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:
Sad The Office GIF
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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
shower shaving GIF
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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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Do we even have a clue that they're the "one" that got away? How long until it sinks in? And how do we not know there isn't another "one" coming behind them? I have no answers. Just asking...
The Draft
Episode 1 Omg GIF by RuPaul's Drag RaceGiphy"The girl who summoned up the nerve to ask me out towards the beginning of high school. I was so humiliated by the life my family was living that I stalled until she gave up."
"Betsy, if by some stroke of dumb luck you're reading this... I'm so sorry. It was 25-27 years ago, but I still hate myself for that. You were beautiful, intelligent, a good person, and if I had anything resembling a stable, presentable home I would've said yes in a heartbeat... I had a crush on you since 7th-grade 'intro to drafting.'
I Love Her
"Weird, I was just confiding in my mom about this last night. I'm late but for catharsis's sake I'm going to post. My first girlfriend is a classic case of you don't know what you have until it's gone. She's the complete package. Beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, and so kind. We started dating when I was 17 and broke up when I was 21."
"For reference I'm 30 now. I was an idiot. I wanted to play the field. I wanted to party and hook up with college girls. It was fun at first but after a while I felt this gnawing hole in my heart. The feeling of doubt crept up slowly and still, a decade later my chest feels tight thinking about it."
"I didn't realize until my later serious relationships that getting along with your SO's family is so important. Her mom and step dad genuinely treated me like a part of their family. It's not a stretch to say I literally grew up with these people. I spent some of my most formative years with them. Birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases, you name it. They celebrated me and my accomplishments. They genuinely cared about me. Just amazing, salt of the earth, lovely people."
"Her birthday was in March and I sent her a text and we ended up talking for a bit. She's happily married and stable with a daughter and a second on the way. I'm genuinely so happy for her. She deserves happiness. I just wish I was a part of that. Sitting at work 10 years later I'm tearing up. I numbed myself out to it for years, it's so strange to me that I've been so stuck on her lately. Is this normal?"
- direct07
15 Years Later
"My very first real love. I was a teenager and I didn't really know how to be comfortable in myself or with myself. I played silly teen girl games and lost him even as a friend. Now 15 years later I still think about R from time to time. I genuinely hope he's happy in his life."
"Edit: Wow this blew up while I was sleeping. Thanks for all the sweet words and to everyone with their "one" congratulations! I suppose I hadn't looked him up on social media because I'm scared, scared he won't respond, scared he will respond, scared he'll think I'm a stalker. I'm in a happy relationship now, but what if... Etc etc etc. But I'll give it a Google."
Missed You Much
rhythm nation dance GIF by Janet JacksonGiphyA girl I dated in high school. Went on a date one time she took me out parking and I was too stupid to realize it.
"She always talked about moving away as soon as she got finished with high school. I always thought I would stay in a little town the rest of my life. Turns out I was the one who left and move to another state. Later I heard that she had told someone that I knew that she thought that we would be married at some point. Missed it by that much."
Ok... I've been a bit blind to the light. People can be cruel, but also highly creative. Why not just lead with the truth? It'll always hurt more after lies.
Chuck E.
Chuck E Cheese Wink GIFGiphy"Ah the rare AskReddit question I can answer."
"I met a wonderful woman circa 2013-2015. We worked at what I can best describe as an upscaled Chuck E Cheese. Or ghetto Six Flags. Your choice."
"We hit it off instantly, though at the time I was rather romantically inept. Eventually, she says she's leaving to join the Air Force. I tell her I'll miss her, and wished her well. The thought of asking for her number so we could stay in contact didn't even cross my mind."
"Cue the next day, I stop for lunch on my way to work, and as I'm walking to my car I hear my name being called. I turn around, and it's her, running toward me. Universe giving me a second chance, right? Wrong. My dumb butt still didn't ask for her number. She looked a little upset, and I still think about her often. Desiree, I hope you're doing well."
The Getaway...
"He was my first and last love. I was 16 and he was 18 when we met. We bounced around like idiots, on again off again, finally got together mid 20s. We both fell into bad habits - drugs and alcohol, more booze for me, more drugs for him. We had some bad things happen that were pretty detrimental to staying sober. We would split, reconcile, get sober, fall off the wagon, split, etc... repeat as necessary. We realized we were very bad for each other unless we could BOTH just get sober for ourselves, and split."
"Ten years later, I was sober for 7 years (still am, going on 18 years end of this month, actually! Woo, go me!) and he was beginning to come back, sober about a year. He contacted me, we met, talked about trying again. He said that once he had been totally clean for a year, we'd do it. That whole "Don't make any changes for a year" thing. I would visit him, tho, things were good."
"He woke up one morning feeling bad, thought he had the flu. (This was pre-now) I stayed around because he was sick, but neither of us thought he was drastically bad, just the flu, right? He got worse and worse, finally we called an ambulance because he got up from a nap and couldn't breathe. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Aortic dissection."
"He got away, but someday I'll see him again. I never stopped loving him, and him me. We just weren't good for each other."
Ce la vie...
"My most serious Ex."
"Don't think I truly understood love until I met her. Loved her more than I ever thought I could love anything. It eventually ended when she told me that, through no fault of my own, she had fallen out of love with me. That was 2 years ago, still hurts to think/talk about."
"Ce la vie..."
The Avoid...
"I'm in the middle of trying to avoid that right now actually."
"It's not worth the heartache trust me. I fought to stay in a relationship for an entire year. If I would've just let her go the first time she wanted there would've been a lot less pain. We would've left on good terms. I would've lost a lot less sleep. Rip the band-aid off because once the band-aid starts peeling it's inevitable it'll fall off with time."
Kim Tate Eye Roll GIF by Emmerdale"My ex and I broke up over 3 years ago. Mutual breakup through a lack of communication on both ends I feel."
"Thought I was over that hill until this week she messaged just to say hey and ask an innocent question. We text for the best part of the day and it's brought up a lot of old feeling. Feeling pretty bitter sweet right now."
Love is a mess. Why even bother trying if you can't be true? It's not hard to just spell out the situation. And if you're the one needing to put together the words... look closer. The dialogue shouldn't be difficult.
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