5 Cheap Purchases That Improved My Life

And could improve yours, too.

You work to earn money. Likewise, you can use the money to elevate the quality of life you have. You should do that, especially if you have some funds to spend. I’m not talking about a situation like in the pathetic, yet ancient joke:

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it is surely more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than on a bike.

The things I mention are items that characterise my life which is a mixture of a computer geek’s and traveller’s one. That’s being said most of the things are general-purpose and can apply to every lifestyle you could ever want to live. Without further ado, let’s look at the list.

1. Filtered water bottle

Price: 15$ per bottle + 3$ per filter

How often used: several times a day

Do you know how much water should you intake on a daily basis? Of course, you do, everybody does. At least 2 litres per day, and that does not account for the type of work undertaken, body requirements, climate or whatever. The point is you need to drink quite a lot if you think about it. It takes 10 glasses of water to fulfil the need. The chances are you do not meet the threshold and are chronically dehydrated. I know I was, at least until I decided to act and bought myself a filtered water bottle. The problem didn’t go away, it still required me to pick a new habit of drinking a lot of water which I suggest you do as well.

The main advantage of a filtered water bottle versus a normal multi-use bottle is the convenience. If you run out of water you simply go to a tap and fill it up. You don’t have to worry about the constant need to buy bottled water. That being said, there is no difference between a filtered water bottle and a normal one. Choose the one that suits your needs.

The advantages of the filtered one are as follows:

• You can fill it up nearly everywhere, which is handy especially if you are travelling.
• It is cheaper in the long term; one filter will suffice for about a month or 60 litres. Since it costs approx. 3$ you are technically paying 3$ for 60 litres or literally a month's worth of drinking per person (2 litres/day x 30 days = 60 litres). I assume that the cost of tap water in mentioned quantity is negligible (because it is).
• You can install filters that add specific minerals to the tap water.

2. Ebook reader

Price: 100$

How often used: daily or a few times per week

Ebook readers are awesome for reading in terms of practicality and convenience. Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer the feel of a paperback. There is nothing more satisfying than buying a new book, bringing it home and putting it gently onto the bookshelf as though you were introducing it to a family of sorts. You can’t replace that with a tablet-wannabe. But then again you can, like myself, have a reader and physical versions of books.

The reader’s main advantage is the fact that you carry many books inside and it is very handy to carry (and thus use). Most of the readers are only slightly wider than typical smartphones, yet significantly thinner or lighter. Compare that to holding a brick-like Ulisses in a crowded bus. Even the peace of sitting on a sofa in the cosiness of your own locum can be disturbed by the burden of a heavy volume and the inconvenience of the way you need to hold it and flip through the pages. You could argue that you can have an ebook reader on your phone for free and that’s completely true but with that logic, you miss the main premise of the ebook reader. It is an ebook reader. It displays books (or documents, sometimes audiobooks) and that’s it. Unlike your phone or tablet, a true ebook reader is by design a distraction-free device.

The most expensive product on this list so far, however, depending on the brand you could arguably find something as cheap as 40$ or as expensive as 300$. If you want my opinion, go for an ebook reader that has the paper-like screen (most actually have that) simultaneously with a backlight (not many have it). Without the latter, you won’t be able to read a thing during dusk or night. I wouldn’t worry about the memory unless you plan on downloading audiobooks onto your reader. If that’s not the issue, 4 or 8 Gb should suffice to carry literally hundreds of books. Personally, I own Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 4 with 8 Gb and ads. I have no affiliation, you know where to find it. I kind of recommend it, because it has everything I need from it. My only suggestion would be to buy a dedicated cover and especially one with a strap at the back so that you have something to grab. The ads are not an issue for me since they recommend books I have or want to read.

3. Wireless earphones

Price: from 30$

How often used: daily or occasionally

They are earphones so they enable you to listen to stuff privately but they lack the entanglement that comes with normal earphones. In my case, I have been working for a long time in places where I could use earphones during general chores and maintenance duties. Having to move a lot is not a problem but kneeling leads to stress on the audio plug and consequently damage. The majority of people carry phones in their pockets and the wire can suffice just enough, but not always. Switching from listening mode to normal use of a phone is not convenient, to say the least. Then, depending on if you are the “under-clothers” or “over-clothers” you have to deal with the dangling cable.

Then there is the matter of them knotting in little to no time. You could nail two ends (there are technically three but you get the point), look away for a brief moment just to have them entangled yet again. No tangled wire when there is no wire, to begin with.

Then there is the matter of charging your phone while wanting to listen to music or an audiobook. Oh, your phone can accommodate two cables at the same time? Carry on then, lucky reader.

The main disadvantage of wireless earphones is the aspect of their battery life and the fact that you need to charge them once in a while. Most of them have a specific charging case that can top your listening time by 2 hours in just 15 minutes. That’s usually not a problem, but surely something to keep in mind. Their long-term battery life is also deemed to be not that everlasting which is sad. My AirPods dropped their battery life from factory 5 hours to about 2.5 in two years. Another thing is the price but it’s like with legacy earphones — you get what you pay for. There are many smallish brands that offer wireless earphones for as little as 30$ and as an owner of one such pair, I can tell you that they do the job very well. The microphone in this pair is mediocre at most but overall they are a deal.

4. Cordless vacuum cleaner

Price: 60$

How often used: weekly or occasionally

This is something that I have learned about when working on a ship. One day an order of two cordless vacuum cleaners arrived. To everybody’s surprise, it was the captain who decided to buy them. Like in a tendentious fairy tale, we all laughed and dismissed the idea at first, just to love it in the very end (after a week, give or take).

The first thing I did after coming home from the contract was buy a similar off-brand cheap cordless vacuum cleaner. Funny thing is that I found an exact replica but under a significantly different name and colour scheme. For many tasks it is excellent, for others it is utter garbage. But for the heavy lifting, we still have a legacy vacuum cleaner. The cordless one is great for cleaning the bread crumbs, small patches of dirt, spilt coffee (grains or grounded parts), cat’s hair etc. You just take it and the dirt go wzuuum…

As I mentioned, you won’t vacuum a carpet with it. Maybe with a version that costs several hundred dollars. But it is wonderful for small-scale tasks and quick actions. It really helps to keep the household in order without much effort. It complies with the productivity rule of least effort because using it cost you no hassle compared to the normal corded vacuum cleaner. And that’s the beauty of it.

5. Electric toothbrush

Price: 50$

How often used: several times a day

This one is great for many reasons. One of the most prominent points is that the built-in timer allows you to take proper care of your teeth. You probably know the rules of proper dental care, I am certain you do. Everybody does. But, truth to be told, do you really brush each quadrant for the same amount of time? With an electric toothbrush, you will because you know when to move to the next part.

The electric toothbrush really helped me establish proper and solid oral hygiene. It might sound awkward, but I’ve never learned how to properly brush my teeth with a generic toothbrush. It’s saddening, I know, but now that I have an electric one I do not have to worry about it because the motor does all the heavy lifting for me. Combine it with reputable whitening toothpaste and you can really see a difference in a few weeks.

You could buy an electric toothbrush for 50$ with only a timer that vibrates differently after every 30 seconds during a 2-minute period. That is what I have. There are more fancy models with AI module that adapts to your teeth and brushing style but I call that BS. It would be beneficent to buy a more expensive one if it has different built-in timer schedules. Also, it is worth noting that it should be induction charged. Having to replace battery cells every now and then is cumbersome.

Ah, and one more thing, something I had to do research for. If you run out of battery during brushing, just carry on using it like a normal brush…

Conclusion

The mentioned list of 5 items of my recommendations sums up to 255$. Whether that is much I will leave you to decide. Probably it can be felt if you decide to buy everything at one go. So my advice would be, if you decide to comply with my recommendations, to acquire the items one by one, starting with the filtered water bottle. I tried to mention things that are long-lasting so that the money spent can have a great impact on your quality of life due to it working in the long term. Money should be used for the optimal increase of the quality of life. If you have money to spare, why wouldn’t you use it for taking some duties or difficulties off your back?

Hi, it’s Eric. Thank you for reading. I hope you’ve found the article at least slightly compelling. What can you do now?

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