Something some people may not know about me is that I am a massive fan of thrift stores, as well as the dollar store. I have found some truly innovative items there for way less than you would find anywhere else. My husband found a pasta maker at Savers for only a few dollars, and now he uses it to make his own pasta. And it's gooooood.
Of course, you can find incredible, mind-blowing products anywhere for super cheap--you just need to know where to look. ToteMyRatchet asked:
What life changing item can you buy for under 100$?
You can really find some game-changers for cheap if you go to the right places.
Be warned- these can work a little too well.
“Blackout curtains! I've never slept so well, and could kick myself for not doing this years earlier.”
“Pair them with a blackout curtain rod, and it's next level. I'll never go back.”
Soooo worth it.
pillow GIF
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“A good pillow. Granted, bedding can be unreasonably overpriced, but $20 pillows at Target are not awesome. Invest in a good pillow. You spend 1/3 of your life on it.”
“I bought an 'expensive' pillow from €100 to €50 in a sale. It makes so much difference! Any hotel I stayed couldn't offer the same comfort.”
A must-have.
“An emergency roadside kit for your vehicle.”
“At Costco right now (in the US) you can get a CAT jump starter that's also a compressor to fill your tires as well as a power station with 120v, 12v, USB plug ins for $99.
Perfect for camping and if the power goes out as well.”
Good shoes are a necessity.
“A decent pair of shoes on clearance. Nice shoes, like Eccos, that are good for your feet. You might not think about it, but your feet and how you treat them are crucial for the health of you ankles, knees, hips and back. You're standing on those mfs all the time. They work hard for you, so get good shoes!
I'm not talking about designer bullsh*t or whatever is trendy.”
Think of all the amazing stuff you can get for less than $100. That’s cheaper than a night out!
Ooooh this is a good one.
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“Ladies... get a shower stool. I have a teak Japanese style one.. Shaving is infinitely easier without having to do shower yoga. Also, I no longer almost fall and die while switching legs. And it's easier to dissociate under the water.”
“I'm 1000% with you. I've had a chair in my shower for only a couple months and it makes everything easier. I also feel like I can sit in the shower and really REALLY tend to my feet without fear of slipping, falling, and dying lol”
Crazy Historical Events That Sound Fake But Are 100% True | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Life-changing af.
“A weighted blanket - my sleep life will never be the same.”
“Weighted blankets are great for people who like to cuddle or snuggle up to something when they sleep.”
Grateful gums.
“Electric toothbrush. Your teeth and gums will thank you forever!”
“Can confirm. Was gifted an electric toothbrush and have been teeth ever since. Gums still send me holiday cards.”
Of course, some things are much more crucial than others.
Much needed.
season 2 dancing GIF by NETFLIX
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“Condoms. Your life will change if you DON'T use them!”
“True. It won't be $100 anymore but your soul and your paycheck.”
A lot of useful info here.
“A good flashlight. The tl;dr here is that you need one more than you think, it's one of the most useful things you can own, and maglites and plastic crap are not even close in capability to what you can get these days.
Many of you have probably seen the feds recommending owning a dedicated flashlight- not the one in your phone. Which is absolutely good advice, because in the event you need a flashlight to see there's a good chance you're in a situation where you are not going to be able to charge your phone, and will have better uses for your phone battery.
And a lot of you are probably thinking "yeah no worries I have that plastic flashlight laying around here somewhere" or "oh yeah my dad's old maglite is in the garage." Guys, I love to break it to you, but the flashlight you have is probably terrible compared to proper modern flashlights.
And no, I don't mean the ones you get in the sporting goods section of WalMart- although some of those are reasonably okay, they're almost universally overpriced for what they are. And I sure don't mean this US MILITARY HIGH POWER EXTREME BEST FLASHLIGHT IN THE WORLD marketing traps you see on TV ads and kickstarters.
Nowadays you can get incredible flashlights that will light up your house better than your actual overhead lights, turn nighttime off in a 50 yard radius of you outside, or even fire a beam of light across a field or lake a mile away. For less than $100 bucks. Hell, in many cases, less than $50.
Now obviously I recommend heading over to r/flashlight if you want to do some research- although fair warning, you might catch the flashlight collecting bug and there's no coming back from that. But if you want my personal recommendation for some to check out-
The Sofirn SP36 is about the size of a soda can, and can put out about 100 times as much light as the flashlight on your phone in a big floody way that fills up rooms easily. Hovers around $60 on Amazon.
The Astrolux FT03: this is about as typical looking a flashlight as you can imagine, but the standard model can put out about 50 times as much light as your phone and will blast it out over 800 meters. About $35 if you're willing to sit around and wait for it to come from China in a couple weeks.
The Lumentop EDC18 is a pocket sized flashlight about the size of your thumb that can do over 50 times as much light as your phone. If you don't want a fancy user interface, go for the EDC18L. $50, or as little as $30 with a coupon on Amazon.
Anything from Olight, Sofirn, Convoy, Emisar, Noctigon, Nitecore, Wowtac, Thrunite, Surefire, Fenix, or Zebralight is going to blow your mind if you've not used a real modern flashlight before and will be probably be more than enough for a normal non flashlight fetishist. There are plenty of other companies I've forgotten to put in there I'm sure but I'll personally vouch for all of those.”
That sounds fantastic.
“Smart bulbs. Put one in a lamp in your bedroom and have it slowly brighten in the morning. It will change your life.”
“I have them all over my house and love them. I set them up with Alexa so they turn on and off on a schedule, I can tell them to dim or brighten, you can go party mode with different colors that flash or brighten along with the music, they're LED so they'll last forever, and it's great "security" when I'm out of town to make people think I'm home. All for like $10/each. Worth every penny, my lighting matches my moods now”
I hope all of you have added a few of these things to your shopping list. Put $100 aside from your next paycheck, and invest in a few of these truly life-changing item. You won’t regret it.
I'm on the fence about high school. I want to hate it, but nostalgia haunts me. I saw a lot of violence, there is that.
We were on CNN.
don lemon nodding GIF by Red Table TalkGiphy"They started charging us for ketchup in the cafeteria. Most of the school boycotted cafeteria lunch and brought all manner of condiments from home. We were on CNN. They eventually caved." ~ Ash3Monti
No one liked him.
"I was big into drama club and musical theatre when I was in high school. There was a girl in the drama club in her freshmen or sophomore year who was super nice and everyone loved her. Her older brother on the the other hand, was a complete and total douchebag. No one liked him."
"He always made inappropriate comments or jokes and no one liked to be around him. One night, he was driving him and his sister back from school when he took a steep curve going around 100 mph. He lost control and hit a telephone pole. His sister died instantly and he was in a coma for a few weeks but ultimately survived."
"Myself and my friends in the drama club were devastated. She was one of the sweetest girls you'll ever met and we all loved her. A year or two later, the brother messages my sister and tries to use his sister's death as leverage to get laid. F**k you, you piece of crap." ~ FearTheKeflex
Bribes
"Guidance counselor was taking bribes to change grades (Both money and sexual favors). Invited one male student over to his house. Had the student tie him up and hang him by chains in his basement "dungeon." Student was homophobic and while the counselor was tied up, bludgeoned him to death." ~ monthos
H2O Issues...
"This is not that extreme, but it's still disgusting. We have drinking water taps instead of fountains. One parent was suspicious of whether they were cleaning the tanks or not. So they made an announcement that the tank was being cleaned every single day."
"A lot of us didn't believe it, so a group of boys decided to see for themselves if it was true or not. So they put a dead frog in the tank when there was no one around. I don't even know where they found the frog but they swear they didn't kill it. Anyway the frog was there for a few weeks. And obviously the water started tasting weird."
"After the teachers got multiple complaints, they opened the tank and found the frog. The boys were punished, but they fired back with the fact that they lied about cleaning the tanks. They were still punished, because they proved it in a disgusting way. They could've put literally anything in the tank, but they chose a dead frog." ~ R00mTemperature
The Quad
Acds2 Look Away GIF by Anime Crimes DivisionGiphy"A worker doing stuff on the roof. He fell off. Landed in the 'quad' at lunch. A large piece of machinery fell and squished his head. Like a cartoon, only funny. Like 150 Kids saw this." ~ LordInventus
Threats
"The Latin kings gang threatened my cousin and his friends and they had 10 squad cars guarding the whole school and dismissed us the same day early." ~ Terrykrinkle
“it’s gonna blow”
"I had just moved in from Egypt to the states in my senior year of high school. A teacher thought it would be funny to fold a bunch of papers and wrap them in duck tape to make it look like a bomb and threw it my direction and went under his desk saying 'it’s gonna blow.' Everybody started laughing and I was so clueless then I just laughed along. It infuriates me to this day that I didn’t call him out on it or report him." ~ ezzabousaif
Go Fish
"Someone somehow made a bomb threat on a Swedish fish candy. Like one single piece. I don’t know how it happened but he got arrested." ~ ts_13_
Masternid
"A couple weeks before graduation, this kid hacked into the school system and put a Hitler quote and a Boston bomber reference in the senior quotes for the yearbook. One of the affected parties was a trans girl, and we're still not sure if it was a targeted act because of that."
"Administration didn't find out until the entire senior class had received their books. Some people turned theirs in to get their pages replaced, but some kept it because it was a 'limited edition item' or some stupid sh*t like that. Kid got arrested and charged with cybercrime, since he hacked everyone in our school system's school passwords."
"He was so close to graduating too, but got expelled like two weeks before he could. Looked like a rat too. It was all over the news, and everyone in the state of CT basically knows about this now. Got out on bail for $5000." ~ kocorpsie
Season 3 What GIF by On My Block"Apparently one student brought drugs to school and was selling it to her friends. A completely unrelated student caught on and stole the drugs while everyone else was in class. She was caught snorting the drugs in the bathroom by the group selling the drugs and got the crap beat out of her."
"We also had a recently graduated student murder his parents for insurance money . He hid the bodies in a chicken coop and told everybody they were on vacation. It wasn't until 7 months later the bodies were found by the landlord because the rent was late." ~ randomgenericcow
Enjoy high school, at least try too. Maybe if more kids do that, it wouldn't be so insane.
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