SortStack #101 — 2026-09-18

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A US Forever postage stamp $0.78

   Forever stamps never expire and stay valid even after rate hikes — buying sheets before an increase is one of America's tiniest investments.

2. A single Powerball lottery ticket $2.00

   The odds of hitting the jackpot are about 1 in 292 million — you are far likelier to be struck by lightning multiple times in your life.

3. An Xbox Series S console $349

   Microsoft has long sold consoles near or below manufacturing cost, betting on game sales and subscriptions to make the profit.

4. The average used car in the United States $27.5K

   During the pandemic chip shortage, some lightly used cars briefly sold for more than their brand-new equivalents — dealers couldn't get new stock.

5. Pixar, when Disney bought it $7.4B

   The 2006 deal made Steve Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder — he had bought Pixar from George Lucas two decades earlier for about $10 million.

6. Building the US Interstate Highway System, in the dollars of its day $114B

   Championed by Eisenhower after he saw Germany's autobahns, the system took 35 years to declare complete — the original estimate was a fraction of the final bill.

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