A bottle jack. Super cheap, but when you need to lift something super heavy, a bottle jack is the goat.
What? Really? Are they better than other options?
If you have a traditional tire jack, it can’t lift nearly that amount of weight.
A screwdriver set with all the tiny weird heads that you almost never would use. I got one as a gift and it’s been really useful
Yes, but please, get a good one. A crappy one is likely to strip heads.
Ifixit sets are highly regarded.
I have a Wiha set, but that may be overkill for many.
Electric air compression gun.
Good for cleaning and for cooling down after a workout
A 10,000 mAh power bank with attachments to jump start your car or charge your phone. Also has a built in flashlight. It’s come in handy on a few occasions now.
I understand that there are new ones now that also have a built in air compressor for pumping up your car tires, but I don’t know how good they are.
A leatherman multitool.
There are really nice ones over $100, but they also make versions under that price as well. I’ve used them in a pinch on cars or other random projects.
zinc oxide paste(diaper rash), . they are used for baby rashes, and also adult rash. but they are also useful for certain kinds of dermatitis, weeping atopic dermatitis rash it stops it from weeping and dries it out in between topical medication regimens so you dont get too used to a topical medication, this can help extend that.
and helps with sweating in areas with alot of friction too from getting irritated like your crotch (aka swampballs or boob sweat rash)area. allegedly people have used it on perioral dermatitis, but it works on some but not others, because the highest percentage is very drying so dont use when your skin is already dry, also the brand name ones or equilvalent has Talc, get the non-talc versions instead.
originally i never considered buying sonic or electric toothbrush until it was reccommended by a dentist, and i was super excited how well it clean without aggressive or inefficient brushing of a manual toothbrush, i opted for generic toothbrushes since the brand names were quite expensive, generic toothbrush head replacements over brand name replacements which are fraction of the cost, any electric or sonic toothbrush over 100 is just pure marketing holds no real benefit over the cheaper ones, especially the “smart” ones.
For swamp crotch, Gold Bond is the GOAT.
If you use an electric toothbrush, every two or three brushing, use a manual one. Both brush differently, so you will reach more nooks and crannies by alternating.
A portable power bank.
My work gave me one a few years ago, and while I only end up using it a few times a year, when you’re in an airport or on the road somewhere and you need to charge a device, it is glorious to have. Cheap and exceedingly useful.
I’m actually planning to get a bigger portable generator, just as planning for climate change, as I expect more outages in the future and want to have access to power regardless.
An oil sprayer. I was looking for gift ideas and came across a “misto” brand oil sprayer and now I use it all the time! No more spray cans of oil and God knows what else, you just fill it half way with whatever oil you want (except coconut oil for some reason) and you pump it to pressurize the oil so you can spray whatever you want.
Head lamp with both red and white light, a game changer for walking the dogs. Red light preserves night vision
Yeah and if you’re camping or anything a red light is awesome you don’t need to blind everyone to go get wood or chuck a piss etc
This one is way below $100, but about ten years ago I bought a roll of twist tie wire at a dollar store. It’s fifty or a hundred feet, with a little guillotine cutter. It’s still just a bunch of twist tie, but it punches WAY above its weight with quality of life improvement. No more hunting for the one you dropped, or wondering how you’ll close up a veggie bag. Also good for (fairly light) pictures that use wire instead of sawtooth hardware, and I’ve used it in a pinch when I didn’t have cable ties. I dunno. It’s just an oddly useful substance to have lying in your junk drawer.
I had that same revelation decades ago, and always keep a roll in the junk drawer.
One day, I was out with my father-in-law, and I saw a twist-tie roll for sale and bought it for him. It was only a couple of bucks, but he received that gift like it was a bag of gold. He immediately thought of how handy it would be.
Funny how simple things like that can excite us when we get older.
Another one in the theme: Fishing line or nylon string. A transparent fishing line can hang pretty much everything and supports 10kg or more.
Need to cut a cake into top and bottom halves? Fishing line can do that too. Do a hitman choke thingy around the cake.
Keychain? Can be done, why not.
Nail is too far to hang stuff? Just tie a fishing line between the things
Cracked plastic needs extra support? Fishing line.
Out of zip ties? Fishing line.
or wondering how you’ll close up a veggie bag.
Get yourself some of these for all of your bag-closing needs: https://www.ikea.com/se/en/p/bevara-sealing-clip-anthracite-dark-yellow-90524179/
Costs just above 1 EUR for a set of 6, so you can probably even afford to get 2 or 3
I’ve just been hoarding all the twist ties that come with other purchases. Only costs me a little bit of sanity every time I look in that drawer.
In this theme, you can get so many rubber bands for cheap.
Just be careful of the material you get. There are some that degrade over time. That said, I loved playing with bags of rubber bands when I was a kid. I’d stick my hands all the way in the bag and just squish them around. It feels great!
French press. Didn’t even know what one was until I was around 50, thought it was some fancy, complicated thing I wouldn’t care about.
My wife drinks coffee day and night so we have 4 methods of making it. The cheapo French press is the best IMHO. Use whatever coffee grounds you like, make it as strong or light as you like.
Mine was $11 on Amazon. Finish wore off, looks like shit, works fine.
A bidet
Add me to the list of folks preaching the bidet
I should really get one. Blasting my ass with water sounds cool.
It’s refreshing on a hot day in the summer
What about a cold day in the winter?
Mine has a warm water feature so yes
Yes
Various I²C compatible chips from Adafruit + a raspberry pi zero. Endless possibilities.
I’ve bought a number of raspberry pico chips abs a pack of generic esp32s over the last few years and every time I think I have enough as backups I suddenly find more uses for them! I have an old floor radio converted to act as a light/dimmer control, makeshift hvac control, and flip a night light (also made from a pico w) in the bedroom, another one in the living room in a little coffee table box using home assistants api over WiFi. I also have 3, soon to be four (adding some really fun electromagnet parts) to convert an old electric organ to a full virtual pipe organ. This project was what got me started, the “off the shelf” conversion kits looked like they were running off an esp32 ish and mcp23017’s and cost $1,500-2,000 for just the pcbs, no wiring and no speakers etc. doing it with the picos and a crap loads of doorbell wire $160+$600 for high quality speakers, and $260 for a touch screen and vesa arm. So complete project cost me $600 less than just the pcbs. The fourth one I was waiting for cheap used parts to appear on eBay, they are insanely expensive new ($30-50 each) and I need 56 of them. It’ll be a similar price saving at the end of the day!
Long ramble to say these chips are cheap and don’t take long to help make life more convenient, and sometimes way cheaper if the project was niche.
I bought an LED customizable marquee nametag for $30 at a convention. It makes sense for a con; but it also works at any function where you’d have a nametag even better than those stickers since it can cycle through 8 messages (it holds up to 4097 bytes) and can even display images (though it is only a monochrome display so B&W pixel art works best) in a myriad of patterns as well as flash.
Cooking thermometer probe. Take the guesswork out of cooking and never overcook and dry out your meats again.
