Looking for some neat ideas/quality of life improvements aka lifehacks I guess
Under cabinet manual jar opener. It’s flat and mounts under your cabinet of choice. Easy to use, but also easy to forget it’s there! I sometime find myself jar in hand and half-way to wherever my husband is before I remember that I no longer need his skills.
Electric candle lighter. Rechargeable lighter with long neck. Eliminates the need for matches or standard lighters. The noise it makes does scare one of the cats, though. I haven’t tried it on campfires yet, but I think that was something the ad said it could do.
Those electric lighters are like a torture device to my ears. If you haven’t lost your high pitch hearing, don’t get one
It is the equivalent of nails scratching on blackboard for me. My mom uses one and I have to get away whenever she is about to use it because it makes my ears and teeth hurt like a mofo.
Yeah, I feel it in the base of my skull and my spine more than my ears
Whoa, hey, don’t tell people about that first one! Us husbands won’t be needed anymore!
If by “electric candle lighter” you mean one of those “plasma” or arcing ones, they’re awesome, but cannot light anything that won’t fit between the two ends of the arc. I love mine for candles, but have yet to successfully start my charcoal grill with them. I imagine a campfire would suffer similar issues.
Hopefully you have better luck!
If you kill your own spiders, he ought to be sweating.
Tiny refillable perfume bottle so I don’t have to bring a big glass bottle when travelling
I got a touch-pump soap dispenser for my kitchen. Just put the the sponge on the device, push down, and now you got a soapy sponge. Saves time but I’m old so ymmv.
I was in the right place, right time, found a solid, hardwood dresser at Goodwill for $30!
Was so sick of electric toothbrush heads and how to store them without a manky mess; even the manufacturer’s holder was a mould trap.
Simplest but most effective fuckin thing I’ve ever seen -
Nice - what are those called? I need one!
I just searched for silicone toothbrush holder
I just have the toothbrush head installed while charging. what’s the big deal?
Probably multiple people having different heads
Yep
That’s pretty clever. I bought 3 for my family living in the same house…
For oral b ones you are meant to remove the head while not using it so water doesn’t get trapped which could cause mold
I just dry mine’s head after brushing
Same
Not recently but I have a travel charger for a good while now (year or two I think) that charges my phone watch and airpods. It’s a travel charger so it folds but it’s like a C shape with the phone on the outer curve of the C (it’s straight but I’m terrible at descriptions). The airpods sit at the bottom of the inside and the watch sits on top
It’s a neat little charger
A Bidet has got to be the most life changing purchase ever. Not even expensive either.
While in our family we hate them and we’ll get rid of them to make the space more efficient 😅
Usually in North America bidet refers to a modified insert or toilet seat that includes a sprayer and a lever to control. It doesn’t take up any space at all. Definitely a stand alone bidet takes up a lot of space but they’re visually non existent in North America, although I certainly would prefer that to the sprayers.
Indeed, I’ve only seen one standalone bidet ever in the US. It was in an old mansion. Far more awkward than the modern ones that attach to an existing toilet.
In that case, that sounds interesting.
Or a hand bidet that attaches to the side of the toilet with a thermostat to control water temp and pressure
There’s one in my kids’ bathroom. Can’t wait to reno the room and get rid of rid. Especially as the tub got a shit half broken tap but for some reason the bidet has a fancy working one. According to my daughter it’s there to flood the parquet and transform the room in a giant pool for her mermaid Barbie.
Americans don’t historically have standalone bidets, so they’re almost certainly referring to the type that attaches to your toilet seat. It doesn’t take up any extra space.
The biggest hazard with those is simply kids/pets. Because if you have a toddler, they will inevitably think it‘s the funniest thing in the world to turn the bidet on and watch it spray across the room. If you’re lucky, they might even turn it off after laughing at it. And the dial is easy enough for a cat to accidentally turn when jumping up/down.
I’d love to have one if I had the space. My toilet is roughly one square meter. For illustration purposes, that size, only less grungy. These are leftovers from how they used to plan apartment buildings in the late 19th century in Vienna.
There are bidet attachments to add to a regular toilet
I love mine
Do I go with the hand held sprayer thingy or the one that affixes underneath the seat?
You’ll want the one that attaches to the seat. Luxe makes really solid ones for very cheap; I’ve had mine for three or four years now, and it still works just fine. You can get some fancy ones with heated water, air dryer, etc but that’s all superfluous; The cold water alone isn’t bad after you experience it once and know what to expect. And the nozzle on Luxe brand bidets has a self-clean feature, so you can rinse the nozzle easily.
The number one thing to look for on the el cheapo ones is - does it look easy to clean. Where the Toilet Lid meets the Bowl and the bidet acts as a washer collects so much grime. It grosses me out so bad. You can’t clean any of it unless you take it all apart.
You’ll want the one that attaches to the seat. Luxe makes really solid ones for very cheap; I’ve had mine for three or four years now, and it still works just fine. You can get some fancy ones with heated water, air dryer, etc but that’s all superfluous; The cold water alone isn’t bad after you experience it once and know what to expect. And the nozzle on Luxe brand bidets has a self-clean feature, so you can rinse the nozzle easily.
Under the seat.
If you’re at all mechanical or work on cars/bikes or a homeowner, the Knipex Pliers Wrench is an excellent tool. It’s a set of leveraged adjustable parallel jaw pliers. So basically you can grab nuts, bolts, or anything with flats with tremendous leverage, and you can do it quickly on a range of sizes. Almost infinitely better than a crescent (adjustable) wrench, fills the spot of a whole set of open-ended box wrenches, and they’re excellent German engineering. Come in a range of sizes (bc there’s still different uses for big and small). Roughly $50-60 each, but sets are cheaper per. Plus, harbor freight makes a nice dupe of the 10in/250mm for $40 (find a coupon tho).
I was on the fence for a while, but I adore the tool and wish I had it years earlier. For most people, a 7in/180mm and 10in will fill most needs. The hype is real. Lifetime warranty too if you buy from authorized retailer (habor freight is also lifetime eyy)
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Pomade stick. Looks kinda like deoderant but you use it on your hair. I have long hair and get flyaways like crazy, especially when I tie my hair back. Works wonders.
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A stainless steel Casio watch. Looks nice and will allow me to tell the time at work since I won’t be allowed to have my phone on me most of the time.
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I got a soda machine that uses packets of powder instead of a c02 cannister.
pop rocks?
sodium bicarbonate
Fun fact: the CO2 version can actually be made incredibly cheap if you retrofit a decently sized paintball CO2 canister to work with your soda machine (kits can be bought). The biggest difference is that paintball CO2 isn’t food grade, but it’s pretty common to dismiss this if that’s something you’re comfortable doing.
You go from spending however much (think I remember them costing as much as $50 for like, 12oz) on a SodaStream proprietary CO2 canister, to spending like $10-$30 every couple of months on a 20+ oz fillup at your local sporting goods store, and the one time $40-$60 for a decent sized canister that lasts forever. Seriously, I still have my canister from when I played paintball in 2008.
I bought an adapter and a 25 liter siphon tank.
I found a local gas company that will refill my siphon tank with food grade CO2. Because it’s a siphon it’ll transfer liquid directly into the SodaStream tanks.
I own five SodaStream tanks. I can refill them about four times out of the siphon tank.
The siphon tank cost $25 to refill at a semi local gas company.
Cast iron griddle, scraper, and chef weight. I should have bought these years ago. I use the griddle and scraper daily.
For the weak like myself, carbon steel is also a great option!
This Stihl Vacuum shredder/blower. Like a leafblower, but instead of just blowing the leaves pointlessly around it sucks them up, shreds them a bit and dumps them in a big bag - and its electric. Terrific piece of kit, quiet and effective and oh so satisfying to use, I go over the driveway and garden with it every day or two (we have a lot of trees surrounding our place which constantly drop masses of leaves)
An Instant Pot. The amount of things you can cook / steam / pressure cook is amazing. I cook as much as I can with it as it saves money on using gas cookers. It saves a huge amount of time and money cooking Indian food and there are hundreds of websites out there dedicated to recipes specifically for the instant pot
A three meter long USB-C cable. It’s been a game changer.
I just read the last word as “charger”. Time for bed
What for? To stay plugged to your phone while it’s charging? Terrible idea
Not all wall sockets are right above the table, for example.
You may get a phone call with 2% of battery, for example.
Yes, you may want to use your phone while charging, it doesn’t transfom into a brick.
A USB extension cable can be quite handy if you regularly need to plug and unplug USB devices (e.g. security keys) from your desktop PC, especially devices that aren’t properly supported on front USB ports (e.g. security keys on a keychain with keys). Just put the end on your desk near your keyboard.
Fermenting everything I can find in every discarded glass jar I come across.
So far, I turned blueberries into olives, and lemons into… they stayed lemons… So far!
Old Pico de Gallo seems slightly more promising.
Actually QoL improvements in a purchase? The last one was a computer for running offline AI. It lead me to blueberry alchemy… yrmv
Turn blueberries into shrub, add shrub to sparkling water (or cocktail).
Blueberries aren’t olives… You just mean you fermented blueberries and they taste like olives?
Yes, sorry if my sarcasm was not clear. I managed to make blueberries taste like bad olives… So far.
