What employees spend their learning stipends on

I realized that a lot of companies have some sort of annual learning stipend/continuing education benefit, but tons of folks (including me a few times) wind up leaving $$$ on the table by spending it on nothing, letting it expire unused by EOY.

Over the past few months, I've asked my friends about their favorite purchases they've managed to get approved and built stipends.fyi to start to compile them [still a WIP].

Let me know if you have any other helpful (or questionable) purchases you've managed to expense and I'll add them—hope you find the list useful! Even if you don't find anything interesting on the list, hopefully this reminds you to expense a book or class you've been eyeing.

Note: most of the links are affiliates, which give me a few % commission if you wind up using them, half of which I donate to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the other half of which I selfishly use to buy more books for myself :)