Minecraft $26.95. Thousands of hours of gameplay.
Ear Fun Free Pro 3 $50 wireless earbuds. Great sound, quick pairing, good noise cancelling, in-app equalizer, great price. Probably buy direct from them, bought from Woot! Amazon once and didn't get a very good model.
Web Video Caster $5. I stream tons of content and this lets me connect to just about anything. You can use it for free with ads.
Cloudflare domain ~$10/year. Cheapest domain prices and cloudflare works great for everything for me.
Harmonica $5. I just keep it in my bag and use it whenever I'm outside alone, keeps me off the phone.
Fidget spinner $1. The lighter the better imo.
Also my mouse, battery pack, and I love those lazy cell phone holders ~$10 you can put around your neck.
Ask HN: What are your best purchases under $100?
201–210 of 260 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases under $100?
#202Electric Fly Swatter
Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases under $100?
#203Garbanzo/chickpea flour. When I get hungry, I mix 1/2 cup with 1/2 cup water, some olive oil, some garlic powder, some herbs, some marinera, throw it in into the convection oven in a pie tin 8 minutes, then on the rack 5 minutes, and have a warm, protein/gut healthy fiber rich snack.
Plug in seat heater for my mom's old Jeep XJ that I restored.
Long johns for under my jeans. Wool socks (the socks I just get generic off Amazon).
Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases under $100?
#204Pocket operators are really fun to play with when you need a break from work.
Thank you so much for this. I am absolutely gonna pick up a couple of these for my kids. What a great way to offer creativity on demand!
Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases under $100?
#205Nesting silicone bowls with lids. Quiet and good for everything.
I want to use silicone bowls and lids, but silicone dishes always come out sticky and cloudy out of the dishwasher (even with rinse aid, whole house filtered water and extra rinse/wash cycles). Other dishes don't have this problem. What's your secrete for this?
That sucks. I haven't had that problem. I can't find the set I purchased on Temu, but this is similar https://dreamroo.com/products/the-round-meal-trio?variant=44...
Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases under $100?
#206gotta be a tire inflater (not sure what brand) that came with a flash light and works rain or snow powered by car adapter
I have one. The problem with it is that the power cord is not long enough. You can't get it to your own tires.
Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases under $100?
#207I feel like I get a ton of value out of a cheap VPS. Just having a dedicated IP I can serve small and dumb things from has been fantastic, doubly so now that LLMs can do most of the driving. https://lowendbox.com/ has a ton of providers, but I personally use vultr (no high or low praise for vultr, but they've been solid and cheap).
Which is reliable, costs 2$ per month for 1G RAM, has backups?
Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases under $100?
#208Pocket operators are really fun to play with when you need a break from work.
Thank you so much for this. I am absolutely gonna pick up a couple of these for my kids. What a great way to offer creativity on demand!
Fun teaching persistence. :) If they happened to make anything fun one day feel free to email me it! I'd love to take a listen. (email is in bio)
Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases under $100?
#209A high quality, low latency, battery powered bluetooth rx/tx device. The one I bought years ago is the Boltune BT-BA001. [0] It is easily my most used inexpensive piece of electronics.
Use cases:
1. Make your stereo system bluetooth, this includes a nice new pair of powered monitors, or a vintage 70's system.
2. You have an older car, want bluetooth but appreciate high quality audio.
3. You want to make your wired headphones wireless.
4. Buy 2, and make a low latency wireless audio link.
These things are super cool, and are now only $30.
Re: Ask HN: What are your best purchases under $100?
#210A good burr coffee grinder.
For less than $100!? Do tell, my friend.
If you are comfortable with a hand grinder, Porlex grinders [1] [2] are excellent. I use one to make a coarse grind for the french press. It's gotten used 4-7 times per week for the last 5+ years and still going strong.
On topic of best purchases under $100, suppose you regularly boil water for coffee or pasta but don't own an electric kettle, consider investing in a cheap white plastic kettle for $5. Fast and energy efficient way to turn electrical energy into boiling water.
[1] https://www.porlex.co.jp/ [2] https://www.porlex.com.au/collections/porlex-grinders