Products to level up your life
Having taken inspiration from Sam Bowman and Rob Wiblin’s lists of things they’ve found to deliver a lot of consumer surplus, here is my own list, though with some common ground where there are products I particularly agree on.
Images are included for aesthetic pleasure, but unless expressly specified, I don’t recommend any particular brand or retailer. I’ve no affiliation to any of the companies alluded to and haven’t run any comparisons, but hopefully its a handy source of inspiration!
Cordless vacuum cleaner
These might not be as powerful as their corded counterparts, but the benefit of being able to get the job done without fussing with plug sockets makes the prospect of vacuuming the house a lot more attractive. As a result, vacuuming happens more often, the house is cleaner and there’s less need for sheer power in the first place. It also makes it easier to clean outside the house, like inside the car when it’s not parked right outside your house.
The Roasting Tin cookbook series
In a world of alleged quick and easy recipes that end up sinking hours of your time, The Roasting Tin is the answer. Most recipes just involve some simple chopping, stuff goes in a roasting tin and the results are delicious. The time from start to finish might be longer than for other recipes but it’s also more liberating as you’re free to do other things during most of that time.
Knife sharpener
Sharp knives make cooking so much faster and more enjoyable, but you don’t necessarily need to spend large on the knives themselves. Expensive knives may well have their benefits, but a good knife sharpener that keeps cheaper blades in shape seems a more economical option.
Dehumidifier bags
If your car windscreen gathers condensation then instead of whacking on the air con every time you start the car, put some re-usable dehumidifier bags on the dashboard to prevent that condensation in the first place. You can make your own bags by gathering together small silica gel pouches that appear with various packaged goods, but for those who lack the foresight/patience, various retailers are on hand to provide.
Corn bulbs
In the realm of home working well-being there’s lots of talk about good posture and taking breaks, but not much talk about lighting. Even in a room with windows, poor lighting can be an invisible source of stress, and it can easily be addressed, though not necessarily with standard household bulbs. So-called corn bulbs combine multiple leds to create a much brighter light without significantly greater energy consumption. You wouldn’t want one in your face, but placed to the side it could be as close as you’ll get to an extra window.
Electric toothbrush and stannous fluoride toothpaste
I was late to the party on electric toothbrushes but thought I’d let any other laggards know — they are simply better at removing plaque than manual brushing. Many also come with a timer that ensures you give each part of the mouth equal attention, which presumably makes a big difference over the years. In turn, it seems that Oral B Pro Expert is not just marketing paste, but is one of few toothpastes to contain stannous fluoride (as well as the more common sodium fluoride). It turns out scientists have known of stannous fluoride’s tooth-defending superiority for decades, but the more gritty feel and higher price point has been enough to put many consumers off. Given the costs of dental treatment and the fact that you only get one set of teeth, it seems a price worth paying.
In some ways this recommendation is an outlier as you don’t receive a tangible return for your money, but in my view it’s no less of a product to level up your life. Giving to EA Funds about as close as you can get to being sure that your charitable giving is achieving maximum bang for buck. It operates a bit like an investment manager, continuously researching and analysing data to find the best places to put your money, but instead of seeking financial returns they seek to identify the world’s most pressing needs and optimally allocate resources to whichever organisations are addressing those needs most effectively. Give as much or as little as you like and, based on your own view of the world’s most pressing needs, you can direct your money towards certain areas, e.g. global health, infrastructure. There are various other similar organisations out there trying to optimise charitable giving, so there’s plenty to read about if interested.
Battery replacement kits
Poor battery health seems to be a common motivation for getting a new phone, but unless fashion or some particular feature is very important to you, you’d usually be far better off keeping your handset and just replacing the battery. Various retailers will replace a battery for you, but cheaper still (and perhaps more satisfyingly) you can often replace it yourself. Various kits are available online that include just the right odd-shaped screwdrivers and sticky tabs you need. Just be careful to follow any safety advice, including not to ever bend or pierce a battery!
Double-ended, colour-coded, narrow-headed measuring spoons
No more faffing around trying to find the right spoon, trying to get spices out of a small jar or washing and drying spoons between wet and dry ingredients. Spoons like these make scratch cooking easier and more enjoyable and therefore more likely to happen.
Isopropyl alcohol 99%
No good at all for drinking but a versatile and fast-evaporating cleaning agent to have about the house. Use it neat to clean electrical components or remove stubborn sticky labels, dilute it to 70% to make your own hand sanitiser, or use it in various combinations with other household products to make your ideal fast-drying window/oven/surface cleaner. Obviously follow the safety warnings.
Garlic rocker
Whatever the recipe says, one garlic clove is just not enough. In such cases, rather than trying to squeeze all the cloves through a small lever-style crusher, the rocker design makes it easy to crush several cloves at once and in my view it’s easier to clean. That said, my partner prefers a lever crusher and somehow finds them easier to clean, so each to their own!
American measuring cups
For whatever reason, US recipes tend to use cups, while UK recipes use grams. A lot of the best recipes online also seem to be American. It therefore makes more sense to own American cup measures (1 cup = 240ml) rather than the European variant (250ml). Dry measurer cones are another option as they cover all different types of measure, but this doesn’t beat the simplicity of just knowing that the cup you have is a cup in the recipe.
Pyrex jug
It’s see-through, durable, heat proof — everything you could want from a measuring jug. It doesn’t measure under 200ml, but you’ve got cup measures/spoons for that. The 1l size is big enough to make a brownie mix and small enough for easy handling.
Smart speaker
From hesitant beginnings a few years ago, smart speakers seem to be everywhere, and in few places are they more welcome than the kitchen. Even if you got a small one just to set timers and control music without having to stop what you’re doing and clean your hands, it wouldn’t take long for you to start getting more value back than you paid for it.
Tangle Teezer
Ridiculed by me when I first saw them in a shop, given their boasts of proprietary technology when it just looks like a regular hair brush, I’m reliably informed by sources close to me that this design actually works wonders, easing the stress of long-haired people everywhere.
By day a regular grey-looking cycle jacket, by night a potentially life-saving beacon warding off traffic. It’s a lot to spend in one go, but I’ve used mine for years cycling in London, never feeling safer and being asked on various occasions where I got it from. Wearing it while cycling there’s a perceptible difference in how quickly drivers notice you and how much space they give (versus lights alone), so it’s worth it for that sensation of safety regardless of whether your life ends up in actual jeopardy.
Google Photos
This follows the theme of avoiding upgrading your phone, which can be a money sink with little return. Instead of paying more for a handset with more storage space, use Google Photos to upload your photo library for free, then delete them from your handset, potentially freeing up GBs of space. When you want to search or browse particular photos, you can do this any time through the Google Photos app using a fraction of the local storage space. Also Google’s search function is very good. As with any online service it is of course prudent to ensure your stuff is protected by a unique, long and strong password.
Bitwarden
The good and bad thing about unique, strong, long passwords is they are hard to remember. To help with that, various providers allow you to freely store and access all passwords in one place, protected by a master password. I’ve personally enjoyed using LastPass, although they recently introduced a paywall for anyone seeking to use the service on both mobiles and computers (it’s still free if you’re just on one device type). I’m yet to see if this constraint is inconvenient enough to make me migrate, but from a brief reading of online discussions between network security enthusiasts it seems Bitwarden is just as effective with the bonus of being free and open source, so that would probably be a better start point for anyone getting going today.
