A high quality mechanical pencil that takes girthy lead. I use a staedtler 925 2mm and it’s absolutely wonderful for taking notes and writing and has served me through high school, college, and work. It writes similar to a regular wood pencil but sharpening is optional
Strap wrenches as jar openers, got a two-pack years ago (large and small) for less than $20 and end up using one every couple of weeks
I use a small sheet of that no-slip shelf liner stuff for jars.
Oestrogen (joking but also serious)
On a more serious note, a raspberry pi to run pihole and gobble up all the ads for all devices on my home network
$20 total or per day? If total, then a dumb stylus for my phone. If per day, then junk food. As an American my retirement plan is to die from heart disease.
1L water bottle, especially if it’s insulated. Keeps your drink cool, but also makes it so I don’t have to get up to get more drinks when I run out.
We had some in a car during a trip to Wonderland during the summer. A Gatorade bottle was disgustingly hot while the insulated bottles still had ice in them.
5/7 would recommend
I love insulated bottles but I can’t find one that’s 1L that isn’t massive…
I’m surprised I did not think of mentioning it next to the Preppy fountain pen I already mentioned but a reading lamp! This one is 15-18€ clip-on. It’s USB-C (I would prefer standard batteries if there was a model so it doesn’t got to waste one the battery is dead). It’s lightweight and the brightness (as well as its temp) can be adjusted.
Worth every single cent, imho. I find it so useful that I have purchased two, just in case I need to recharge one.
Reminds me of the GameBoy Color light accessory, but fancier. Man, that thing was clunky!
Pet jumping spider.
Honestly 10 star pet. They eat a small bug every other day or so. They look adorable. They will recognize and react to you, and you can even train them to accept handling. They come in a wide variety of colors.
Downsides are that you’ll probably end up getting more than one (do NOT co-hab them!), or that they only live for 1-3 years. If you enjoy having the spider though, you can look into other arthropods like tarantulas, or vinegaroons (which look scary, but are harmless and have very sweet dispositions).
Not a pet but a couple weeks ago I had a big fly buzzing around my room and annoying the shit out of me for like 4 hours while I was working from home. Then I heard it buzzing against my window in a weird way and I turn around and there’s a big ass jumping spider just murdering the shit out of it. I’ve never been so happy to see a spider in the house. It hung out in the corner of the window for like an hour after that and then it was gone and I haven’t seen it since.
Do you just… grab one off the street?
You can, but for ethical reasons, I would recommend not doing that. There are plenty of sellers online and at expos who sell captive bred spiders.
Converting $20 to local currency, I’d probably go with this:
This is so-called “Liubao Tea”, a kissing cousin to pu’er tea. I did a review of my first batch(es) and it has rapidly (literally with one round of brews) reached the top of my circulation in teas.
The depicted tea is one aged from 1991 (the one I reviewed was tea stems from 2003) and is of one of the higher grades. A 100g package will set you back about $15 or so at today’s exchange rate. 100g is about 15-20 servings, and each serving can be brewed multiple times (even my tea stems can be brewed four times without loss of flavour), so it’s quite the bargain.
Save it for a time when you really need something warm, rich, and comforting. It will last forever as long as you store it in a cool, dry, dark space. And personally I think it’s a bargain at 15 bucks.
Excuse me, kissing what?
It’s an expression. It means “related, but not so closely that they can’t fuck”. Welcome to Dixieland, pardner
Cousin. Did I typo that?
Where do you get it?
I get it straight from a collective representing the farmers in Liubao. There are some Internet vendors who sell it, though, so you don’t have to move to China. I can’t vouch for any of them though since, well, I don’t use their services.
Ah yes, the most convenient of currencies - dried leaf.
What methods do you use to dry the tea leaves and stems after each brew?
You don’t. You finish your cup, you put the leaves back in, you pour hot water over top.
I see, so it’s only possible if you drink it consecutively. Do you use a strainer or put the leaves in the cup?
Yes. At work, for example, I make a cup in the morning about 10AM and then keep refilling and drinking until about an hour before quitting time.
The link provided a lot of answers to your questions. It looks like, similar to puer, to be drunk consecutively.
Oops, didn’t notice the link. I’ll check it out.
A 10-foot USB cable. Most people use whatever’s packed in with their electronics, and it’s pretty rare to get anything longer than 6 feet. Having the extra length is really nice in many situations.
It’s also one of my go-to inexpensive gifts or part of a care package for someone in the hospital. The extra length there is often the difference between being able to use a device while it’s charging or not.
Especially if it’s braided and has extra large and durable connector thingies so it won’t hard bend.
They’re rare because 10 feet is too long for a reliable USB data transmission. But yes good for charging.
Eh, I have audio interfaces and MIDI controllers on 10ft cables cause shorter just don’t reach my PC, works perfectly fine. Longer than that is a gamble but as far as I know 10ft is the upper bound of the USB 3.0 spec, so should be totally fine unless you have especially shitty cables.
I have long ones too that run my old Oculus Rift sensors. Those can ocassionally be flaky but I think it’s the controller rather than the device. I’m not saying they don’t work, I’m saying they are less reliable and/or more expensive to make reliable. Hence companies not bundling them.
$20 can buy many peanuts.
Explain.
Money can be exchanged for goods and services
Explain
Money is a thing that people agree has value and therefore can be traded for other things of value
D’oh!
Explain
Silk pillow case. Good for skin and hair.
Wool socks if it’s winter and/or you live in a cold climate.
I wouldn’t even consider that a luxury item. In cold climates, warm socks are required.
Wool ones specifically are far better than synthetic ones
They also keep your feet from stinking and stay warm even when saturated in water. Also, in the event of a fire or high heat, they won’t melt and fuse to your skin causing catastrophic tissue damage
Fluffy stuffed animal. If I didn’t have a couple stuffed kitties to hug I probably would have killed myself already. Nice to have something to pretend loves you
I know few pleasures greater than snuggling up to a pile of plushies in a cold winter night.
Though they do NOT help in getting up at morning in the slightest.
As someone who has no less than two dozen stuffies on the bed right now I can tell you they do love you because you love them.
Bidet attachment.
For 20 bucks really? Is it a handpump model you dip directly into the toilet water?
Aww damn. Prices went up since I bought mine, but it was $20 when I got something similar to this one :
https://www.amazon.com/SAMODRA-Ultra-Slim-Minimalist-Non-Electric-Adjustable/dp/B08QHTVDM3
Please use URL Check to de-spy your links
What is it? Why?
https://www.amazon.com/SAMODRA-Ultra-Slim-Minimalist-Non-Electric-Adjustable/dp/B08QHTVDM3
That’s the link. Everything after the ‘?’ is information encoded in key=value pairs separated by an ampersand (&). It’s harmless on its own and it’s useful for rendering pages. But big corpos now attach extra info about your browsing session for analytics and advertisements and who knows what else. TikTok, Facebook and Amazon are the most notorious for abusing this. In FB, for example, they use an “fbid=” parameter associated with your account and YouTube uses “si=” so they can track who gets the link from whom.
As a rule of thumb, if the link is obnoxiously long, it’s tracking something.
Wow that’s crazy thanks
You’re welcome! Sorry, I had to edit for clarity. Hopefully it’s better explained now and less wordy.
Yes
2kg of cookies
I like the way you think
