I bought a piece of 1.5 inch stiff foam to try to fix a sag in a bed. It didn’t work but having that thick piece of solid foam around has been a life saver.
Need something flat to put a laptop on? Throw it on the foam. Going to be doing something that requires you to be on your knees for a while? Get the foam!
It went from stupid purchase to something I’d gladly replace if it broke.
Got a bidet as a joke gift for Christmas a few years ago, it has been an absolute game changer. Hate pooping anywhere but home now, I actually feel clean, and use much less toilet paper.
baby wipes are the next best thing when you need to go on the go!
Just don’t flush them please. Even the “flushable” kind clog pipes.
“There are no flushable wipes.” - Ozzy Osbourne
Here’s an odd one my wife and I were just talking about. Some years ago, we were redoing our kitchen and the contractor told us to go buy the kitchen faucet we wanted. We went off, looked at several, and picked the one we thought looked the best with what we were doing.
When the contractor went to install it, he opened the box and a battery pack fell out. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why a faucet would need batteries. It turned out that you can turn it on and off by touching it anywhere (handle, faucet itself, whatever), you just leave the physical handle open and set where you want it, then you can touch on and off. I thought it was the dumbest thing ever and we’d never use it.
Flash Forward to now and it’s one of the most used conveniences we’ve ever bought. All those times your hands are covered in raw meat or other cooking mess? Just touch the faucet with your elbow. Rinsing a bunch of veggies one at a time? Tap on, tap off. It works flawlessly, unlike those touchless ones at the airport: no delay and works every time. We will never have a kitchen sink without it - my wife wants them for the bathroom.
Does it have a timer safety thing? I know my cat would turn the faucet on and let it flood the house lol.
It does! It runs for minutes without retapping, but not like ten minutes. Never really timed it, and only noticed when I was filling the sink up (it’s a big sink).
Bed sheet suspenders. Dumb problem, stupidly cheap, horribly made, and ABSOLUTELY fixed the friggin sheets being yanked off the corner of the bed twice a night by my tumble-dry-medium sleeper of a spouse.
When they finally broke after almost 2 years I sewed some that’ll last 10 years and I don’t regret them at all.
Scooter. Not an electric one. I had a thought once “hey I did ride one in childhood, maybe it can be a bit of nostalgic fun from time to time”. Got myself the cheapest Chinese thing I could find, “no point investing too much into a fad”.
Turned out a scooter is absolute peak urban mobility. Short distances become much shorter. Mid-long distances become short. Granted, for a longer trip somehow the time gains diminish, probably because it’s not as efficient as a bike. But a scooter isn’t a long-hauler. It’s there to zip through an empty mall. It’s there to be folded up in a second and brought into a bus or a shop without being a hassle. It’s like 3-4 kg, not too fast for sidewalks but fast enough for bike roads, extremely easy to stop, doubles as a cart when carrying bags of groceries home.
The chinese one broke after 1 season because I was riding it everywhere. Then I got myself one from a better company, I chose it for small weight and portability. It’s technically children’s thing but I’m well below weight tolerance and also smol so it’s easy to handle. It’s already like a 5th year and whenever it’s not raining or too cold I ride it for shopping, errands, leisure walks, to work… Almost daily.
8 years ago, i got an EUC, aka Electric Unicycle, seamed difficult strange, i managed to learn how to ride it, everybody said i looked like an alien…
8 years later i ride a Veteran Sherman S (suspension model) and i freakngly still love to ride it!! Got a couple of friends hooked, now i’ve got a whole team in Greece! 😉
A toy accordion I bought at a truck stop 30 years ago. I blew all of my $30 in vacation spending money on it and everyone said I’d regret it. It ended up kind of joke\prop instrument in all my bands and I still have it and it’s still fun to play.
A set of small neodymium magnets. Didn’t have a plan, only they looked “super cool and strong wow”.
Used for:
- Locating needles in the carpet.
- Fishing keychains out from behind sofas, gap between garden deck and house, and so many other places.
- Makeshift fix for an old cabinet door that tended to glide open.
- Holding nails and screws while fixin’ stuff.
- Attaching a soda bottle to the office lamp in a way that is easy to undo while still pissing off HR.
- Slapping it on a screwdriver to make it magnetic.
- Fidget toy.
- Regular ol’ fridge magnet.
Mechanical keyboard. Almost had no money back then, but wanted to treat myself. It costed 100$, and I regretted it the next morning. Felt like shit, but it was so cool to type on.
After 5 years, this metal-frame keyboard managed to survive many outside gigs, long travels, literal war, and it’s still with me. And I still love typing on it. Sometimes I code just to type. You can guess why I don’t use code completion tools.
Which war?
A mini keg of a Christmas beer. At the store after drinking a bit, thinking “Oh it’s a little cheaper per ounce, lol”. My wife rolled her eyes, but she lets me do stupid things. Next day I was thinking “Well that was stupid.” But it was a few days before Thanksgiving, and we opened it then, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Draft beer, at home! Fiddling with the stupid pour thing. It was just fun to have something different.
A cheap little green alien soft dog toy. My dog has destroyed every soft toy we’ve ever given her except that one. The head ripped a little at the seam, but we just re-sewed it. She hasn’t made a big hole to pull out the stuffing somehow. And she loves it.
I wanted to get a backup, but the company doesn’t make that toy anymore. I got an alternative from them and it got torn apart within a few days. I guess it was too good of a dog toy.
A burr grinder for coffee beans. I thought coffee snobs were full of shit. I was wrong.
I got the glasses with 90 degree prisms in them so you can read while laying down. The person on the product page looked like an idiot and thought it would be funny, but I’m on my 3rd pair now
My wife got me a fitbit. I resisted a little bit because I didn’t want to have yet another device to monitor, charge, and maintain etc. I’ve been really surprised and impressed and how effective it has been in subtly encouraging me to make some small improvements in my habits. Not a bad deal for $100.
This one really shocked me, too! I got a Fitbit to monitor my heart rate because of a genetic condition, but fast forward a couple years and I’m running a mile and exercising multiple times a week.
Didn’t see that coming, but a nice result!
Tbh, I hate the Fitbit though. I hate that it’s owned by Google and they charge me to see my own data. I’d love to switch, but I can’t find alternatives that check all the boxes from a Charge 5…
Edit: if you’re looking to get a Fitbit and wanna save some money, thrift stores often have electronic sections full of em! My bf got his charge 5 for 50$ from a goodwill. Same one 100$ more in the target across the street.
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I wrote a huge reply about Garmin watches and felt like a shill, too, but it got lost. I will just add on to your reply to say Garmin watches rock. They cost more upfront but it feels like I’m wearing a scientific instrument vs a watch, for all the info it gives. Battery life is amazing, as you said.
Pro tip from a fellow rambler: before submitting a lengthy, in-depth, top-tier comment. Highlight some text. Hit ‘Select All’. Copy. That way your shit isn’t lost & your time isn’t wasted. 🙂
The internet wants your honest, detailed opinions. That’s how we all learn! 😌
A while ago someone posted a picture on Reddit of an old cast iron rotary food grater/slicer and asked “what is this thing?”. A bunch of people said it was for grating things like cheese or slicing vegetables. Some people posted the original French or Italian names of it, which was difficult to find. Someone said look up “Rotary grater” and they’re all over Amazon for dirt cheap. I bought a cheap plastic one for like $20, figuring I’d use it a few times and forget about it.
I use the damn thing multiple times a week for grating blocks of cheese. It can grate a 1 pound block of cheese in like 30 seconds, 2-3 rotations usually gives me more than enough cheese for myself. It’s so much easier to use than a box grater, and no possibility of destroying your finger tips or knuckles!
A bicycle. It was kind of a stupid purchase for me because when I got it I wasn’t really into doing exercise or outdoor stuff. 900 dollar on clearance gravel bike back in March 2019. I wound up living on that thing, worked my way up to a 160 mile solo gravel ride by September 2019, biked to work in 2020, got into running in 2021, ran a 50K in 2022, now I run to and from work. I put 10,000 miles on that bike in 2 years, explored my city/greater metro area until I ran out of things to explore, pretty awesome impulse purchase
