of the insane systems on this site, I had as much fun searching for pieces as I have had using it.  I am always interested in hearing similar stories.

my system 
denon x4000, $75--pawnshop (did not understand hdmi switching)

dual 1242 turntable with shure v15 iii $40---garage sale... lots of rebuilding on this one, but had my students use our 3D printer to make most of the replacement parts. 

marantz universal disc player ud5007 $35--garage sale

klipsch heresy speakers $200 plus $200 for modifications--garage sale

schiit optimodi and mani $60 (not a fan of the modi at all)---Craigslist 

klipsch vf36, with klipsch rc3 2 center and 15 inch klipsch pro sub (insane craigslist find, well worth the 5 hours of driving) $100... the towers were going to be my mains, but they are much better as movie surrounds 

and a monoprice tube preamp $65  for headphones and to soften my Amazon Alexa (only thing new)---monoprice

all in I had a few hundred dollars left for cables and other odds and ends