What is something really stupid you purchased that turned out far better than expected?
What is something really stupid you purchased that turned out far better than expected?
I bought a piece of 1.5 inch stiff foam to try to fix a sag in a bed. It didn't work but having that thick piece of solid foam around has been a life saver.
Need something flat to put a laptop on? Throw it on the foam. Going to be doing something that requires you to be on your knees for a while? Get the foam!
It went from stupid purchase to something I'd gladly replace if it broke.
When I worked at a small startup, we were moving to a new office and I was asked to help with the buildout. I engaged with the flooring vendor, and he came by one day to drop off a carpet sample. He put it on my desk where my mouse was. It was a rectangle sample of tight knit office carpet, about 18”x22”. When I got back to my desk, I just put my mouse on top of it and started using it as a mouse pad. That was 15 years and 3 companies ago, and I still use it as my mousepad. It’s perfect for the mouse to glide on, soft enough for my wrist to rest on, absorbent of sweat or drink condensation, and large enough I never hit the edge. I will never not use it. It is my mouse carpet, and I love it.
An oversized poncho cape from the local Goodwill. It was woven in different shades of blue and while I'd never wear it outside, I've used it as a wearable blanket at home for a few years now.
I found out it was actually hand made, and costs 300+ USD from the original shop. Bonus points, I feel like a wizard when I wear it
Here's an odd one my wife and I were just talking about. Some years ago, we were redoing our kitchen and the contractor told us to go buy the kitchen faucet we wanted. We went off, looked at several, and picked the one we thought looked the best with what we were doing.
When the contractor went to install it, he opened the box and a battery pack fell out. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why a faucet would need batteries. It turned out that you can turn it on and off by touching it anywhere (handle, faucet itself, whatever), you just leave the physical handle open and set where you want it, then you can touch on and off. I thought it was the dumbest thing ever and we'd never use it.
Flash Forward to now and it's one of the most used conveniences we've ever bought. All those times your hands are covered in raw meat or other cooking mess? Just touch the faucet with your elbow. Rinsing a bunch of veggies one at a time? Tap on, tap off. It works flawlessly, unlike those touchless ones at the airport: no delay and works every time. We will never have a kitchen sink without it - my wife wants them for the bathroom.
A 3D-Printer, I thought I just play around with it and get bored, but you discover so many things that you can do!
The handle on the fridge broke? Print new ones. Need a Flowerpot? Just print one. The router needs a wallmount? I have one ready in a few Hours.
Also I can watch it print for hours, very fascinating and calming.
My wife bought me a Beard Bib as a joke gift after I found it online one day. It's basically a smaller version of the bibs you wear when getting your hair cut, but with suction cups attached to the bathroom mirror to hold it horizontal and catch stray hairs when using an electric shaver. It looks ridiculous.
I now use it every time I trim my beard, even if my wife still laughs at me every time she sees me in it. Cleaning up all the stray hairs was always a pain in the ass, but this thing does a surprisingly good job at catching 99% of the hair, and I can just brush it all into the trash when I'm done.
My wife got me a fitbit. I resisted a little bit because I didn't want to have yet another device to monitor, charge, and maintain etc. I've been really surprised and impressed and how effective it has been in subtly encouraging me to make some small improvements in my habits. Not a bad deal for $100.
Bed sheet suspenders. Dumb problem, stupidly cheap, horribly made, and ABSOLUTELY fixed the friggin sheets being yanked off the corner of the bed twice a night by my tumble-dry-medium sleeper of a spouse.
When they finally broke after almost 2 years I sewed some that'll last 10 years and I don't regret them at all.
Mechanical keyboard. Almost had no money back then, but wanted to treat myself. It costed 100$, and I regretted it the next morning. Felt like shit, but it was so cool to type on.
After 5 years, this metal-frame keyboard managed to survive many outside gigs, long travels, literal war, and it's still with me. And I still love typing on it. Sometimes I code just to type. You can guess why I don't use code completion tools.
Scooter. Not an electric one. I had a thought once "hey I did ride one in childhood, maybe it can be a bit of nostalgic fun from time to time". Got myself the cheapest Chinese thing I could find, "no point investing too much into a fad".
Turned out a scooter is absolute peak urban mobility. Short distances become much shorter. Mid-long distances become short. Granted, for a longer trip somehow the time gains diminish, probably because it's not as efficient as a bike. But a scooter isn't a long-hauler. It's there to zip through an empty mall. It's there to be folded up in a second and brought into a bus or a shop without being a hassle. It's like 3-4 kg, not too fast for sidewalks but fast enough for bike roads, extremely easy to stop, doubles as a cart when carrying bags of groceries home.
The chinese one broke after 1 season because I was riding it everywhere. Then I got myself one from a better company, I chose it for small weight and portability. It's technically children's thing but I'm well below weight tolerance and also smol so it's easy to handle. It's already like a 5th year and whenever it's not raining or too cold I ride it for shopping, errands, leisure walks, to work... Almost daily.
A bicycle. It was kind of a stupid purchase for me because when I got it I wasn't really into doing exercise or outdoor stuff. 900 dollar on clearance gravel bike back in March 2019. I wound up living on that thing, worked my way up to a 160 mile solo gravel ride by September 2019, biked to work in 2020, got into running in 2021, ran a 50K in 2022, now I run to and from work. I put 10,000 miles on that bike in 2 years, explored my city/greater metro area until I ran out of things to explore, pretty awesome impulse purchase
Custom-made ear plugs. Even if you only wear ear plugs occasionally (I do when in a noisy hotel, or when a neighbor goes a bit too crazy), they are so worth having.
Basically you go to an audiologist and they put something kinda liquid in each of your ears to take a mold of your ear canals. A couple of weeks later, you have plastic earplugs that have the exact shape of your inner ears.
Upsides: • They work, always. I would typically use wax or silicon disposable ear plugs before that, and sometimes in the middle of the night they might move and let the sound in; those don’t. Also, foam disposable ear plugs don’t stay in my ear, don’t ask me why. • They never hurt. Since disposable ear plugs get shoved into your inner ear until they take the shape, they continuously push against the walls of your ear canals. I would often feel kinda bruised after using them for a long time. • They are crazy comfortable. Put your ear on a pillow, and you barely feel them at all. • But do they block too much sound? That’s up to you. Basically, you choose the level of noise you want to keep out, which I believe is achieved by using different kinds of plastic.
They’re not a trivial purchase (I think mine cost $150), but then you use them for decades, so it’s definitely worth it. It was a stupid purchase in my case, because I bought them on a whim out of anger against my neighbor’s party one night; but they’ve followed me everywhere since!
Monitor mounting arms that connect to the back of the desk. I have 3 times as much room on my desk now. It's amazing how much room monitor stands really take up. It's not just the actual stand but really the surrounding area because you can't really set any large objects in the vicinity. It really is a game changer to gain a lot of desk space.
Maybe not stupid, but I purchased a pair of bone conducting headphones just because I thought they would be better for running, and harder for me to lose. I wasn't expecting much, but damn, they have been so much better than I expected. Even though the sound quality isn't quite as good, they work so much better with my sensory processing issues, and I can just leave them on all day without concern. Because I've got curly hair, people don't even know I'm wearing them, and because they don't go in my ear canal, they don't impact my ability to hear/talk/interact with the world around me.
A while ago someone posted a picture on Reddit of an old cast iron rotary food grater/slicer and asked "what is this thing?". A bunch of people said it was for grating things like cheese or slicing vegetables. Some people posted the original French or Italian names of it, which was difficult to find. Someone said look up "Rotary grater" and they're all over Amazon for dirt cheap. I bought a cheap plastic one for like $20, figuring I'd use it a few times and forget about it.
I use the damn thing multiple times a week for grating blocks of cheese. It can grate a 1 pound block of cheese in like 30 seconds, 2-3 rotations usually gives me more than enough cheese for myself. It's so much easier to use than a box grater, and no possibility of destroying your finger tips or knuckles!
A Raspberry Pi. I bought it out of a whim and now I use it as a portable desktop computer, I can use Alpine Linux with my files and my setup on virtually any system that doesn't whitelist MAC addresses.
Especially handy when your university has contracts with Microsoft so you aren't supposed to use competitive software, I feel like I'm breaking the law.
An Aeropress Go.
I'm far from a coffee snob, but figured I'd give this $25 piece of plastic a try because a good friend was raving about it. In the year since, it's been my favorite way to make myself a cup of coffee-- the ritual of it helps me structure my Saturday morning, the coffee tastes better than I thought coffee could taste, and I'm more excited to look at the flavors and whatnot from locally ground coffee.
A cheap usb microscope. I wanted to get into macro photography but my eyesight is pretty terrible even with glasses and struggle to see fine details so struggled to set the mounts up. (Small insects, grains, etc)
Saw a usb microscope for 20€ on Amazon and thought for 20 euro it’s going to be terrible but worth a punt. It’s bloody brilliant. Have used it for a whole variety of things from threading needles to soldering work, repairing stuff with glue and tightening up glasses as well as the macro stuff. Coupled with some ‘helping hands’ it’s a permanent fixture on the pc desk.
A set of small neodymium magnets. Didn't have a plan, only they looked "super cool and strong wow".
Used for:
- Locating needles in the carpet.
- Fishing keychains out from behind sofas, gap between garden deck and house, and so many other places.
- Makeshift fix for an old cabinet door that tended to glide open.
- Holding nails and screws while fixin' stuff.
- Attaching a soda bottle to the office lamp in a way that is easy to undo while still pissing off HR.
- Slapping it on a screwdriver to make it magnetic.
- Fidget toy.
- Regular ol' fridge magnet.
VPN. I bought it during the pandemic not for privacy or government spy conspiracy shit, but because it was on "sale" (something like $40 for 38 months or something) and I wanted to try out if skirting geoblock was worth it. It's now probably one of the most-used tech we have in the house. Great for running Max obviously but also for work.
A toy accordion I bought at a truck stop 30 years ago. I blew all of my $30 in vacation spending money on it and everyone said I'd regret it. It ended up kind of joke\prop instrument in all my bands and I still have it and it's still fun to play.
An impulse buy of a $20 micro wireless Bluetooth keyboard. Holy shit. Rock-solid design, ludicrously long battery life, excellent signal transmission, a replaceable battery with the option to use AAAs, a usable trackpad with sensitivity settings. I cannot stress enough how impressed I am with this device as an electrical engineer.
Now I can actually get real work/play done when I'm too depressed to get out of bed. It's also really useful for working with a Raspberry Pi. That plus a cheap LCD means I can just use it like an ordinary desktop.
If anyone is interested in this product, ask for a link and I'll post it in the comments.
A cheap little green alien soft dog toy. My dog has destroyed every soft toy we've ever given her except that one. The head ripped a little at the seam, but we just re-sewed it. She hasn't made a big hole to pull out the stuffing somehow. And she loves it.
I wanted to get a backup, but the company doesn't make that toy anymore. I got an alternative from them and it got torn apart within a few days. I guess it was too good of a dog toy.
A mini keg of a Christmas beer. At the store after drinking a bit, thinking "Oh it's a little cheaper per ounce, lol". My wife rolled her eyes, but she lets me do stupid things. Next day I was thinking "Well that was stupid." But it was a few days before Thanksgiving, and we opened it then, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Draft beer, at home! Fiddling with the stupid pour thing. It was just fun to have something different.
A stupidly cheap (£2?) fleece I bought off a sale rail on a whim, thinking I would never wear it.
I practically lived in that thing, and still use it today.
When Teavana still existed, I bought a teapot and some "teas" (Teavana was mostly herbal tisanes...but still.)
I don't drink coffee, so I imagined the teapot wouldn't ever be used...but somehow it ended up being a big hobby for me. Bonus: fancy teas from online stores are cheap to ship, because they're basically dry and lightweight. Like, if you want to become a food snob about anything? Tea really is the way to go.
The one learning curve I had (as an American) was learning that you DON'T steep the tea longer for stronger tea. You use more tea leaves/more tea bags. Steeping too long turns the tea bitter. (I thought I disliked tea when younger b/c I'd only ever had cheap tea bags left to steep for far too long.) Also, when brewing a green tea, they're really reactive to boiling water, so you REALLY don't want to use boiling water or it'll be a bitter mess. You want to either boil then let it cool, or get a fancy electric kettle where you can set the temperature so it's appropriate for green tea, oolong tea, or black tea.
Shower mirror. It has a base that suctions to the wall and a reservoir that you fill with hot water so that it doesn't fog. I had no idea how much better it was than shaving at the sink. If I'm in a hurry I'll sink shave but I love shower shaving and I love that mirror.
Edit: Here's the one I use. No major complaints, just remove the mirror between uses and re-suction every once in a while.
A PVC pipe cap.
I was making a lightsaber for my kid, and bought a length of clear PVC from Home Depot. (I know, they have bad politics, but Lowe's didn't carry clear PVC.) My local store didn't have any clear PVC or clear accessories in stock, so I had to place an order for shipping, so I got a couple things "just in case" for the build. One of those was a pipe cap.
Didn't end up using the pipe cap, because lightsabers don't have that sort of end. It now sits at my desk as a teeny tiny trash can. Bits of thread from sewing, nail clippings, tags I clip off of shirts, a lot of things fit in the teeny tiny trash can. When it's full, I empty it into the trash, but for a rather small pipe cap, it holds quite a bit of small trash.
Bought some stainless steel wire rope over day, like 500' of it for 25 bucks. I've used that shit for everything. Stringing garlic up, strong lights up, garden trellis, hanging anything and everything. Still got a good 100' left 8 years later.
I bought an Ember mug because I thought it was silly. I ended up really liking the temperature control. I don't rush my coffee/tea. Now every sip is as hot as the first one.
The new Ember costs, I think, half again as much as the first iteration. It's a cute gimmick but I certainly wouldn't pay what they're charging now.
I'm quite satisfied with it, even though it was meant to serve as a toy...
10 lengths of 10 foot 1/2" copper pipe. when I bought it it was cheaper than now by a lot. I ended up never using it for plumbing because we went with a larger diameter and different material. Now I have the coolest patina curtain rods ever.
One time I was in a hardware store and I picked up a pack of those ratchet straps that you use to hold down loads for like $25. I figured that I had a pickup and I'd probably need them "someday". It was an impulse purchase and I felt really badly about it for a while.
10 years later and those straps are worth literal gold. I have gotten so much use out of them over the years it's kind of mind blowing.
I'm here in my van on a hot hot day doing 'work' (in this case a little browsing of lemmy).
cooling me down is a "arctic air' USB fan with a little water reservoir providing a misting action. I think I said, "as seen on tv" like six times after buying it because how stupid can you get -- but i needed a fan and this is what the local hardware store had that ran on USB.
Wow. I love it. Fast, quiet, low power, good air, and the misting function is awesome. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat. (assuming it doesn't break within a week).
More of a gift I got for Christmas than something I bought, but a rechargeable wand vacuum. Thought it was really stupid, but the dang thing is useful. I've used it for anything ranging from sucking up hair in the bathroom to getting the baseboards around the house so I don't have to get a duster to do it that way. Have even taken it out to the car to remove a lot of the dirt and debris that gets into the driver-side footwell.
Was so versatile, I persuaded my folks to get one as well. They now love it too.
Egg boiler. On the surface it's just the most gadgety pointless product invented but I literally wore it out because suddenly I could have hard boiled eggs and no risk of setting my apartment on fire because I forgot about the eggs. After I move, it's the first thing I'm getting for my kitchen because low-risk hard boiled eggs are totally worth it.
There's a lot of seemingly 'useless' kitchen gadgets like this: full size food processor, waffle maker, breadmaker, even my ridic large instapot. I don't use them every day or even every week and no, I don't need them for daily life. Yes I can mince fifty thousand vegetables for this really complicated soup by hand or make bread from scratch or do whatever you do to make a pot roast without them--but I won't do those things. I know me pretty well now; if I want to make that soup, make some fresh bread, or do that thirty-step fancy pot roast, I need those tools or I'll default to frozen pizza and maybe have fresh Italian bread if I went to Central Market recently and remembered to grab it from the bakery.
Years ago, I drunk purchased a microwavable sandwich press off Amazon... it was a genuine surprise when it showed up and I considered returning it, but didn't. Brought it to work and now I use it three to five times a week; I genuinely recommend this thing to other people. It's so convenient and works really well.
[Link to the thing: https://a.co/d/41go0hD]
An old Asus Chromebox CN60, I bought it because it was dirt cheap, as should probably be expected EOL ChromeOS device.
It seems like something that would be completely and utterly useless but once I put Linux on it I was able to use it as a handy little Server. I guess I didn't really think that it was stupid, but other people thought that it was stupid that I bought it.
ANTAGEN dishbrush. I was at IKEA and saw they had dish brushes for less than a dollar a piece, so I stocked up on a few.
They last forever as far as dish brushes are concerned. It did clean-up for 2 large meals every single day for over a year before it started getting worn out. We'd throw it in the dishwasher at night to clean and sterilize it.
Reusable zip ties.
Tons of mini magnets and metal clothes pins (infinite bag closing clamps for near free).
My victorinox signature with a pocket clip (keysmart nano clip). It's a tiny swiss army knife with a built in pen. Comes in handy almost daily an never leaves my waistband otherwise.
MyFitnessPal. I had heard of it, but counting calories is a pain in the ass, no way I'd waste my time with that shit.
Workplace gives it to me for free, so why not take a look? Damn it's so fast and easy and it has made such a huge difference in dirt success. Just wave the camera over barcodes and the rest of the data falls in place. When you actually get enough protein instead of thinking you've got enough protein, then you don't have to feel hungry in a calorie deficit.
It seemed like a frivolous app, but it turned out to be the biggest driving factor for success. The key thing is, I didn't realize how much it appealed to the nerd gamer instincts. The same way out optimize a build/load out for increased performance like in Diablo, that's the same way rewarding feeling you get when you figure out new life hacks to optimize your macros even more to pack even more food into your calorie budget
8 years ago, i got an EUC, aka Electric Unicycle, seamed difficult strange, i managed to learn how to ride it, everybody said i looked like an alien..
8 years later i ride a Veteran Sherman S (suspension model) and i freakngly still love to ride it!! Got a couple of friends hooked, now i've got a whole team in Greece! 😉
Local made products. In my case it's LED lamps. It was started when i read articles on LED and in the end i was searching if there are locally made LED lamps and i found out there are some and they are quiet huge since they are doing contract making road lamps for the government.
So i look for the brand on the popular ecommerce platform and i was surprised that the price is like a quarter of the popular imported brand such as Philips, although the Lumens per Watt is lower (110 Lumens per watt). I was skeptical and hesitated to buy it at first fearing it'll become useless junk. But i took the chance and order it anyway.
I received the product the next day, four 3000K color Lamp. I'm testing it first before permanently installing it and what really surprised me the Lamp does not gets hot, only lukewarm, i guess its because of the board design where the individual LED are not tightly packed.
I gradually replaced all LED lamps at home with locally made ones, they even have 4500K color which i installed for my gf room since shes doing a lot of times doing make up and i think that requires neutral color lighting.
Our house has all gold colored fixtures and normal knobs.
I got really fed up with having to drop everything to open the garage door that I purchased a black lever type knob so now can open the door with my elbow/foot/bags
Doesn’t match anything else in the house right now but it’s my single favorite change I’ve made to our house
Workbenches with butcher block table tops and metal legs for my home office. I was a life long user of cheap metal and glass top desks that you get from Walmart, Staples, etc. These things cost a lot more, but they are worth every penny. And unlike the cheaper stuff, will last years and years unless the house burns down.
Double Edge Razor. I used to shave with an electric shaver but now I can shave faster, better and cheaper. The razor gives a super smooth shave and the soap/aftershave is a kind of wellness routine now that I really enjoy. The blades are extremely cheap so I change them every second shave. There are tons of different types of razors and blades to try out and I really enjoy trying out the shaving soaps and varying them from shave to shave.
I bought a POE switch that seemed really expensive, but I bought it with 6 very inexpensive POE cameras so all in the price was not bad.
When I got the switch i found the build quality was great, it's an industrial format switch so it has DC input for power and wall mount flanges. I might buy a second one if my buddy needs it for his house.
I have an off-brand swiffer handle that I’ve actually packed up and moved several times because it’s the perfect size to unclog my vacuum.
Hand rolls of stretch wrap. Have an artificial Christmas tree you want to make for back in the box? Wrap that thing up. Have a stack of stuff you want to bind together to move more easily? Wrap it.
My tablet for school. I bought it because I was sick of shifting through stacks of handwritten notes while writing papers. Turns out it was the best purchase I made as a student. I haven't bothered to write on paper since, and it's saved me a ton of time and money (otherwise spent on printing supplies). I've started using it for work as well. I don't know if I could function without one now.
Giant roll of wrapping paper. I'm using it for everything. My kid draws on the back, wrapped plates in them when moving, gift wrapping, painting.
A bread proofing box. Not only has it made my bread making attempts much more consistent, but it's also great for tempering chocolate, making buttermilk, and more!
Oh, definitely not a purchase, but Emacs. My life was a mess because of Twitter and it was anti-Twitter in every way – no characters limit, offline, insanely powerful. While Twitter would prevent me from prioritizing, Org-mode could handle task lists, spreadsheets, text documents, with academic citations support, and could export them to .ics, .odt, .pdf, .md, etc. Ideas are affordances and Emacs has let me focus on these instead of trying to build a picture perfect online profile.
Whereas Twitter isn't meant for most people's use cases so it runs a long-term scam called “optimization for engagement” (which is actually abuse by definition), doing everything it can to prevent its victims from taking hindsight on and conceptualizing what's happening to them, Emacs is letting me channel all of this frustration into reading and writing my master thesis. Which deals with how social media increase social inequalities. Highly recommended.
cheapest tesla I could find
This cheap little indoor drone while working from home during COVID to mess around with on breaks and lunch. Turned out to be a ton of fun and in to a full blown FPV drone hobby/obsession.
Despite skepticism, a cheap Fucare electric bike I bought online exceeded expectations, offering a smooth ride and reliable performance, transforming my commute.
My neighbor bought a very good quality ebike. Their brand has good service and is highly praised. You can check it out through this link: [https://randridebikes.com/](This is their website), they have Good warranty service.
Even better 😂
Wireless headphones. The original goal was working out and I didn't want to carry my cellphone on the hand. I never went to work out, but it turns out to be very convenient when my neighbors are being loud, since it has noise cancelling, and also for chores.
Also, some better clothes. For context, I'm FtM. My sister and mother are vain and buy chic clothes like every month, so I always had a surplus of hand-me-downs. I didn't want to buy more clothes because I already have perfectly serviceable unisex clothes on my closet, but when I donated out all my feminine-cut clothes and shoes I found myself lacking clothes so, yeah, I went and bought the stupid clothes. I fucking love them and wear them on every opportunity I get. They make me feel so much better :)
Some people just put their laptop on a table and use the bed when giving oral, but sure, you do you!
I've read in the Middle East they wipe their ass with one hamd amd eat with the other so has a punishment for stealing they'll cut your shit hand off so you have to eat and wipe your ass with the same hand.
I'm 46 years old. In my lifetime, we've gone from being able to put half an hour on one side of an LP or cassette to being able to put a full album on a CD to being able to put a few hundred songs on an early MP3 player to being able to stream unlimited music almost anywhere in the world. That feels like magic to me.
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