When I was knee high, I managed to scrounge up enough money to get me a cheap Chinese Sanwa clone. This was somewhere in the late 90's. I blew up the meter in so many ways, that even now I'm amazed of how it performed. Also, in many cases, I had no idea what the hell I was doing, so you can imagine that poor multimeter had it's share of
Growing up, I felt the urge to go digital. I had my sights on what seemed like the best multimeter on the market ( flea market, that is) It was a DT 9208A. Complete with transistor tester and capacitance meter.
One late evening, its life was cut short due to it being exposed to 220V AC....while being in continuity mode. I thought I had it in Volts mode. Oooops. However, when I took it apart, despite having no real input protection, the case somehow held the angry pixies inside. No fire, no nothing.
Since then, I've had a pair of the cheapest smallest Uni-t DMMs for regular use
...and use an HP 3478A for precision work.