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
rice cooker. i have one that i use like a fancy crockpot so i can leave the house and come home to hot food. mandolin or a food processor is a close second, makes chopping veggies a breeze
A decent reusable steel water bottle. Doesn’t need to cost a lot, and really cuts down on dishes at home
How does it reduce dishes? Water bottles are one of the more annoying things to wash, in my experience, because my hands aren’t small enough to fit anymore.
Edit: Yes, I have a bottle brush. It’s just that it’s a bit of a hassle to soap it from dry and then have to dry it somewhere before storing it again. I wash everything else with a rough sponge normally.
I see you’ve never had a partner with ADHD! Going around collecting all the half-drank water glasses in our household used to be a full-time job.
I have not! In fact, I’m usually the one carrying around water glasses because they’re less hassle to drink from and far easier to (visibly) clean than any other vessel is. I try to limit myself to two or three in the house though…
Unfortunately we’re both the problem, so there would just be glasses EVERYWHERE. Carrying one bottle around just made more sense
Use a bottle brush. 🤦🏼♂️
It’s a pain to take a tool out (and wait for it to dry) just for one or two bottles.
You’re not serious. 😬
It’s a brush. Shake it vigorously for 10-20 seconds and it’s dry enough. FFS. I hope you’re not serious.
It’s not necessary to wash water bottles.
Reusable steel water bottles should absolutely be washed.
I mean it’s just storing water. You do have to wash it if you store other liquid beverages like coffee or juice. But if you use it just for water, I don’t see why it would contain any bacteria or scum or whatever.
It does (eventually) because it’s a dark wet environment you’re constantly polluting with your mouth germs.
That’s nasty.
Hit up the Goodwill or similar, you can find stainless bottles for dollars.
Local DI (deseret industries-a Mormon goodwill equivalent) has them for $1.50. Pick your lid, thermo flask, size, straw or naw. Get 6 for $9. Or buy 1-2 a bunch of times. My only transportation is cycling (other than busses/trains). Hydration is essential for proper functioning on all of these.
Water is life homie.
I’ve been using my for about 8 years now, still holds up.
Poopknife
I still use the scissors, can’t get enough leverage with the knife sometimes.
That or I need more fiber.
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.
Speaking as an American - an electric kettle. Just a thing that plugs into the wall and boils water.
I use it for tea, of course, but I also use it any time I need boiling water for something, because it’s faster than a kettle sitting on the stove and it doesn’t use gas.
Magnetic soap holder.
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.
I’ve never heard of this witchcraft. This is exactly what I need.
Edit: heard not beard
Chopsticks. Use chopsticks to turn over bacon.
Also the best way to eat Cheetos and keep your fingers clean
Daiso sells large kitchen ones. They’re great.
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What are you using a barometer for so frequently?
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How would a barometer help ?
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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.
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: https://www.printables.com/model/267704-dental-floss-holder-with-tensioner/comments
Would be better with the 90 degree bend.
But also PLA will grow bacteria after putting it in your mouth even if you wash it.
I actually modified it in solidworks to have a nice curve, and open at the tips vs trying to thread the floss everytime.
Bacteria? You’re brushing your teeth with a reused toothbrush. Besides, that’s what immune systems are for.
Different plastics have different properties, like how much moisture they hold. You can clean polypropylene but you’ll never clean off PLA
I used petg, better for the engineering stuff that I do.
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.
(you may be shocked by the answer)
I understand your point, and still disagree.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Glad you like it. Maybe snap the ends off as threading the floss through the holes is a pita haha.
There are also wooden floss picks out there, for those who don’t have a printer but want to use less plastic.
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
Hmmm. Wooden toothpicks would make me look like some 1950s gumshoe…
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.
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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.
Depends on your lifestyle ofc but a cheap 6’ tape measurer keychain has come in clutch more times than I can count. Within the past week I’ve used it to
measure the hatch of my car to see if a box could fit
compared a 14" pizza to a 17" to my friend group to figure what size pizza to buy
measured an entire house worth of soffit
The thing was like $5 and honestly gets more use out of anything in my EDC except maybe my earbuds and even then I barely touch them since graduating from uni
Dude, you’ve gotta factor in way more than diameter if you’re trying to make wise pizza choices. They have calculators for that: https://www.omnicalculator.com/food/pizza-comparison
Your link is the other way around, you should put the text between [ ] and the link between ( ), i.e. text, the way you did it the text that appears is the url but when you click it it tries to go to literally the address
url.
I use the one on my leather man micra all the time. Also fans of Adam Savage know about his measuring device tattooed on his arm which is cool too.
Funny, I was just watching some lockdown-era Tested videos and was wondering what that tattoo was on Adam’s arm. Reminds me of my mechanic friends with a 10mm socket tattooed so that “they’ll never lose it”
Thank you, now I know what tattoo to get if I pass by a walk in place. I’m always tempted but the things I want aren’t exactly walk in tattoos. Only question now is to go halfway up my forearm or to my elbow. Guess I could go all the way down my index finger, too, but I’m not sure how long a tattoo on the side of the finger would last, plus all the possible bends when including the hand could reduce measurement accuracy by quite a bit.
Luftkin makes a high contrast 8’ the size of most 6’ and it is glorious. I have one as a daily driver for work, cold dead hands.
The rest of their tape measures in that same line are great.
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)
it doesn’t block any external sound, so don’t use in noisy environments
It’s actually because I work in a high noise environment that I got into bone-conduction headphones. They still work when you’re wearing earplugs.
Nvr thought of that but wouldnt good earbuds with active noise canceling be better for you?
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.
ANC plays the inverse of the soundwaves. So a loud noise isn’t made safe, it is just made inaudible and just as loud and harmful.
They are not safety products, only sound deadening earplugs or muffs do that.
that’s … not how science works
:(
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.
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.
Do you use aftershokz?
I use a generic one from aliexpress, even the voice alerts are in chinese lol
Any particular brand you recommend?
When I looked into them, a lot of people seem to speak highly of Shokz/aftershokz. I haven’t used them so can’t make a personal recommendation.
One thing to note is that if you want them for swimming you need to get ones with built in storage bc Bluetooth can’t really penetrate water
Thanks for the excellent tip, never would have occurred to me that water would cause a problem for the Bluetooth signal!
No idea, I bought a generic one on aliexpress that is ‘good enough’, wouldnt recommend
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.
I got a new house with LEDs and at night it’s lit like a 7-Eleven. I feel it’s part of the reason I never get to sleep before midnight.
Dimmable smart bulbs, a mix of white and RGB.
Good quality kitchen knives. Makes cooking a much better experience.
what’s a cheap quality kitchen knife.
Victorinox chef’s knife 8" or 10"
edit: didn’t see the under $20 qualifier. looks like ~$45 on amazon currently. well worth that price imo
+1 for victorinox, until I got my current knife, I exclusively used these
Literally the top choice for beater chefs knife in kits around the world. My Henkles and Globals are nice knives but if Im splitting up a partly frozen whole chicken Im using the victorinox because it is made to be abused
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USB cables with LCD displays. Now i can easily understand if a device is properly using QC or PD when charging, or whether there is an issue.
The $8 Munchkin 10oz Sippy Cup. It’s technically made for toddlers but it excels over any other travel mug unless you want insulation. I don’t care about insulation because I don’t want to wait an hour until it’s a good drinking temp. Instead of some stupid spout mechanism that gets dingy and can’t be washed in the dishwasher, there’s a simple silicone lid you can drink from on all sides, and it’s all dishwasher safe and super easy to clean. It also contains a perforated screen perfect for steeping tea leaves or cardamom tea. Of course there’s the brilliantly simple spillproof aspect as well. I’ve had mine for 4 years and there’s zero wear on it.
You can hook the tiny handles on things too, which is nice when going hands-free.
Jokes aside, that’s a pretty good idea.
I got the one without handles so it’s just a round cup, fits in the car cupholders that way. There’s a whole bunch of customizations like that though, you got handles, different sizes, colors, materials, even an insulated one, and all interchangeable parts from what I’ve seen. There’s a stainless steel one that looks like any other travel mug.
They are interchangeable, my one year old uses a bunch. Thanks for tuning me onto the steel one, I’ll have to check it out!!!
The handle thing was a bit of a joke, though the handles do hook on to stuff pretty well. I can hook it onto my belt when carrying the little one.
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Use daily? Very few things.
I guess shower head with hose? The advantage is the water comes at you from a higher point, great for tall/medium height people like me.
OMG those are amazing for hosing down the shower walls or washing your dog.
