What are your favourite things under 50$ that make your life a bit easier or more pleasant?
I need some holiday gift ideas (that I will probably gift to myself as well)!
Enough phone and laptop chargers to not have to constantly go to another room to grab one.
Yes! I had enough of this so I bought like 6 USB-C cables at once, best buy ever
What's the current recommendation for those? Is it still Anker?
Also be sure to get a medium length one. It's so much nicer having a 6' cable, or 10' if you want to get crazy with it. It makes traveling and transit much nicer (ex. University students working on campus), and it might be nice for home so you can roll all over your bed while on your phone
Kwikset actually sells “programmable” padlocks
Pretty much all locks are re-keyable. Kwikset's "smart key" system is different only in that you don't have to buy new pins and take the lock apart to do it.
(I'm switching from Kwikset to commercial-grade Schlage because I wanted to upgrade the durability of my interior locks and wanted the exterior ones to match, so I'm about to find out how much more difficult normal re-keying is. Wish me luck!)
Normal rekeying is pretty easy, if you're careful - push out the core (the "follower" will hold your spring pins in place), dump out the old key pins, swap to the new key, and put in the new key pins, replace the core. Even when I've completely screwed it up (pushed the follower too far so the springs came out, mixed all the key pins together so I had to work out which was which, and more) it's not been more than a 10-minute job.
Rechargeable batteries. They have paid for themselves many times over by now. Less guilt about throwing away dead ones, too.
This, entirely. I remember back 10, 15 years ago, rechargeable batteries were trash. Gave them a second shot recently, and I'm genuinely surprised. They're as good, possibly even better than, non-rechargeables
One thing to note is that many of the cheaper rechargeables do not work very well with older electronics.
This is because the nominal voltage on alkalines tend to hover around 1.6 volts when they're fully charged whereas on rechargeables they tend to hover closer to 1.4, and that may not seem like a lot but when you've got something that uses six AA's and you short it out the equivalent of nearly one full battery then things are bound to get a little wonky.
The set I have (Duracell) is at least 10 years old - the charger has "copyright 2009" on it fwiw. Not sure they hold a charge for quite as long as originally, but they work for what I need (TV remote, RGB lighting remote, beard trimmer). I can only imagine how much better they have gotten!
+1 for rechargeable batteries. I love my Panasonic Eneloops!
Here's an unusual one - an M.2 SSD to USB adapter.
Most, if not all, laptops come with SSD's nowadays, and they're usually pretty easy to take out from a laptop. Gather some old, broken laptops, and take out their SSD's. They're so much faster than USB flash drives, I prefer to use SSD's where possible. Plus, it helps with e-waste
Could even make this a little simpler - if somehow you're not using an SSD at least as the primary boot, please god change that immediately. $50 can easily get you 512gb, often even a TB.
I did the same with laptop HDDs. So many cheap storages.
I'd be careful with that suggestion. Some external readers will only read SATA M.2, Dube will only read NVMe M.2.
Ideally you'd want I've is each or one that will do both for maximum compatibility.
Though most drives do seem to be NVMe now.
This is stupid. But socks and underwear. All new socks and underwear.
I love throwing out all my old ragged socks and having a bunch of brand new pairs in the drawer.
Key to this is identical ducts socks. No more sorting
Bought 20 pairs of identical black socks. Best investment ever.
I have summer and winter socks, never need to sort. Its great and I throw out the holy ones and I am never left with an odd pair
That's... genius.
Adding mine:
Didn't know of PineTime, how is it for training?
I don't know! :) I do not track my exercise.
Well, you have a relatively good step counter imo (disclaimer: I haven't used other smartwatches before, can't compare) and a basically useless heartrate sensor. Other basic functionality is decent
Electric teakettle if you use an older style stovetop one. The lowest end ones I've seen are only like $15, and work pretty much as well as some nicer ones, just don't look as pretty, but they'll boil water faster than the stove will. Even if you don't make tea or similar, if you ever eat things like pasta that are cooked in boiling water, you can heat the water in the kettle first and then transfer to the pot to make things slightly faster, and use less gas if you happen to have a gas stove.
Not only are they useful for their typical purpose, but they boil water faster in pretty much any boil water use case. Use the water for your pasta, hard boiled eggs, etc.!
Relevant Technology Connections: https://youtu.be/_yMMTVVJI4c
TC is always relevant.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/_yMMTVVJI4c
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Yay technology connections! My favorite pedantic internet nerd! Was excited to find he's on mastodon
Haha, I am in the UK, so we all have at least 1. I have 2! One for my office desk because I am addicted to hot water bottles and nice tea. :) As a yankee transplant, I advocate an electric kettle hardcore to everyone in the US. Y'all don't know what you are missing.
I cannot recommend the Aeropress enough. It makes such great coffee at its price point. Its quicker and less wasteful than a lot of other popular single cup options coughKeurigcough
I hear everyone singing the AeroPress praises, and while I like mine I actually much prefer my Chemex. I like the taste a little more, those Chemex filters are great.
But anyways, can't go wrong with either. Then you get them hooked on an expensive hobby 😂
Deli containers are a game changer. Never have to search for a lid that fits.
Nice link! Poached it for !houseplants@lemmy.ml
Instant Pot (on sale): There is legitimately so many things you can make in these. Many of them do sous vide too, which is one of the best ways to cook meat.
Powered ratchet: For anyone who works on their own vehicles, a cheap powered ratchet is a godsend. I bought one for oil changes and car repairs and it's my most used tool in my bag. I'm mad I spent so much time without one. Walmart's Hyper Tough brand powered ratchet is $40 and holds up very well. Extended reach one is often on sale for $50-55.
E-Ink reader: Another often on sale item. If you have someone who loves books, having an entire library in your pocket with a built-in backlight for night reading that's also easy on the eyes is a great thing. Coupled with Calibre and some....sourced epub files.....and you can read a lot for free.
Vacuum sealer: Never have freezer burned stuff again. And keeps things fresh in the fridge longer. Also works great for sous vide for the above-mentioned Instant Pot.
Can you share some instant pot meals/ideas? I got one and it barely gets used. Every time I look stuff up or ask peoole it's the same "crack chicken" recepies.
Mine is essentially a big power hungry medium boiled egg maker. Really wish it got more use.
Dried beans (includes garbanzo etc). With an automatic pressure cooker like that cooking dried beans goes from an ordeal where you have to soak them overnight and watch a pot for 5 hours and probably get indigestion because they're undercooked anyway to, spend 2 minutes throwing in the beans and water and pressing the button and then come back sometime between 1-5 hours later to perfectly cooked beans. Save money and space in your pantry getting rid of cans.
Anything sous vide (if yours has a sous vide button). You can use ziplock bags in Leiu of a vac sealer. Chicken or steak sous vide and then quick seared in a hot pan for color is the best.
Olive Garden style Chicken Gnocchi soup (dozens of copycat recipes online). You can buy pre-packaged gnocchi or make it yourself. Get a loaf of French bread to toast cheap at the grocery store and it'll blow your mind.
Basically any Chili recipe can be made 5-10x faster pressure cooked. No need to simmer it for hours.
Use it as a rice cooker. Pressure cooked white rice tastes like Chinese restaurant sticky rice and take 10 minutes. Get a box of frozen orange chicken from Costco and you've got Orange chicken over rice in about 18 minutes. Or cook some refried beans, brown rice, and fried eggs for a quick breakfast. Nothing beats a salt and pepper runny yolk egg soaked into rice.
Hard boiling eggs you mentioned already, but if you like egg salad it's a great way to make easy peal boiled eggs for mashing into egg salad in the fridge.
Those are just a few things I use mine for ranging from moderate to simple.
It’s basically a pressure cooker, so…..
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pressure-cooker-chili-recipe-1942714.amp
Here's my favorite recipes, I use it every week:
Ribs - easy to get super consistent results, pressure cooking helps keep moisture in. (https://www.pressurecookrecipes.com/easy-bbq-instant-pot-ribs/)
Clam chowder - creamy New England style, I add extra seasonings to amp it up. The clams I get in cans and bottled clam juice so the only non-shelf-stable ingredients are onions, carrots, celery, and garlic (https://recipes.instantpot.com/recipe/new-england-clam-chowder-2/) My additions: To make it more hearty and thick I do 3 cans of clams instead of 2, 4ish strips of bacon bits, an extra stalk or 2 of celery, between 1.5 and 2 lbs of potatoes instead of 1, and parsley and paprika in the same amounts as the thyme and oregano.
Spaghetti carbonara - my new cook book addition. grating the cheese adds more work, but overall still very simple as far as instant pot recipes go - saute the pancetta and reserve, saute onion and garlic, pressure cook pasta in broth, stir in butter, cream, cheese, egg, and pancetta when done (https://pressureluckcooking.com/instant-pot-spaghetti-carbonara/)
Corn chowder - really similar to the clam chowder but good for if you're not feeling seafood, like most of the recipes I favorite, the steps mostly amount to dumping all the ingredients in, pressure cooking, and stirring in something extra at the end (in this case cornstarch and half&half to thicken) (https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/instant-pot-corn-chowder/)
I also use the instant pot some for other recipes but I lean heavily towards 1 pot meals and stuff where I can get away with putting 90% of the ingredients in for the pressure cooking step, that does mean a lot of soups but I'm working on adding more pasta dishes to my repertoire.
(Edited to add recipe links)
A lot of my use for my instant pot is to make batches of chicken stock to stick in the freezer.
Other than that these are a few of my most frequent recipes:
Spicy Instant Pot Carrot Soup
Chicken Tikka Masala
Chicken Adobo
Cilantro Lime Chicken
The last one isn't really a pressure cooker recipe, but you can make nearly any slow cooker recipe a pressure cooker recipe by just cooking it under pressure for about 30-45 minutes.
Love making risotto in mine. Easy weeknight meal (depending on the recipe).
PS: Older refurbished kindles are a steal!
Indeed
If you have decent freezer space, there's no excuse to not use a vac sealer. I have so many friends that constantly complain about meat prices but don't take advantage of buying meat on sale in bulk. With a vac sealer, you can really get ahead. Also processing and preparing your own meat products (burgers, sausage).
We also vac seal soups and broths!
Also, on the topic of slow cookers, while not $50 and under, a ninja foodi is a pressure/slow cooker and air fryer combo. I literally use mine everyday. It gets more use than my microwave or stove.
Seconding the vacuum sealer.
Kitchen scale. Baking is much better with weight measurements instead of volume. Also useful for calculating calories.
Headlamp. Having light where you don't need to hold a phone or a flashlight is great.
Digital meat thermometer. No more guessing.
USB charging hub. Charge many devices at once.
They should call those thermomeaters.. random thought
To my brain, that sounds like what someone would call their penis while jokingly trying to get their partner to take their temperature.
"Open up for the thermomeater babe, gotta make sure you don't have a fever!"
...I was referring to taking a temperature orally, but I guess they could mean rectally, too, lmao
I call them meatmometers.
I’ll second the meat thermometer. I bought one a little while ago and find that it prevents me from overcooking things out of an overabundance of caution.
No more dried pork chops or chicken! I probe everything I eat. I also used a "Meater" to cook our Thanksgiving turkey, came out ridiculously juicy.
Wireless ones are fantastic, can BBQ and cook in the kitchen without worrying about over/under cooking
I bought a scale to start measuring my coffee a couple years ago and only recently realized I could be using it for cooking. Was definitely a game changer
A really great meat thermometer, like a thermapen, can be very pricey
Yep, got one. They're lovely and read in one second and are extremely accurate, but a simple 4 or 5 second reader will do the job just fine for most applications. Those can be had for around 25 USD.
Headlamp is the low key goat of tools for home improvement.
Why stop with one head lamp? I have so many flashlights and head straps.
So many things in your house that are probably pissing you off:
You can also soak your faucet diffusers in citric acid to remove built-up limescale.
Ooof... Half that list is illegal to DIY in Australia. We have the dumbest laws for electrical and plumbing.
Pro-tip for the spray foam - if blocking air from the outside, spray a little bit of foam, add a "wall" of steel wool, then spray more foam on that. Stops the mice chewing through it
There's a 100% chance the mice will find your spray foam, so this is important (unless you like mouse shit inside your insulation).
A red nightlight or two somewhere between your bed and the bathroom. Red doesn’t wake you up as much or destroy your night vision. Ideal for trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Oh snap I need this
Big ol' bag o' weed
Came here to say this. Happy 420 to anyone on that planet in the correct timezone
Great topic idea! Here are some of mine, I'll add links later:
- A refillable oil sprayer so that you can buy any oil you want and evenly coat a pan. Great for searing and air frying
What kind do you have? I bought one off Amazon and it was dogshit
Here you go: Mistifi Oliver Oil Sprayer for cooking, Spray bottle 6oz, Non-Aerosol Refillable Dispenser Oil Mister FS601 Green Vegetable https://www.amazon.com/Mistifi-grilling-displenser-Non-Aerosol-vegetable/dp/B088D23YJQ
A bidet
People always underestimate how awesome bidets are when they haven't tried one.
I haven't read all of the comments on here, but here are mine that are more beauty related that improve my quality of life:
That's all I can think of right now, but those are some of my favorites for smaller daily life improvements.
Ryobi Desktop Vacuum. I do a lot of small-scale craft stuff and absolutely love this thing. Good for cleaning up odd crumbs and whatnot, too. It's surprisingly powerful and fairly quiet (a LOT quieter than a standard handheld vacuum).
This looks super handy! I'm going to have to scope one out, thanks for the rec
Knife sharpener.
Your knives aren't bad, they're dull. A knife sharpener will make every knife you own good as new (and it's cheaper than any single knife as well)
I also recommend a honing rod; a good ceramic one will run you 40 dollars or so. Takes some skill to use, but it will change your life. Your blades need to be realigned.
It differs from a sharpener in that a sharpener takes material off the knife. You should hone every few weeks; sharpening should come once or twice a year. Sharpening too frequently will a noticeable reduction in the knife's physical size relatively quickly (not that it still wont cut).
Which model would you recommend?
Get a sharpening stone, brand doesn't matter imo. I have one with 1000 grid for rough sharpening and 6000 grid for making it really sharp. It does require some learning tho.
If you're willing to learn, whetstones are a lot better for your knives and remove less material!
And my knife sharpener, get a whetstone. It's kind of therapeutic and you get sharp knives
As other comments have alluded to, a sharpening stone is a far better investment and only takes a half hour to learn.
Even if you do a bad job it'll likely be a better result and better for your knives. Most sharpeners absolutely destroy knives and take far too much material off.
1000 grit is a good place to start.
Activated charcoal shoe deodorizer bags
Two items I don't see in anyone other people's replies:
Pop Socket, never drop your phone again.
Also never fit in your pockets again
It does occasionally catch on the inside of my pocket when I take it out, but usually it's not a problem. And the extra grip is worth far more to me. I have literally never dropped my phone since I got one, and I can use my Pixel 6 Pro with one hand easily. I would never go without one.
I wish my particular flavor of annoyance could get past this point because it does seem helpful, but I'm even further and can't really stand a case unless I'm doing something specifically that warrants it.
It's a compromise I'm willing to make. Valid critique though.
Ditto the stainless water bottle, though I have an Owala. I like the spout that you can drink/pour out of like a cup or sip out of like a straw, and it has fewer moving parts so I don't think it's going to develop leaks as quickly as the ones with squishy straws that have to fold up every time it closes.
They're pricey, though.
Situational, but mine was 50m of CAT5e cable, a bag of plugs, and a crimping tool. I finally eliminated the "but what if we move the router" spool of excess cables behind the furniture.
In a similar fashion, several 3m USB-C cables.
For anyone wondering this isn't a good idea if you're color blind.
Just buy patch cords in the equivalent length. They will be better built than and you won't waste hours of your time, and a shit ton of copper.
Source: Thought 5 years IT experience and 100ft of Ethernet would be enough to get it. After 2 weeks of frustration - I had 1 cable that worked and I had to buy a tester just to speed up the 'Did I do it right? ' bit. Complete waste of time.
Passthrough crimps are way easier, but you're absolutely right. I now get solid core to run inside the wall and connect to a keystone jack, then premade (usually Monoprice) patch cables from there. Not only is it easier and more durable, but it looks way more professional.
If they don’t already have a decent kitchen knife, get that. The victorinox fibrox pro goes for around $40. There are also rosewood handle versions that feel a bit fancier for just a little over $50. You may want to pair it with a budget honing steel (can be had for around $15).
a few random things:
more niche, bunch of smart home shit:
The FireTV is great - we added it to a circa 2008 LCD TV (of the dumb variety) we have hanging in the bedroom and got rid of the cable box. Now we just stream whatever we plan to watch. Works great!
I will note the person that originally told me about FireTVs now recommends the Roku stick instead. I haven't tried those, though.
If you have money, I would recommend AppleTV, especially if you have an iPhone. It's by far the best platform in terms of not being solely an advertising vessel and sucking up your data, and integration with the iPhone even just out of the box is pretty great. That said, they're the most expensive by 2-3x.
Runner up is def Roku, which is much worse, but still pretty good.
And then there's me with a Fire TV, mostly because I buy them when they're $25 for the max fire stick config, and you can automate through the android debug mode. So when I want to use the device, I rarely use the main interface, which is extremely garbage.
Nice list! What runs all of this? Is it all connected to a central system?
My entire setup is a bit of a Frankenstein as I originally started with more wifi stuff before moving to zigbee. Anyway, what I'm running now:
The whole thing runs on Home Assistant, which tbh does take a good amount of time to understand and get setup, but it allows you to do some pretty powerful stuff. For one, I only have this as my hub, and everything works through that. I can also use this to control all of the equipment without a bunch of intermediaries like ifttt and all that. It also allows me to do things like connect my ikea remote (zigbee) to my wifi bedside lamp. All of the major smart home platforms (google, Alexa, HomeKit, aqara, etc) are also massively more limited in what you can automate. Just that simple little entry automation I posted above isn't really a thing because most of the basic smart home things don't allow simple stuff like conditionals (turn on only if it's dark) and certainly not stacked conditionals (turn on only if it's dark, and I've just arrived, and the door actually opened.) You can also hook it up pretty easily to smart tv's or plex, so you can do things like "if I pause the movie, bring the lights up." Or I have a dumb automation that I can tap one button for and it plays a random ep of TNG for when I can't sleep on a Fire TV, which is just not even close to doable on the pleb platforms.
Anyway, hope that helps.
Loved this list and just added those measuring spoons to my house's wish list. To the home automation front, for Home Assistant users I really like IKEA's line of zigbee controllers. With HA and a cheap dongle you can control any smart device with them, not just IKEA stuff.
And this isn't IKEA, but I need a colder bedroom to fall asleep, and my partner wakes up pretty early and wants it to be warm. I have a space heater connected to a smart outlet and a Bluetooth thermometer. At 4am it will start heating the room until we reach a comfortable temperature, idle until the temp drops, and turn itself completely off after I'm out of bed at 9am. If you need to buy the space heater or equipment to set up Home Assistant, this definitely breaks the $50 budget, but if you've already got those the thermometer and 15A rated smart plug will be maybe $30 total (cheaper if you can wait for longer shipping).
This is the way. Though this isn't exactly cheap to start, I have a $50 eBay thin client (including the price of throwing an ssd in there), a $30 sonoff zigbee controller, install Home Assistant, and boom you're off to the races. Ikea's stuff (as well as Phillips hue, which I was able to snag some deals on clearance for) and Lutron Caseta are all zigbee so I have complete local control over most things in my house, minus a few wifi pieces that I've been replacing over time. We do similar with the 5 button remotes, and I also have a few different button controllers from sonoff. Ikea's motion sensors have also been rock solid for me.
And yeah, heating is currently my white whale. My home has electric radiant heating which leaves my only option for thermostats down to one or two units that are $120 or so, and I have like 7-8 in total in the home so that's just going to have to stay manual for now. Space heater isn't a bad idea, though.
Up your bathroom lighting with an occupancy sensor/ dimmer. No fumbling for the switch in the dark or worrying about turning off lights.
Yeah, I explained this poorly. I do have a led strip on motion sensors that turns on with varying brightness depending on whether it's dark outside. The dimmer in this case is more for me and my wife to get ready in the morning. She's got makeup to do, so she needs to the light all the way up, I'm extremely not a morning person so I barely turn on the dimmer.
Small usb powered fan.
This. Made a huge difference in the summer for me when working at my desk.
I made soup containers for my family last Christmas, went down really well! Got glass containers from IKEA, layered lentils, beans/herbs/pasta/seasonings in a decorative way. Looks pretty, throw in a pot when lazy!
Do you have any recipes? That sounded really awesome!
This is such a cute personalized gift idea, I love it! Can the containers be put in the freezer?
Maybe? I've never heard of freezing dry ingredients before as they are usually shelf stable, shouldn't need to put in the fridge or freezer
I’m gonna sound like a shill, but fuck it. This is genuinely good and I don’t mind.
My DTTO case. They make great cases for iPads and Samsung tablets (I haven’t tried their iPhone ones). Yeah, every asshole makes iPad cases, but these are high quality while still being around $20. Unlike a lot of cases, they feel like they were actually designed for practical real-world use. For something this simple, details matter, and they got it right.
I used to get a random new case every year, but after finding these people by sheer luck, I won’t buy any other brand.
Ad over.
would buy if i did tablets. good salesman.
Rice cooker
Rubber hot water bottle. It is so nice to have when you're sick or achy.
Additionally those Rubber Ice Bags from the 50s. They perform so much better than any new fancy heating/cooling pad - with wires everywhere, the battery is always dying, and just frustration at a time you don't need it.
Just pour boiling water and you're set for 4 hours.
Alternatively drop a cup full of ice, and it'll keep cold until you can't feel the injury anymore.
$35 gets me twelve bottles of soylent, which I use as twelve days I get to skip breakfast but still be well fed.
Pre bottled Soylent got me through a very rough time in grad school when I couldn't eat because I was afraid to leave my room. The powdered stuff wouldn't have worked because you have to prep it and clean up (meaning I would have to have left my room). So pre bottled practically saved my life.
I've moved past that now. It's a bit pricey to keep up with when you go pre bottled and it's not available in stores like Walgreens. Plus the best flavor (Cafe Mocha) was hurting my stomach. The only other flavor I didn't mind was the strawberry flavor. All the others kind of suck. But it really has some pretty good utility.
If I'm ever in a pinch now, I just go with whatever nutrition shake is at my local corner drug store instead. Usually it seems to be a brand like Ensure or something. I can't stand the regular chocolate or vanilla flavor that these meal shakes generally have, so I try to seek out a dark chocolate. Soylent didn't seem to have that yet when I stopped buying from them.
Sawyer squeeze. Used to spend more than $100 a month on bottled water. Not anymore.
Undrinkable tapwater I suppose?
I recently got a double puffy blanket in my endevors to stsy warm while living offgrid. Its one of ny favorite posessions now I use a lot. Feels great, Keeps you very warm when cold, and can be buttoned up as a cloak/poncho. This Halloween I drunkenly wandered around town in near freezing weather with it in and was comfy as hell. Protected me from wind and fufilled my secret dream of wearing a batman cloak.
I am the night, removed! snuggles up into blanket cloak
Oh hey, I just got a $50 Amazon gift card! I'll read some suggestions in here…
A pocketable flashlight. I have recommendations over at !flashlight@lemmy.world
bluetooth headphones. love being able to stay active without the buds yanking out of my ears all the time.
Yep. I was the first and the last to rip on Apple for getting rid of the headphone jack.... but wireless headphones are just superior in terms of what you can do. You can start a video, walk to the kitchen to check on something, walk back, do laundry
Bluetooth noise canceling headphones is where it's at. I'm particularly enjoying my Anker soundcore Q30 and they were fairly cheap.
The noise cancelling on them isn't perfect but damn if it isn't better than just regular headphones
Tongue scraper. Get a small metal one, will completely remove bad breath and stuff like garlic breath. It also removes cakes of plaque on your tongue sometimes. I've always brushed my teeth, but holy cow the tongue scraper helps. Better than mouthwash.
I've used one for the past 15 years and I can wholeheartedly agree. This thing will most likely outlive me (I don't think any future children would want it as part of an inheritance though). Your sense of taste will also improve because your tongue isn't covered in gunk.
How does it compare to just brushing your tongue?
honestly I got one of these and ended up going back to brushing my tongue. maybe I am like more thoroughly brushing my tongue than other people or something but it never was as clean from a tongue scraper as from brushing
I was never able to get much off my tongue with a toothbrush. Your tongue is kinda like velcro with fuzz stuck in it. The tongue scraper kinda depresses the velcro so you can remove the fuzz (plaque). If your tongue is where tinted white, that's plaque, which can be scraped off. Also removes stuff like garlic or oregano breath pretty well.
Brushing your tongue is like using a broom to sweep leaves from a grassy lawn while this is like using a rake.
A full size electric blanket (by full size I mean big enough to lay on it completely, like the size of a single bed mattress. I love mine
We got a heated mattress pad last year. It is so nice. Each side has its own controls and timer. Does make it even harder to get out of bed on cold mornings though!
Honestly, it levels up going to bed so much. You tale a showed and come into a prewarmed bed. It's so lovely and so much more effective than a hot water bottle. Easier too.
The key to getting out of bed in the morning is to set the timer well. I usually set it to ~1 hour after I expect to be asleep, so I don't wake up sweaty in the morning.
Probably a bit out of the $50 budget: a massage.
A half hour massage is not out of the question for that amount of money
Throw in +20 for a happy ending.
If you're not in London or NYC or something its definately doable!
A kitchen paper holder that you can mount to a wall, shelf, etc, and that has a stopping mechanism so that it allows you to rip some paper off the roll with just one hand. Absolute kitchen game changer.
I've been looking for one of these for parchment. Any recommendations?
I have no idea if they exist for parchment too. I got one like this:
Give any roll a tight tug outward to apply pressure to the tear line without yanking the whole roll down - then immediately rip across the line.
The final rip acts both as a means of stripping the paper off and a redirection of the initial tug energy.
Eventually you should be able to rip any sheets with one hand. Or get paper everywhere like a silly cat sometimes. A fun alternative though. :)
A water pik machine. An electric toothbrush.
A car phone holder. A bidet.
New kitchen towels.
And some more of the other stuff people already said.
+1 to bidets
Asia has spoiled me
These are the things I'm glad I got back then and would get again if they broke, that fit the price category:
Unicorn Beetle Pro
Tbh, their stuff used to be fire but on some phonws the cases are just too brittle. I went through three of them on my Note 20 Ultra, all cracking in the same way (in the corners), before giving up and switching to a UAG case
I ditched UBP for a Spigen case. It's the only case I've found that has a low profile built in lens cover/shutter.
Thanks for the heads up, I had no cracking issues yet, but after years of daily use the screen protector got worn out and the kickstand broke loose. Now I'm on the second one of the same model, but it's still going strong with no real issues.
I use a mous case. Works like a charm.
Smart plugs! These outlet switches come in packs of four for about $25 dollars. Once installed and set up in the app, you can automate them with scheduled timers or turn them on or off remotely. They will also integrate with Home Assistant, Google Home, and Alexa.
I almost went with the newer Matter version of those (for those unaware, "Matter" is the new open standard for this sort of thing), but decided I cared about open-source firmware more than open standards, so I bought some Sonoff S31s and flashed them with ESPHome instead.
(The 4-pack of Sonoff S31s is $28.50 right now, but cost $22.10 in August when I bought my most recent set, so it's basically the same price as the non-Matter Kasa switches. It's also basically the same functionality between them as stock, so IMO having the option to use third-party firmware lets the Sonoff edge out the win even if you don't actually avail yourself of it.)
(Edit to add: that's not to say I don't like TP-Link, by the way -- if anything, I was initially biased in favor of the Kasa switches because I'd already standardized on TP-Link networking gear.)
I have a bunch of Sonoff stuff in my house flashed with Tasmota. The flashing process isn't for casuals, but the end result is great.
We use these in conjunction with their smart bulbs all over the house.
Being able to turn on/off the lights without getting out of bed is addicting.
This seems like a hackers wet dream 😅
That's why I picked some I could flash with open-source third-party firmware that I believe is inherently more trustworthy than any OEM stuff. It's also why I use them exclusively with Home Assistant self-hosted locally, allowing them to be entirely firewalled off from the Internet.
A good, bright head lamp. See everything!
Tozo wireless earbuds (noise cancelling!).
Airfly pro - a little widget that allows you to Bluetooth from the seat back entertainment system on planes.
A fold up kettle.
Nanobags.
I travel a lot. These things are crucial.
Pardon me, but, how exactly does a kettle... Fold?
looks like the foldable ones are made from silicone so that the main body can collapse to what seems to be about half the size
What are nano bags?
Reusable bags that fit into a tiny pouch and fit in your pocket. I use mine for everything and they're great for laundry on trips!
Snorlax squishmallow. It's our secret
I’ve had this little fellow hanging in my shower for a year or so now and it’s great. Turn it on and it connects pretty much instantly. Weirdly good sound for the size and water resistant. Keeps my phone dry too
Air fryer. I got one on a black friday sale for like $30 and it paid for itself within a week for the amount of effort, time, and oil saved to fry stuff.
bidet, electric water kettle, air fryer, pour over coffee, USB desk fan, portable electric heater, air purifier doubling as white noise maker, melatonin, metal tongue scraper, quality kitchen knife / sharpener, fleece Sherpa lined sweatshirt hoodie, wool socks, weekend at Bernie's type sunhat, portable water purifier, ceramic pans,
a good meal or a good wine, both better with SO or friends; ticket to a good music event (not a festival)
A cole n mason pepper mill & toss in a bag of tellicherry peppercorns.
Yes! I bought the small mill off Amazon during the lockdowns, and it's the only way I consume pepper at home now. And virtually every grocery store sells whole peppercorns.
Absolutely worth it.
Add to that kosher salt and any wide / semi deep container that can hold about 2 cups of salt for ease of pinching. You can get a cellar specifically made for salt if you desire, but those vary from person to person.