>>my idea was a laptop so cheap that I wouldn't mind breaking it...
Or LOSING it. I left it on the plane. Stupid!
Once I realized that I could replace it for $172, that there was just a couple paragraphs of writing on it that hadn't synced, and that I could de-authorize it so it would require a strong password and a second factor to get logged into, I felt pretty glad I hadn't done it with my laptop.
Of course, my laptop being a fairly heavy brick, I would have noticed that it was not back in the pack.