I couldn't afford one back then either but I was free with the plastic money back then.
To be honest with you I think you can do without an expensive meter for recreational ponds. If you do everything right as far as construction and maintenance of your pond you shouldn't have any oxygen or PH issues in a pond. Situations that cause low oxygen in recreational ponds are preventable if you knowledgeable enough, which is one good reason to subscribe to Pond Boss and frequent this site.
99 percent of the time if you do have an oxygen issue with your pond and you didn't to anything proactively to prevent it, the most expensive oxygen meter in the world isn't going to help you.
Personally if you really want to buy a practical piece of equipment of the same price I would buy a surface aerator for emergencies. My Kasco 1/2 hp. surface aerator has saved my fish more than once during a long winter with thick ice and snow when even the diffuser wasn't enough. I've also used it in a production pond when an algae bloom was ready to crash. Of course these are high density fish populations higher than one normally finds in recreational ponds.
