What cheap tool/gadget do you use that greatly improves your daily life?
Just went down the aliexpress rabbit hole again. Theres really everythinf for some of really niche things that i wouldnt ever buy, but some things really do look appealing. I wonder what do you guys use daily thats worth lets say under $20
If you ever have to resort to the knife resist the urge to push it against the toilet. If it cuts through suddenly the sharp impact from the blade could crack the porcelain.
No I agree with you perfectly, but it was a choice between making it semantically correct, and making it more readable / understandable to most readers.
Lol it’s an old story from reddit. Allegedly, this guy was at a friend’s house and he went to the bathroom. But he couldnt find the poopknife and called out for it. He was mortified to learn that the average family did not employ the use of a poopknife.
Floss picks. Flossing is actually more important than brushing and it’s really nice to have a pack of floss picks at your desk so you can floss absent mindedly while watching a video or even in bed.
Dentist hate this one little trick… because it is not actually as good as flossing. Floss picks tend to have a very tight piece of floss. It is good for cleaning the surfaces directly between your teeth, but not the curved parts of the teeth.
I hate regular floss (or rather sticking my fat fingers deep into my mouth), so flossing sticks are better than nothing.
What I do to mediate that is sticking in the floss pick, turning it and pulling it out while under tension and whatever it doesn’t get will be removed by brushing. My dentist told me I have very healthy teeth (I actually don’t even brush very consistently (please don’t do this even though it happened to work out for me (I was depressed, just listen to your dentist))). I also floss the gap between each tooth twice, once applying pressure to one side and vice versa.
It’s so much wasted plastic though. I 3D printed a handle and with a little sandpaper to smooth the handle out, it’s super easy to floss. Using this one currently: www.printables.com/model/…/comments
I also thought that too and I’ve been looking for a reusable one now. I bought one but it’s too much of a hassle and frankly takes more time to change floss than actually flossing (have to unwind, remove from track unwind again, pull floss, rewind, align with track, rewind again and trim)
There’s always a tradeoff: security or convenience, environmental destruction or convenience, healthy life or convenience…
I don’t mind at least trying to do something right. But I don’t know other people’s lives so most I’ll do is ask them to consider or try something new.
Feel free to google whether you should be putting petg in your mouth and then giving it time to grow bacteria and then putting it back in your mouth again.
I don’t think anyone is shocked. PETG is probably the best solution here since it can be food grade and transparent to help with disinfection via UV. Would probably be a good idea to limit each one to a month of use or something but it’s still better than the wasteful alternative.
If I could injection mold it out of polycarbonate, I would. I’d still rather use this than mindlessly buy 150 plastic prongs, only 5% of each disposed piece being actual floss.
Awesome! Thank you so much, I have floss picks that I hate as they’re crappy and break or stretch out before I can do my whole mouth so I end up using two. Definitely printing this when I get home!
I’ve got one that’s basically a handle that dispenses the floss, so you just use it and then click a few times and there’s new floss ready for next time. Makes it a lot easier to get done.
I started doing this a few years ago, and it made a world of difference. I dislike the whole process of using regular floss; having to wrap it around my fingers and then try to maneuver it around inside my mouth, all while staring at myself in the bathroom mirror is a mental burden. Now I just keep a bag of floss picks in easily reachable places where I tend to spend the most time, and I’ve ended up with really good flossing habits.
I’m in the same boat. I didn’t floss until I started using those little picks. I’ve looked into reusable floss holders, but none of them seem like something I want to regularly stick in my mouth.
A year’s worth of floss picks is the same amount of plastic as just a couple of bottles/containers. If you feel bad about the plastic waste but can’t find an alternative, you can always focus on getting fewer single-use plastic containers.
There are also wooden ones; still making trash but at that point it’s equivalent to a bad toothpick habit lol
milwaukee fastback with screw driver attachment. I’m no contractor and use this thing all day everyday. Primarily as a knife but the screwdriver has came in clutch countless times. You can get a two pack for under $20
Was coming here to post this. I cannot overstate how much I use this thing daily. Bought it to help with some diy projects, and ended up carrying it everywhere I go. This is one of those few items less than $20 that I honestly can’t see being without anymore.
There’s a store in the mall where I live that sells any size bamboo sheet sets with an extra pillowcase for $25. They are amazing and I’ve since converted all my family to them.
Good nail clippers. My toe nails grow hella fast and if I don’t keep 'em trimmed, I end up spending a lot more on socks. Good trimmer is like $5. Though I wish they came in bright colors since I quite often misplace them or they fall off my night stand and are a PITA to find.
Faaacts, I have one at work and a personal one. Can one buy tools accidentally? I needed to get a bike head-nut off, all it had were two parallel indents on the perimeter.
Saw this for $50 at Sears, been in love with them ever since. W/o question one of my favorite and most useful tools. Sheesh I sound like such a shill haha
Exist. I have kids who constantly break things. I have a house where things often need minor attention. The knippex cobra xs pliers are tiny and weigh less than the pliers on a multitool like a Leatherman.
Great tool but not cheap. Infact you probably couldn’t find a more expensive version. Knipex however is worth it. Generally my advice is to first buy a cheap tool and replace it with more expensive one after it breaks but with pliers it’s pay once, cry once situation. These are truly BIFL tools. The 100mm mini cobra pliers are awesome aswell.
Carabiners. I bought a bunch for accessory and gear hauling when climbing long routes/distances. They’ve since been used for a lot more. I find endless use for them and usually have one clipped on a belt eyelet.
Well, just earlier I used two to extend a dog lead and tether it at the pub.
In sight of me, a couple are looped through jacket tags holding them onto a skinny rack clothes hangers don’t fit on. My house keys hang off a small one so I can clip them on and off my car key and 4×4 key. I clip on lock keys as well if I’m going mountain biking. Another has a dog training clicker and treat bag on the outside of my backpack. There’s a few holding up shoes and accessory ropes on my outdoor/climbing gear rack.
Other common things, though… Holding up things like lighting, bins, cooking stuff when I camp. Clipping through tied up bin bags so I can take them all outside easier and cleaner—basically anything with a small loop, they become a clip in handle. They’re great for undoing tight knots instead of finger nails. Switching weights in and out of my harness for different exercises on the pull-up bar or hangboard.
Most situations needing a handle, hook, ring, or knot, but faster and easier. I have a lot of very strong climbing ones, but decent ones that’ll statically handle up to 100kg—but try not to ever go half the Max static rating for safety—are light, tough, and very cheap.
That should give you plenty of ideas to work with :)
Driving gloves. Some halfway decent calfskin gloves make it nicer to drive, whether the steering wheel is hot in the summer, cold in the winter, or if you’re going to be driving long distance. Not sure if real leather will be less than $20, but seen some cheap fingerless work gloves make driving more comfortable.
Clip on sunglasses that fit on my eyeglasses. Super easy to clip on, cost about ten bucks. So nice to not have to squint as much.
Dim light bulbs. Nearly every bulb in my house is as dim as I can manage. Some are salt lamps and some are those flicker fire bulbs. Either way, it makes the light at night a little warmer and a little dimmer, and all around a lot more cozy, which really is what one wants. Keep a couple of the overhead bulbs at the brighter end in case you need them, but dimmer bulbs make me a lot happier at night.
Boneconduction earphones. They are cheaper than you think and I use mine to listen to music while swimming. Also great for music when you need to be able to hear to things around you (it doesn’t block any external sound, so don’t use in noisy environments)
My greatest purchase of the last decade I reckon. I first tried them 9 years ago and since then I am onto my 6th pair, no because they break easily but simply because I use them for between 8 and 10 hours every single day.
I do a lot of running and cycling and they allow me to be aware of idiots in cars whilst being able to listen to music or books whilst I ride / run. I use them at work with ear defense in so I can still hear what my machine is doing.
They are light, comfortable and really just the best way to listen to stuff for me.
Not OP but I do use AdterShokz! I bought them during Black Friday sale last year and love them! I also do a lot of running and cycling - very nice to have the background song playing while also being aware of my surroundings! I also do a lot of late night walks listening to podcasts - I feel much more comfortable knowing I could hear someone approaching me.
I listen when to music / podcasts doing chores around the house. My wife doesn’t realize alot of the times and starts talking to me and I miss first half of what she said. I told my wife when buying them I’d be able to hear her now! Turns out I listen too loud still and can’t comprehend what she is saying when first talking while headphones are still playing. So… don’t use that as buying excuse :)
I don’t know if that is volume based though as I do exactly the same and even when the volume is down low it is like my brain is tuned into listen on that level and so I miss the first sentence of what is said from an outside source. At least I can hear they are there however!
They really are great for so many applications. I used to do Acid a lot more than I do these days and they were fucking great for a trip and out walking in the woods. I could have them on a good volume to soundtrack my walk but whilst also being able to hear nature around me. Just perfect for trippy walks.
I don’t think that they would be able to cancel the noise of an industrial environment and it would end up being a case of blasting sound into your ears to try and cover up the noise.
These with ear protection saves your ears a lot more.
No, it wouldn’t. When I say I work in a high noise environment I mean that I’m surrounded by enough machine noise that I wear ear plugs to protect my hearing. Active noise cancellation isn’t a substitute for actual PPE. It’d be cool if it worked that way, but sadly not.
Bone conduction works great with earplugs though. The only minor downside is that earplugs make the bass frequencies stronger, so I need to open up the EQ settings and tweak things a bit if I’m listening to music, but that’s not really a big deal. I’m usually listing to podcasts or audio books at work anyway.
They do, but not in the intuitive way one would think. They work because there’s a passive seal around the hearing, thus the headphones only have to cancel the smaller amount of noise that gets into your ear, not the full loud noise outside in the environment. This is why ANC need to have mics inside your ears.
The problem is actually that the louder the noise, the louder the noise canceling would have to be. And at a certain point the passive seal cannot stop much of the outside noise, and if poorly designed, if the speaker tries to cancel that noise, it would be blasting massive soundwaves into your ears. But most consumer speakers can’t achieve that and don’t even try. So after a certain threshold, they won’t work and can’t help you with the noise. And the passive noise block is not even remotely good enough as a straight up earplug. So they are not considered protective gear, at least not the consumer devices, only aviation grade ANC is considered protective gear. But you’ll see that they have massive ear cover,s with huge speakers and drivers, and elastic tensors on the headband to absolutely seal your ears and some truly state of the art audio processing that would make the most snob audiophile blush in envy.
They do make some of those for ground crews, construction sites and heavy machinery, but they insists that they are only effective if paired with a sound baffle earplug.
Noise cancelling earbuds or similar do not protect your hearing.
They do not make a loud noise quiet. It does not matter if they are working or not. All they do is make noise seem quiet, you are still being exposed to the same level of noise.
While noise-canceling technology can effectively reduce the perception of external sounds, it does not necessarily eliminate the potential for hearing damage.
In noise-canceling headphones, a microphone captures external sounds, and the internal speaker generates a counteracting sound wave that is 180 degrees out of phase. This process effectively nullifies the external sound at ear level. However, it is important to note that the sound pressure from external noise sources still exists even with active noise cancellation in place.
Pretty niche, but a citrus squeezer. I cook a lot of Asian food and it’s much better to put half a lime in the squeezer at a time than try and hand squeeze the juice out.
You shove a little metal bit into your soap bar, and the bar dangles from a magnet on a stand that holds it over the sink.
Soap dries quickly, no scum in the soap dish, any drippage falls right into the sink.
Only downside is the magnet falls out when the bar gets smaller, so you have to mash the old bar into the bottom of the new one to keep from wasting it.
Add comment