I use mine a lot, actually. Sometimes it's to calculate calories, sometimes to weigh ingredients based on recipes. Oddly, I find I use it most to measure butter. I use recipes that call for sticks or half-sticks of butter, but here in Montreal I can only seem to find unsalted butter in 500g bricks. (The equivalent of four sticks.) When I need to use a certain amount of butter, I find it's easiest to convert the amount to grams and weigh it out.

I'm a weight watchers nut so it's an invaluable tool.

I kinda wish I owned one, but I've never really NEEDED one. Even some of my English cook books that call for milligrams or grams of stuff, I just do a close enough volumetric conversion and nothing's ever gone terribly wrong.

I'll file it under "It'd be nice, but it's just something else I'd have to clean"

I bought one when I started Weight Watchers. I didn't think I needed it, but I was frankly shocked at the amount of meat I had been eating.

I love my scale - I think it's the exact same Salter one in the above pic! I use it mostly for baking and it's so great when I can weigh things like sticky brown sugar.

Ditto what acvaz said, only minus WW and about pasta. The package says a serving is 2 oz. dry (whole wheat pasta)...that's a tiny, tiny serving! The scale can be very illuminating!

I love mine. I finally figured out that the only way that I could express a recipe and expect others to have the same outcome (especially in baking) was with a scale. I should use it more than I do. It is indispensable for my favorite bread recipe. It is truly a "no fail" recipe when I use my scale.

I use my scale ALL the time, certainly in baking, but also to measure fruits or vegetables for a recipe. And it's great if I am using percentages, such as making 1.25 of a recipe, which happens with recipes for 9-in. springforms but I have 10-in. pans.

My scale is an 8-year-old black Soehnle Vera that cost about $30-ish. It has both grams and lb/oz, which is great, as I use European recipes, and Rose Levy Beranbaum offers both measurements. Sometimes it's easier to double or fragment grams.

I've not found a need to clean the scale much at all, as I usually measure things in containers that I'm mixing them in, or on wax paper, or the like.

We use ours everyday. Partly because we carefully monitor our calories but mostly because cooking by weight is much more accurate and produces better results than cooking by measuring cups which can vary wildly.

I use mine almost every day. Portion control, and also weighing ingredients instead of measuring by volume--it's so much faster and you don't have to wash measuring cups!

It's also good for weighing mail for postage...and if you're a knitter you can use it to calculate how much more yarn you need to finish your project!

I have two scales: a rough one that goes up to 5kg that I use every day, and a fine one that measures hundreths of a gram which I only use when measuring salt, yeast or spices.

I have a mechanical scale which I use almost daily - for weighing flour to make bread.

I often bake so scales are essential, and I can never eyeball pasta quantities so I have to weigh. My scales are right at the front of the cupboard!

I love my scale. Baking, beer-making, canning, and dividing balls of yarn.

I use it daily... for calculating servings and calories for nutrition, but also I use it to weigh ingredients (when possible) for baking. I find it much easier to weigh the ingredients than to make a mess with measuring cups.

You can also use it for weighing all sorts of other things. I imagine it would be useful in craft/art applications as well.

At $15 for my small "biggest loser" brand scale, I think it was one of my best kitchen purchases after my knives.

Love mine! Indisepensible for bread baking and for when I am trying out new recipes.

I have one, and I use it every day. Between Weight Watchers and the fact that my husband is Dutch and has several cookbooks that are all in grams, it's great. You'd be amazed how small a serving of something is once you measure it out.

I have a mechanical one with a removable bowl, so it's super easy to clean.

I have an electric one which I use pretty often. I use it to bake and to weigh vegetables. Most often I use it to figure out carb counts for things like chips. 10 chips may be a serving, but it's almost impossible to find 10 unbroken chips.

I have one, but I bought it, generally use it for mixing plastics and glues more than food. (carefully wrapped in a plastic bag,) but then I tend to use estimates for most baking. 'until it looks like...' is a commonly heard phrase for me.

Ours is one of the items that has earned a permanent location on the counter.

We buy lots of bulk items and use it to portion them into serving sizes for portion control when serving meals, and for adjusting recipes up and down by percentages.

I use mine for baking but realized just this past weekend, when trying to bake bread from a professional baking book, that it only does 5g increments. I will have to buy a new one, which isn't a hardship as my current one can be flaky.

Now I just need to decide if it's worth moving up to the next price bracket (over $50).

Couldn't bake without it.

I just graduated from old school scale to an electric scale. It was a bonus gift when I bought my new Breville mixer. The scale is a Breville one and comes with both an internal thermometer (for measuring ambient room temperature) and a thermometer probe. Since I got it I have been using it consistently though I a yet to find a use for the internal thermometer besides measuring how hot it is in my house in this Aussie summer. (Answer: HOT!)

I'm British so grew up with recipes in pounds and ounces that needed scales. Mechanical dial faced ones with a removable pan on the top mostly, but as a young child we still had my mum's old fashioned two sided balance with actual weights (really fun to play with as a kid). However, since a spell in the US in the late 90s - and also now because of recipes on the internet - I'm a complete convert to measuring cups! I love their convenience (using them just seems quicker than getting the scales out even if it's not really) and I also love the look of my shiny metal set hanging on my kitchen wall. I still have a white Salter electronic scale for all my UK recipe books, but find I use it less and less these days.

I do Weight Watchers and I live in England as an expat. I have to measure all.the.time. And I don't mind it one bit.

What smittysmit said:

Portion control, ease of cook/bake prep, postage, and taking the worry out of wondering if I'll have enough yarn to finish that second sock. :-)

Yes, my scale and I are BFFs!

julie -- Lactantia makes cultured unsalted butter in sticks.

I like my scale and it's useful when I'm using French recipes. Also, it plays double-duty as my yarn scale.

Yes! Love it for food and yarn alike. Invaluable, especially considering its <$30 price tag.

I love my Salter Aquatronic. It has made a huge difference in my baking success and I find it to be a time saver. I used to have the round stainless steel Salter and it failed early on. I've read many reviews of others having this same experience, but liking the Aquatronic. The one issue I have is flour particles gather under the glass display and I don't know how to clean that.

I use mine mostly when making pizza. Measuring dough ingredients by volume is a no no. And for weighing dry pasta, for some reason I always use way too much past unless I weigh it.

If you bake (especially bread) it is absolutely essential. I bought mine at Ikea and it was pretty cheap.

I use mine all the time, for all sorts of things, some of which aren't even food related.

I would love one that can measure single grams though, that would be heavenly for baking bread.

I don't use mine all that often, but I definitely do for making French Macarons, and for weighing packages before mailing them. It also opens up a whole new realm of recipes that I haven't ventured into quite yet.

I got one as a wedding gift and have pulled it out on occasion to measure ingredients for baking: it's so easy to add an ingredient - zero out - add the next ingredient - zero out, etc i don't use it daily though

Also great to divide meet bought in bulk before freezing it.

I've had one for about 15 years and use it everyday.

It is one of my pet peeves that American recipes are still mostly stuck in volume measurements (my other peeve is that recipes always assume that you have one of those highly over-rated Kitchen Aid mixers, but that's another rant!).

Eating wheat-free makes it essential - measuring out all the random flours is a ton easier with a scale, and the finished product is a lot tastier.

I use mine all the time when baking- especially when cooking macarons as precise weights are essential. I find it frustrating when a recipe lists both cup measures and gram weights, but they're inconsistent and you end up with a failed recipe (not mentioning any names - DONNA HAY).

I don't use it for stir-fries, stews etc though.

We buy ground beef in bulk, so I weigh out quarter-pound patties, wrap them in plastic wrap and freeze them, then store them in zipper bags. I am now baking all our bread, so I will start to use my little Salter mechanical scale instead of scooping and sweeping the flour because I live in oh-so-humid Florida, and the flour can gain/lose so much moisture while just sitting that it makes a big difference in the end product. Since flour (and sugar!) comes in paper bags, it can gain/lose a lot of moisture before I even buy it.

Indispensable. I have 2 digital scales, the large one similar to this one: http://www.amazon.com/Soehnle-66100-Digital-Kitchen-Scale/dp/B000VS22MA/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1296647613&sr=8-5
It switches between oz and grams, so no calculating and converting. And with the tara button, I'm never washing up extra bowls, because I simply weigh the stuff in the bowl I'm going to prepare it in. Yes, even in the large Kitchen Aid bowl.
The small scale is exact down to 0.1 grams, which I use for making beauty products, eg hand cream or bubble bath bombs.

Both scales are very slim and easily fit in the cutlery drawer. So they're not even wasting space and are accessible very easily.

It's one of those things I thought I didn't need or would only need on occasion but really it's become and invaluable tool in the kitchen. I prefer baking with it. I admit we also do things like weigh our mail and average it out for the week as well.

I can't imagine not having one. I think every household in the UK that bakes just has to have a scale, like having a kettle, since all our recipes are weighed.

I introduced my MIL to the concept of an electronic scale this summer (she has a vintage manual one which takes me forever to work out and can't be zero'd) and she actually agreed that she could see the benefits! After many years of 'mine is the best' this is a miracle.

Yepp, a digital one and I use it every day. I use to have the exact one featured in the photo but the display is very small. I got a new one when I started baking at my BF's house and it has a much larger, illuminated display.

The other BIG advantage over using cups is that there is much less washing up using a scale. Just the bowl that you're going to mix things in anyway and maybe a spoon (though most of my dry goods have a scoop stored inside.

I'm pretty good at maths but even I find doubling/halving a recipe is much easier when using a scale. And is is just me or does anyone get grossed out seeing Ina Garten leveling cups of flour with her finger?

I have this one and love it beyond measure (as it were):
http://www.oldwillknottscales.com/my-weigh-ibalance-5000.aspx

The plastic bowl is removable and you can put on your own bowl, then use the tare function to zero out the scale and start measuring directly into the bowl. Saves having to wash measuring cups and wipe off the counter from flying flour.

My baking has improved a great deal. My old method of measuring flour (drag the cup through the flour bin, then level off) was packing way too much flour into a cup. Using my old method, I should have been putting in about 3/4 of a cup for every cup called for in the recipe. If you don't want to buy a scale, at least borrow one once and see how your accurate your measurements are. Now my baked goods are much lighter and more tender, and bake more evenly. And a sack of flour lasts longer too!

When I was in college, every time I had a Baking class out came the scales, they were the heavy mechanical ones. Twenty years later I bought one, mainly for portion control, but love the new electric ones, I find I use it more and more all the time.

Mine are digital, a cheap brand I can't remember, but they work fine for what I need. I don't use them that often really, but I wouldn't be without them.

I hate measuring shortening and brown sugar, so I found info on how many ounces to a cup and all that for both of those and several other things like flour. I also use it for portioning out meat when I freeze it into meal sized portions (Costco purchases), breaking down bulk foods into manageable amounts that will fit in my kitchen containers, and measuring out equal amounts of coleslaw for my husband's lunches during the week.

My scale's old and not very fancy; it was in the garage of a relative's house and had been ignored until I came along.

I LOVE my scale. It's awesome for baking (I also just tare out and measure all my ingredients in one bowl), portion control, splitting up bulk purchases into portions, curiosity, mail, etc etc.