$50
Wireless phone charger. I’ll be stuck somewhere looking at my low battery life, and suddenly remember it’s in my purse. It isn’t the fastest charge but it is useful.
A Victorinox Swiss army knife. Bought it used for 10€, and it has everything from a very good blade to screwdrivers, a bottle opener, pen and tweezers. Always in my pocket in case I need it.
A screwdriver kit with multiple head tips, can repair almost anything as long as I am given some schematics
$20 bread maker I found at at a thrift store. There’s no telling how many hundreds of loaves of healthy, fresh baked wheat bread I’ve churned out of that thing over the past two years, especially now that we’re grinding our own wheat too.
I loved my breadmaker back in the day. I’m in an apartment these days though, so no room for a new one after the last one broke.
Did you try getting rid of the old one and putting the new one in its former place?
I got a bread maker for free. I asked my coworkers and THREE different people said they had a bread maker that’s just sitting there, unused as gifts that they don’t want.
A basket/bowl thing for keys, wallet, and whatever one carries around. No more hunting for them when walking out the door.
I just leave my shorts or pants (depending on weather) hanging on the back of the door with everything still in the pockets (except my phone). I change them once a week or as needed and just transfer the stuff when I’m putting on the fresh pair.
My husband still doesn’t use it, the hunt for his keys is getting old
Put a tile or AirTag on them
Wool poncho. I’ve used it to stay warm, stay cool, as a groundcloth under my sleeping bag, as a blanket, as a pillow, as a decorative throw, as a cat bed, as a picnic blanket, as a beach blanket. It’s incredibly useful and versatile.
My pocket stun gun was $19.99. Decided I needed a defense mechanism I could conceal after an encounter with a scary aggressive homeless man.
Also has a flashlight.
Be careful with a stungun. It requires close range confrontation, and It’s not effective if the assailant is drugged up or heavily drunk and ignores the shocks.
Mace gives good distance, and pepper in the eyes doesn’t care about the stimulants in your blood stream.
Also practice with it. A large number of people carry self defense tools and choke under pressure/fail to use it correctly during situations.
I tested it on myself.
It works fine.
Make sure you also test it while drunk or heavily drugged up.
lol, you completely missed all that advice.
This has been “useful” to you? I hope mostly the flashlight and not the tazing homeless people part.
Go judge someone else. It wasn’t my decision to turn whole cities into mental institutions. It was Ronald Reagan’s.
Hahaha. Who said I was judging you? I hope you don’t need to be using a tazer often because it doesn’t sound like a fun existence. It sucks that we have homeless people in the richest country in the world, but that doesn’t mean homeless people can’t be dangerous. Take a chill pill please.
A dry erase notebook. $2. The marker that came with it is crap so that was another $12 for a pack of 4.
Tesa outdoor double sided tape.
That stuff is basically magic. It will stick anything to everything and you can remove it from almost any surface without leaving a mark. I used to stick a dashcam to my car window, a birdbath to my brick wall, a remote LED lamp to the ceiling (felt iffy, works great!). It’s even holding a metal plate from the doorknob in place because the door is more hole than wood by now.
It beats basically every other kind of tape of multipurpose glue, and it’s removable. It’s kinda thick though, so you might see it, but that’s also a feature when sticking rough textures to eachother.
I’m seeing lots of different tapes from Tesa. Is it PET? PVC?
It’s this stuff: https://www.tesa.com/nl-nl/consument/tesa-powerbond-outdoor-ean-4042448843432.html
Or your local version of it, but this website refuses to turn to other languages for me.
A mini pen I keep on my lanyard.
Cost me like $2.50, I thought it was too expensive for what I was getting but it works. Now when those bitches lose the pens, I can still write instead of dancing a pat-everything-pat-myself-look-for-pen-everywhere
- Knife sharpening steel
- squeezing bidet (made me realize how gross using toilet paper is)
- caffeine pills (extremely cheap compared to coffee and great if you’re in a hurry)
- Raspberry Pi Zero (tiny single board computer)
One way window heat shield. Reflects 85‰ of the UV back out. Sticks to the window using only water.
Noticeable difference in temperature for any sun-facing windows
I added these last summer too. Roughly a hundred bucks to cover three patio sliding doors. Huge difference.
Window film is so glorious. I have my bedroom windows blacked out with it, easier to sleep, and yes, always cool temperatures in there.
How easy are they to cut to size, or if you need to use multiple to cover a window how does the gap/seam look? Have been thinking of getting them, but we also want to replace our windows at some point. I assume you can’t just reuse them?
Pretty easy to cut, but of course it’s never be perfect, and it’s better to cut smaller than larger since it sticks to the window using water, and needs a complete seal, so any corners that overlap a frame will just slowly force the whole thing to peel off.
Very easy to re-use, it sticks using water and requires a flat piece of card (e.g. an old credit card) to spread it out over the window
Is that the static type then that are reused and just need water, with adhesive backed ones being single application only?
Huh, never heard of the adhesive type. I’ve used the static/water ones for ~4 years without any issues
At least in home depot, some of them come with a specific blade tool, or one that’s not too much more expensive. It’s hard/sharp enough to seamlessly cut through the tints, but not scratch your window.
Probably you mean 85% of infrared, not 85 parts per thousand (or 8.5%) of ultraviolet?
I did this at my last House and it was fantastic.
Just need to remember that once it’s dark outside the reflective side “switches” and everyone can see clearly into the house.
That’s just how a normal window works
Yes but the film has a one-way mirror effect and most people don’t put 2 and 2 together and think the window is opaque when is not.
wait really? and isn’t that always the case with any window?
Somewhere i worked had that. (Edit: but more for privacy)
It was so funny seeing passerbys using it as a mirror.
Absolutly funny 10/10
Even though I don’t regularly use it, I’m glad I have a p38 can opener on my keychain. Just in case I end up in a survival situation, it’s good to have alongside a good keychain bottle opener. Obviously not as good as a leatherman, but for under $20, yeah, these two are worth it.
I used to always carry one but it ripped holes in sooo many of my pockets
Yeah, I solved that by wrapping the pointy end in electrical tape. Works out pretty well.
a fred is a bit bigger but also good.
Oh yeah, that’s cool. I don’t know how comfortable I’d be eating out for the spoon end with the can opener blade so close to my face though, lol.
Now you need to find a can in a survival situation.
Fair enough. Its just one of those situations I’d hate to be in (i.e. starving but have a can of food with no can opener). Food so close yet so far…
Metal Chopsticks $9 https://www.amazon.com/BamLue-Stainless-Chopsticks-Dishwasher-Restaurant/dp/B07RTNWLM1 These are no longer for sale. They are not just for eating. Great for deseeding jalapenos, tomatos. Mixing small sauces. Too many uses to list. They are super durable. Very ‘buy it for life’ vibes. The tip texture is the most helpful. Not to be used as Ninja weapons.
I dont understand how people eat with metal or plastic chopsticks. Wood? Sure, it practically holds itself
Yeah rice is impossible for me with anything but wooden chopsticks
Chopsticks are also nice to mix fluids in a bottle because for some they are long enough
I also started eating potato chips with them, can reach deeper in + clean handsI’m gonna leave this right here…
SNACTIV LITE Finger Chopsticks… https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXG8ZTNG?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
eating chips with chopsticks also slows me down and some times prevent me from overeating chips
I do those things as well. I have some metal deep frying ones, they are about 14" long. I use them a lot when stirring deep soup pots. And when they are dirty, I use the fat end to swish the dish sponge around in deep containers that my had can’t fit in.
Ooh, I’ll try to remember this next time I’m having chips!
