Fam. Weighted blankets.
If you (or your kids - I see you, exhausted parents) struggle to stay asleep at night, weighted blankets might be a game changer for you. We got one for our 1-year-old after a week of her waking up at 4AM for baby jam sessions.
Best $31.99 we have ever spent. Ever.
She slept til 1030 the morning after we got.
Our product review was like:
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One Reddit user asked:
What item under $50 drastically improved your life?
You obviously know ours, so lets see what Reddit had to say.
Lappy
A foldable laptop stand for 15€. Always thought you didn't need this stuff, how different from without one can it be - but it does wonders for my neck. Travels everywhere with me now.
It was an Amazon Prime sale back in November, but I'd say the 20€ it's priced at now is definitely still worth it.
I like it because the dark gray metallic color matches my laptop and the aluminium material feels way sturdier than a plastic stand would. I chose a very slim model that's basically just a framework for the laptop, no table or anything, because I mainly need this to take up the least possible space in my backpack as I travel with it every day.
It's perfect.
Rubber Bristles
A rubber bristled broom. I have two dogs and two cats, and my house is all hardwood and tile. A regular broom just sends the fur floating everywhere, but my rubber broom keeps it all nice and tidy and easy to pick up. It works on my area rug and upholstered furniture, too!
- Boose81
I've never even considered that something like this exists.
No more cat hair tumbleweeds rolling around the apartment!
I recently got one and it is amazing. The other end is a squeegee but I haven't tried that yet.
- _perl_
Let There Be Light
A wake up light alarm clock. The light turns on gradually and wakes you up gradually rather than waking up to obnoxious beeping. Makes the start of my day more positive.
Yes I LOVE mine! Especially in the winter when I have to wake up hours before sunrise
We just discovered this functionality is built into our Android phones. I don't know if it's just the Motorola brand, but it looks like it's part of the basic Android operating system now. it turns the screen a deep red that slowly brightens into a bright Cheery sunshine yellow. It is definitely a more pleasant way to wake up!
The Drain Thingies
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In my uni house of 4 long-haired girls, we had a sieve-type drain thingie that went over the plughole. It still let water through but caught all the hair to stop it from clogging the drain.
Yeah, that definitely cost a lot less than a plumber or us losing our deposit
I lived in a house with 5 people, me and another short hair guy lived downstairs with our own bathroom, and upstairs was 2 long haired people and 1 medium-length. They never bothered to use a hair catch, and at some point every started showering downstairs.
Me n the other guy were like "why?" and they said the upstairs bathtub doesn't drain.
When we got a plumber out there, they pulled like a full head of hair out of that drain...
This item is definitely am awesome buy. I don't have a long hair in the drain problem, but I do have a lab that sheds enough for 3 dogs, so when I bathe her, I use the drain cover you are talking about, and collect almost a grocery bag full of hair. It would definitely clog the drain.
Heat
A heated blanket, don't know how I ever survived winters before this.
My bedroom is in the attic and it gets cold. Due to how stuff is wired the heating in my room only goes on when it's cold downstairs, but since it doesn't get that cold downstairs my heating never starts up.
This has saved me so much cold nights curled up in a ball at night trying to warm up, it's amazing
Same! Saves putting the heating on for the whole house when all you want is for your bed not to be ice-cold in the evening!
Shh!Â
Earplugs. They saved my final exams in highschool when my sister and her 1.5 and 3yo kids tornadoed through the whole house.
I play some music super low on my earbuds and then wear my shooting ear protection over them. I can't hear sh*t and instantly focused. Saved me every time I took an exam last semester at my noisy parent's house.
The Perfect Pencil
This one mechanical pencil that I bought in high school or earlier. I'll graduate college soon which means I've been writing with the same pencil for somewhat 10 years.
It fits perfectly between my fingers. I've kept a traditional diary since I was a kid and it has become more and more important since hardly anything requires paper and a pencil today. So many memories from the happiest moments to the absolute worst have been written down using this pencil.
I have a few other pencils as well but they don't feel right and eventually I'll put them away and return to my old friend.
- petuwk
Get In The Garden
fox tv dancing GIF by Bob's Burgers
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About 20 years ago I bought a 3 VHS tape set that showed me this guy, Sepp Holzer, doing pond and gardens and raising animals in a way far better than I imagined. It has been the core of my life ever since.
Thank you for posting this. My ten year old daughter is obsessed with gardening and sustainability.
We recently bought some land in the Blue Ridge mountains and she has been very diligent in planning out what she wants to plant where, she has started her compost pile when we raked the leaves in the fall and was just asking me if she can build a greenhouse before next fall.
I just showed her your videos and her eyes lit up the way a kids eyes light up when they've found their new obsession.
Shower Chair
Shower chair.
I've got a f*cked up back and I initially got it for that but even if my back was fine I'd still have one, they're so useful. If you shave your legs, you won't regret it.
I'm heavily pregnant at the moment and have been seriously considering getting a shower chair lol. Now I think I may just go ahead and do it
Butter
A butter dish/butter tray.
Room temp butter always available. No more trying to spread hard butter out of the fridge. Unrefrigerated and covered butter is good for like 2 weeks.
It never lasts that long.
What?! I did not even know you could leave butter outside.
I always thought it was in the same realm as milk, where you store it chilled and only take it out when you need to use it. That's just how it is, living in the tropics I guess? This could be a game changer.
I've always thought butter needed to be refrigerated too but then I went to a friend's house and saw they left theirs out so I started to leave mine out.
Well I made breakfast and bust out my room temp butter and my friend gives me the are you trying to kill me look. I confidently said butter can be left out, but to be honest I wasn't 100% sure.
But I'm not going back to cold, hard butter.
Spoontula?Â
I can't for the life of me find it again, but my favorite kitchen tool is a silicon spatula/spoon fusion sort of thing.
Unlike regular spatulas, you can hold liquid in it, but it still scrapes everything little lick of sauce of anything.
Couldn't have cost more than $10 and it was part of a set.
- Ascalion
Immediate Results
A bio electrical scale.
I'm very impatient with healthy diets and exercise because I don't see immediate results, but with a bio electrical scale which sends small electric currents through your body to measure your body fat percentage, water, protein etc etc you see changes, even if they are minuscule.
It's motivating because in the end you see your body reacting to sport and healthy food
German Shepard Showers
Handheld shower head..
I have a German Shepard who occasionally enjoys rolling in dirty puddles and creeks.
I also live in an apartment so no outside hose..
I was trying the "cup method" of bathing and it was almost impossible...
Got the idea randomly at Home Depot and it makes the whole process 100X easier
The Bone Zone
Bone conduction headphones. Bit of a long story this one but I had a tumour removed from the back of my skull behind my right ear and left me with permanent hearing loss on the right, I'd say it's about 30% what it should be.
Earphones, buds and headphones have to be compensated in the balance settings so my audio sounded central. Bone conduction earphones have now allowed me Cristal clear (in comparison) audio without having to change balance settings.
I now have these earphones on 24/7 and because they don't cover or enter your ears I'm able to have a comfortable lightweight alternative on me at all times and has brought me additional perks such as always having Siri at use to reply to messages, that are read out to me as I receive them.
They connect to my phone, watch and I can ask them where my keys and wallet are as they're connected to my Tile key ring and wallet card.
I feel lost if I don't have them on anymore!
I'm a big EDC person and these have been the best prices of kit I've owned in a very very long time!
Commercial Shiny
Moroccan oil for my hair. I have dry hair and a lot of baby hairs that tend to make my hair look crusty and messy. A little Moroccan oil after you get out of the shower gives you TV commercial shiny hair!
Peasants
My Luxe 185 bidet, from Amazon.
SERIOUSLY the best $44 I've ever spent.
Wiping my a$$ with toilet paper has never made sense to me. If I got sh*t on my hands, I wouldn't just wipe it off, and go on about my day. Why's it okay for the back door?
Y'all keep wiping.... Peasants.
- Adk318
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I can't definitively say I've come face to face with the spirits. But I have had some unsettling feelings in the dark. Shadows are just shadows sometimes, but who can be sure.
I hear it...
Nbc Wings GIF by HULUGiphy"I was helping my dad clean my grandma's house after she passed and I went in and was trying to find a song in my phone and before I could I heard a cough plain as day come from down the hallway where her room was. She died of lung and throat cancer it was pretty crazy."
Running Past...
"When I was 5 I remember getting home from my grandpa's birthday party. For context my mom was pregnant with my brother at the time, so my parents had already bought his crib. I woke up in the middle of the night to find a women in a white dress and long black hair standing over my brother's crib. I managed to wake up my dad so he could take me to the bathroom. When I got back it was still there. It was only until morning when it disappeared. Every now and then I see a glance of what I assume is that thing running past the backyard."
The Cat
"My best friend and his wife had moved to a new apartment. I came over to visit a few times, and each time I'd see the motion of a cat in my peripheral vision. Not the image of a cat, but a sense of how a cat moves. Anyway, one day I finally cracked some joke about the ghost cat in the place and his wife was instantly saying "See! See! I told you we had a ghost cat!"
"excuse me"
"I worked graveyard shift in a dementia ward for 4 years and it was anything but quiet. I was working with a nurse one night when we both heard a resident say "excuse me." We looked around and no-one was there. I checked on the resident in question and she was fast asleep in her own room. Many of us also experienced someone whistling in the ward late at night and one nurse even managed to catch a video of it happening. It was unnerving to say the least."
Clueless
Skeleton GIFGiphy"I once saw someone short walk by me in my house. They walked into the laundry room which only has one way in. I walked into it behind them and they where gone. I thought it was my little brother but I went to his room and he was asleep. I still have no clue what that was."
- ImBolio
Now was everyone here positive they were sober? Just asking. Those are certainly spooky moments. I'd like some video footage please. Continue...
Reflections
ghost library GIFGiphy"I was up at 3am when I was maybe 7 or 8. I looked out the window and saw a woman in a white dress run across my yard. I could see through her. She was transparent like the reflections on the window."
"you alright?"
"So, my work place is haunted. I was having a really crap day, and as a cleaner, it's normal that me and my co worker will be the only ones left at night. So I was standing on the second floor, leaning on the banister for the stair case, when I heard this male voice say in my ear "you alright?" Clear as day. I turned around so fast and nobody was there and it scared the hell out of me."
- Rex-the-
Watching Me
"I remember as a young kid I usually use to sit in my bed and watch tv with my room door open while the adjacent guest bedroom next to mine would always have the door shut. I always remember seeing that door fully open and close by itself multiple times a day very slowly and gently. Never really bothered me much now that I think about it… but there were other creepier experiences I had in the same house that made me feel uncomfortable like I was being watched."
Betsy
"I went to the Betsy Ross House as a really little kid in the early 90s. Normal house but I was confused why the tour guide never talked about the woman on the chair crying at the edge of the bed in Betsy Ross's bedroom. So I asked about it. No one else saw the woman at the edge of the bed. I figured it was just a wax museum since there was a wax statue of a man in uniform rolling bullets in the basement."
"Years later, I was looking at haunted Philadelphia tours to go on with a friend and the Betsy Ross House was on it. I was like "woah! I was there!" and looked into it some more. Turns out there is a woman at the end of the bed crying and a uniformed man in the basement that people have reported seeing. There is no way that 8 year old me would have known about either of these things."
hello kitty...
hello kitty lol GIF by Animation Domination High-DefGiphy"I had this hello kitty Balloon In my bed room, it had a string and weight on it. So it was late, I had the lights on just Sitting on my bed. The Balloon turns, faces my door, slowly floats into my hallway and turns and floats into my sister's room. To this day I am scared of balloons."
They are among us and they like Hello Kitty. I'm probably rattling the paranormal cages and they'll come for me next, but I'm ready. I feel like this thread has prepared me.
Boo!
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