You may or may not have luck with secondhand pots and pans. If it were me, for the right price, it wouldn’t matter if they got abused.

My frying pans from Made In are great, but they have no helper handles. They heat very evenly and I have had great results. I was able to make eggs in my uncoated pans and I very often did not have problems with sticking. (This was not the case with my old frying pan that bit the dust. Uneven and lots of sticking.)

Cuisinart and Tramontina are both pretty great. I have a stock pot, a 8 quart pot, and sauce pans from these brands. Not super expensive and can handle some abuse. I got the recommendations from Serious Eats and am happy. I would recommend you look at these if you want to buy new. I got these to replace hand-me-downs and secondhand stuff I got that was thin and single ply. Couldn’t afford All-Clad. When I got them, I thought I was going to be counting the days until I could replace them, but after using them, I’m in no hurry. I haven’t measured, but they are thick and haven’t shown any signs of warping.

Whatever you do, do not get anything with nonstick coating. You need to baby it and it still wears out too fast.

Made In makes a universal lid that may interest you. My partner doesn’t have the patience to find the right lid so she uses it a lot.

I agree that helper handles are great for larger capacity cookware but it would seem more cumbersome for smaller items like an 8" frying pan or a smaller saucepan. You can get a 12" frying pan with a helper handle, but smaller will be difficult to find. You could look into saute pans, which are very versatile and usually have helper handles.

Depending on how much money you’re willing to spend, I would go with a relatively inexpensive set/get a few individual pieces from Cuisinart or Tramontina. In my experience, their stuff is awesome for the price. I haven’t regretted my purchases from them.

I had a secondhand pot that had a second bottom stuck on to even out the heating as far as I could tell. It fell off. Maybe fixable.

I had it for 10 years so I was satisfied I got my money’s worth and bought myself a much nicer pot.

I LOVE my Breville toaster oven/air fryer. I got mine secondhand because they are pretty expensive new. I use it nearly every day and have been for the last two years. It shows no signs of stopping (but it needs a good cleaning… Oops.)

doorbell rings

At first, very hard.

I left an abusive relationship. I was afraid for my life. He made it clear that I should have been scared though, after some incidents incited by him.

He financially abused me and I had nearly nothing to my name. I took care of our daughter myself. He fought for custody of her. I fought back, and got sole custody.

I would get “anonymous” CPS reports filed against me. It was always nerve-wracking, but nothing was ever substantiated.

He still continues to try to get access to my medical records, to find something to use against me. It has been a decade now.

He still finds ways to mess with me via supervised visitation. (They allow him to break the rules.) I have to brush it off and endure it. Nothing more can be done. I was hoping he would lose interest but he has not.

He had to go to a batterer’s intervention class. Based on the court reports, he has not accepted any responsibility for what he has done. He has, however, gotten new vocabulary to weaponize against me and claims that I was abusive. (The incidents in question include me telling him to stop spending money on himself so I could pay rent. Apparently that is “financial abuse” and I “had all the power in the relationship because I made all the money” when he refused to work, but was able to.)

He is tens of thousands of dollars behind on child support. Every time I try to get court to enforce it, he brings me back to court. It costs me a lot of money so it is cheaper to not even try. (He affords it by having his dad pay for it. He doesn’t even pay for the lawyer himself. I, however, pay for my own lawyer.) Every time we tried to garnish his wages, he would quit his job.

I have to be very careful with how I live my life because he tried to find me doing anything out of line to take me back to court. If I lose and he gets unsupervised access, he will harm our child. I am afraid of what will happen when I no longer have a restraining order to protect me, but at least I am an adult that can protect myself. (The restraining order has already helped me a few times…)

It is exhausting.

However, life is so much better now. I worked hard and it paid off. I don’t have a leech spending all of our money on video games while I bring in all the money, do a lot of the household duties, and take care of a minor child. I don’t have to worry about my bank account having much less money and not being able to pay bills, because my partner saw something they wanted. I don’t have to fear my own safety in my home. I don’t have to shove all of my feelings down or else be belittled. I don’t have to be held back and sabotaged, because me achieving something hurts my partner’s feelings. I can have friends again without him inserting himself into the friendship or cutting them off from me.

It is much better.