Support NeoGAF

[Cyberpunkd]

I will start:

1. Many appliances need to be correctly maintained e.g. a dishwasher should have regular cleaning cycles with specific products ; a washing machine needs to be run at 95 degrees Celsius once in a while to melt and evacuate the liquid detergent residue.
2. Same as the above with pipes - running the cleansing agent regularly that is not as aggressive as the emergency one, but allows the pipes to remain free of obstruction.
3. Cordless vacuum - never going back to cable
4. Wet ass wipes - if you only use a toilet paper you are a filthy pig

 

[Lord Panda]

• Bidet (+dryer)
• Hizero hard floor cleaner (godsend tool to clean up after todlers)
• PV and house battery.
• My Prusa FLM and Anycubic Photonic 4K SLA printers.
• Induction stove (fast and furious ... makes everything else feel so slow, because they are).
• Bonus: All things automation: having the lights, central aircon/heater, shutter and garage motors, CCTV etc tied into Home Assistant/Google/Siri is another huge godsend.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

I got a washing machine that accepts detergent bottles in a receptacle, then draws the required amount.

I just stuff clothes in, press go and presto. Love it. The machine itself lets me know when I need to replace the bottles.

 

[Ic3man]

Air Fryer

 

[KrakenIPA]

No matter who you live with (friends or relatives or yourself), when you clear and clean the sink area of dishes after a meal, you are helping them, and helping yourself. It takes 20 minutes and it makes a world of difference to everyone that lives with you.

 

[nush]

White vinegar. Secret magic water that can do lots of things.

My favorite thing is that it will take the rust off anything if you can leave it to soak for two days in a bowl of the stuff.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

White vinegar. Secret magic water that can do lots of things.

My favorite thing is that it will take the rust off anything if you can leave it to soak for two days in a bowl of the stuff.

Yup.

- cleans lots of filters if you soak them in a mix of water and vinegar
- removes the salt residue from a dishwasher caused by running eco cycles with eco tablets

Related to clothing: you need way less clothes than you have but much better quality - will last you way longer and be way better for the planet. Fuck fast fashion.

 

[Bavarian_Sloth]

Food has to be properly organized.

 

[AJUMP23]

Get a good grill meat taste best over a fire.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Lifehack: a penny saved is a penny earned

 

[nightmare-slain]

Air Fryer

Best purchase I've made. If mine broke today I'd run out and get another one straight away. Not only does it cook food quickly (most foods can be cooked in 10-15 mins) but it has saved me a lot on electricity.

 

[Lord Panda]

Also a good Weber (or other) kettle BBQ but replace the standard stainless steel grill with seasoned cast iron grates.

On the subject of grilling. Also get yourself a charcoal chimney and supercharge the charcoal heating process.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Also a good Weber (or other) kettle BBQ but replace the standard stainless steel grill with seasoned cast iron grates.

On the subject of grilling. Also get yourself a charcoal chimney and supercharge the charcoal heating process.

No joke, this thing makes charcoal grilling a breeze. Charcoal > propane don't @ me haters

 

[StreetsofBeige]

- Air fryer is the best kitchen appliance add on I've used. Next best is a magic bullet

- To help speed up cleaning your BBQ grill, put a giant piece of tin foil on your grill as you burn off the crud. It traps the heat better making it faster

- Gas lawn mower is 10x more powerful and reliable than an electric mower. My old corded electric burnt out when I was cutting damp tall grass as my first mow of the season. Borrowed my neighbour's tiny gas mower and it plowed through it. Bought a gas one and never had issues ever again

- Pay for dry cleaning button shirts and pants. It's not expensive. And in modern day, your office probably allows casual clothing more, so needing to dress up a bit will be less anyway. Splurge and pay the whopping $2/shirt and $4/pant. As a bonus, how ever they clean it doesnt shrink your cotton clothes either

- If you want clothes to wrinkle less/not at all, buy synthetic materials. Natural fibres will shrink

- To get rid of shitty little bits of grass or unwanted vegetation around your patio stones, between your sidewalk etc... make a giant spray bottle mix of water/vinegar/dish soap/lemon juice. Gently shake it up a bit. Yank the plant or weed out by hand as much as possible, then blast the leftover bits or hole. You might have to do it twice in two days, but it'll kill it. This mix will kill just about anything so dont spray it on anything you dont want killed. Dont waste your money buying $10 jugs of chemicals at Home Depot. I did when I first moved into my house. Shit will eventually grow back no matter what. I didn't believe the HD guy when he even said it'll grow back. But I bought it anyway and he was right. So just do it the cheap way at home for pennies

- If you like baking stuff an are used to lining your tray with aluminum foil. Stop. It'll probably stick and be a pain in the ass. Buy parchment paper as it's non stick (DONT buy wax paper as it'll melt). There is also non stick aluminum foil I've seen sold but I've never tried it. I also use parchment paper to line some plastic containers if I need to put some leftovers in it which I think might stain it (spicy saucy shit). I've had my share of containers perma stained from Indian kinds of sauces

- If you have a plastic steamer tray, watch out cooking peppers on it. The only vegetables I've ever cooked which left a perma stain were yellow and orange peppers. Over time it kind of fades away but it's still a bit there

 

[Winter John]

Lifehack. Shoes will last twice as long if you only wear them once a day

Old telephone directories make ideal personal address books. Simply go through them crossing out the names of people you don’t know.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

- If you like baking stuff an are used to lining your tray with aluminum foil. Stop. It'll probably stick and be a pain in the ass. Buy parchment paper as it's non stick (DONT buy wax paper as it'll melt). There is also non stick aluminum foil I've seen sold but I've never tried it. I also use parchment paper to line some plastic containers if I need to put some leftovers in it which I think might stain it (spicy saucy shit). I've had my share of containers perma stained from Indian kinds of sauces

I realized this last week. I was like: "wait, why are some recipes suggesting baking paper and not aluminum foil". THAT'S WHY!

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I realized this last week. I was like: "wait, why are some recipes suggesting baking paper and not aluminum foil". THAT'S WHY!

One day I'll try out non stick aluminum foil. I got a ton of Costco double packs of parchment paper to use up first. The reason is because tin foil can also double as a crumply cover over a bowl or plate. You cant do that with parchment paper.

Parchment paper is also tougher than tin foil. So if you need to line something to protect against potential staining (like I listed above), I prefer parchment as it's easy to nick tin foil and make hole in it.

 

[poodaddy]

Not to be stereotypical but definitely bidet for me as well too. I just don't know why they're not standard on all toilets, they make taking a shit without them seem gross and unhygienic. I can't go back. Hell, I actively try not to take shits out and about so I can get back and use my bidet now.

 

[The Pleasure]

Get a Zoujirushi or Tiger rice cooker. They take the guess work out of a boiling pot and keep it hot for hours while still keeping the fluffiness.

 

[Pagusas]

Buy a recirculating pump for your hot water line in your house. especially if you have a tankless water heater system. It won't add that much to your gas or electric bill, you'll have instant hot water on demand all the time and in the winter it will help keep pipes from freezing (you'll never have to drip pipes again).

It cost $500, you can install it yourself, you only need one, you just put it in the sink farthest away from the water heater system.

 

[Trunx81]

Wait, you guys use aluminum for baking? OK, sometimes you need the extra heat, but I thought baking paper was the norm.

Anyway, here are my "hacks":
- Glass cleaner cleans nearly everything. It´s like white vinegar, a magical sauce
- get clip-shut-boxes for your leftovers. No one wants to eat dryed out food from the day before.
- buy WB40 (incoming memes ..), it can also remove stickers and climate protesters
- a USB wallcharger with multiple outlets. Doesn´t sound like a trick, but its so comfy to have 4 or more cableslots instead of 1 or 2 for recharging. Pro-Move: Replace your wallsockets with ones that have USB charge capability. Pro-Pro-Move: Bedside lamps with USB AND Powercord sockets
- buy a good repeater with a decent range for your wifi. Use an app (like iWifi, free for iOS) to set it up

 

[NecrosaroIII]

Bidet changed my life. I love how clean my ass is now. I have the cleanest ass out of everyone I know. It's so good.

 

[DGrayson]

Use this on your bedside table and run all cables for charging devices there. You dont even need four like in this photo. YOu only need one but you run about 4 cables through one and let them hang down when not in use. Whenever I need to charge something next to my bed I always have the correct cable free and accessible.

 

[22:22:22]

You can bite off a little piece of the corner of a little/mini plastic bag of say sambal. And use it to squirt quite efficiently. The friend i was with freaked out and asked if i came up with that myself. I mean. Come on.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Check out all the lightbulbs in the house, never mind if you’re an owner or are renting. Replace all of them with LED bulbs that consume a fraction of the energy. This is especially true for all the lamps using thin horizontal bulbs, most of the time these are halogen lights, super energy inefficient. There is no reason to have anything else than LEDs.

 

[PSYGN]

Use your used laundry dry sheet to collect the lint.

 

[6502]

After years of 80s tech that didn't work half the time (blow that cart, tv repairs) and 90s tech which was a glimpse of the future but a bit shit / restrictive (digital cameras, dial up etc), it's a boon to be able to buy stuff that works as expected. Usability and reliability has improved a great deal over the years, the trade off being repairability / construction complexity.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

After years of 80s tech that didn't work half the time (blow that cart, tv repairs) and 90s tech which was a glimpse of the future but a bit shit / restrictive (digital cameras, dial up etc), it's a boon to be able to buy stuff that works as expected. Usability and reliability has improved a great deal over the years, the trade off being repairability / construction complexity.

Reparability is still an not as important as it should be. I bought Bose headphones 10 years ago and I had to only replace the pads once, which I was able to do myself. There are as new.

 

[nightmare-slain]

Check out all the lightbulbs in the house, never mind if you’re an owner or are renting. Replace all of them with LED bulbs that consume a fraction of the energy. This is especially true for all the lamps using thin horizontal bulbs, most of the time these are halogen lights, super energy inefficient. There is no reason to have anything else than LEDs.

I made sure to swap out all my lightbulbs to LED. A few years ago the government gave out free LED light bulbs to everyone but when they died (must've been cheap shitty ones) I still had a some old incandescent/halogen ones. I bought more LEDs instead of reusing the old bulbs. For a while I did keep them for a temporary back up but eventually got rid of them all.

It's crazy to think now that those old bulbs used 60-100W per bulb! So many devices in my house use less than that and do much more than putting out light lol. My PC and TV can use 90-110W so I think my PC/TV is basically using the same as a fucking light bulb!

LED light bulbs are the only way to go!

 

[Spaceman292]

No matter who you live with (friends or relatives or yourself), when you clear and clean the sink area of dishes after a meal, you are helping them, and helping yourself. It takes 20 minutes and it makes a world of difference to everyone that lives with you.

Screw this. If I do this it just becomes the norm, then suddenly I'm the designated washer. They can clean their own shit.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Also a good Weber (or other) kettle BBQ but replace the standard stainless steel grill with seasoned cast iron grates.

On the subject of grilling. Also get yourself a charcoal chimney and supercharge the charcoal heating process.

I've got a weber charcoal grill and I didn't even know you could get cast iron grates. Thank you.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I made sure to swap out all my lightbulbs to LED. A few years ago the government gave out free LED light bulbs to everyone but when they died (must've been cheap shitty ones) I still had a some old incandescent/halogen ones. I bought more LEDs instead of reusing the old bulbs. For a while I did keep them for a temporary back up but eventually got rid of them all.

It's crazy to think now that those old bulbs used 60-100W per bulb! So many devices in my house use less than that and do much more than putting out light lol. My PC and TV can use 90-110W so I think my PC/TV is basically using the same as a fucking light bulb!

LED light bulbs are the only way to go!

Same thing with changing the heaters for electric ones or at least smart ones that have temperature detection so they know when not to heat. We bought our apartment with old electric heaters when setting temperature was done by:

1. Setting the dial
2. Closing the door
3. Coming back after 2 hours to check if you like the temperature

Replaced every heater with a smart one with temp monitoring.

Also - you don't need to blast heat at 21-22 degrees Celsius throughout the day, 19 is perfectly fine and costs you WAY less.

 

[Spaceman292]

Stop buying appliances

 

[jshackles]

If you're able to, it's nearly always better to buy a high-quality product that can be maintained, rather than a cheaper one that's designed to be disposable.

For example, I own a pair of work shoes that I perform regular maintenance on (wax, shine, replace laces as they wear out, has replaceable insoles, etc.). They cost about 3x as much as a similar shoe with a lower build quality. But I've worn these now for nearly 8 years, whereas before I was replacing my shoes every 8-14 months.

There are lots of things like this. But you've got to do your research, a lot of products are more expensive but not necessarily better quality.

 

[AJUMP23]

Stop buying appliances

Marry a dishwasher and lawn mower and cleaner.....don't buy one.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

If you're able to, it's nearly always better to buy a high-quality product that can be maintained, rather than a cheaper one that's designed to be disposable.

For example, I own a pair of work shoes that I perform regular maintenance on (wax, shine, replace laces as they wear out, has replaceable insoles, etc.). They cost about 3x as much as a similar shoe with a lower build quality. But I've worn these now for nearly 8 years, whereas before I was replacing my shoes every 8-14 months.

There are lots of things like this. But you've got to do your research, a lot of products are more expensive but not necessarily better quality.

My redwing boots are going on 10 years strong.

 

[12Goblins]

I use a wireless electric leaf blower to dust my house. I might be insane though

 

[JC 1080P CRT]

Said by people in this thread already, but:

* Wet wipes (can never go back to just toilet paper)
* Magic Bullet (great at blending fruit, protein powder, milk, whatever concoctions I want to make)

 

[jufonuk]

Not a boomer.

bring a packed lunch to work. You will save some money over time. Plus healthier. Than eating at fast food places.

Books are great they can allow you to disconnect from your phone or computer. Join a library

If you want to do or learn something realise time is going to pass no matter what you do. So I know stead of letting six months pass and do nothing you could even do ten mins a day of what ever it is of that thing over six months and before you know it you are making progress.

Drink more water.

Original Doom is still one of GOAT games ever. Not a hack just saying.

 

[fran.fernandez]

I’m Sapporo I learned to let the water open at night so it doesn’t freeze.

In Osaka I have camera motion detection air conditioner, so my electricity bill is way cheaper than my friends. Also I clean it for mold one time a year.

 

[Pakoe]

Brb taking notes. Finally been able to find a place so I take all the help i can.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Not a boomer.

bring a packed lunch to work. You will save some money over time. Plus healthier. Than eating at fast food places.

If you want to do or learn something realise time is going to pass no matter what you do. So I know stead of letting six months pass and do nothing you could even do ten mins a day of what ever it is of that thing over six months and before you know it you are making progress.

The problem with packed lunch is stupid corpo stuff of people considering it a 'team thing' to go out and eat with your co-workers.

Agree so much on the last one - it won't be a priority till you make it so.

 

[jufonuk]

The problem with packed lunch is stupid corpo stuff of people considering it a 'team thing' to go out and eat with your co-workers.

Agree so much on the last one - it won't be a priority till you make it so.

Ahh just get them to bring packed lunches in and do a picnic together convince them about the time they save and money.

 

[jufonuk]

Rather depressing one. I guess but if you are on good terms with your parents or who ever raised you. Get as many photos of them as you can videos etc anything. My Dad passed a few years and well I have photos of him. Just not so many new videos. I still remember his voice but I guess with time my memory of it will fade.
It will help you remember the fun times.
Google photos can group photos by people so you can create albums to remember them by.

Also goes without saying talk and text or visit them whenever you can.

 

[mitch1971]

Air fryer.

 

[JC 1080P CRT]

Oh, just remembered a few that nobody's mentioned yet.

Whenever I do the weekly shopping at a grocery store, I usually get at least one of those 8-cent bags that you put groceries in.
Instead of using multi-gallon-sized trash bags, I just use one or two of those bags per week (I don't generate a lot of trash that needs a large bag).

For fruit peels (bananas, watermelon, oranges, etc.), meat wrappers, and other scraps:
Instead of throwing them in the garbage right away, I put them into a Ziploc bag, store the bag in the freezer until the day before garbage day, and then open the bag and put everything in the garbage when it's time.
Doing this helps prevent the trash container and garbage from stinking up the house during the week, requiring me to throw it out and spray the area with freshener.

In a different living situation (I currently rent), I would want to compost, but unfortunately there isn't an area for me to do that...

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Whenever I do the weekly shopping at a grocery store, I usually get at least one of those 8-cent bags that you put groceries in.

For groceries, if I forget my nylon bag in the car and the stuff I'm getting isnt a lot of stuff, I just go to the produce section and use those bags. I also always put any tray of meat into one of these produce bags. Prevents any gross blood or juices getting on your hands, nylon bag or other food if it wasnt securely wrapped by the butcher.

I got a drawer of all my plastic bags and that includes many of these produce bags over the years. I use them if I need to throw a small amount of stuff in the garbage bin where I dont want to waste a garbage bag.

 

[nush]

I got a drawer of all my plastic bags

Sounds like you need to keep a few in the car as well. I kept some in the bottom of my work bag in case I needed to make an impromptu supermarket trip. I'd usually see some old geezer doing the produce bag trick and struggling. I'd just offer one of my spares.

 

[NeoGuff]

3D printer FDM
3D printer Resin
Air fryer
75” Samsung 4K TV for only £800 is still amazing to me

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Also - you do not need latest and greatest for 90% of your things. I have headphones going on for 9 years now, running ones for 4 years, I have an iPhone that I just bought last year, so this is another 3-4 years minimum. Imagine the money saved.