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Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#181

Post by tenfourwookie »

honkdaddy wrote: post #140
tenfourwookie wrote: post #100

I buy high mileage Honda minivans for no more than $3000 because they're dependable and cheap at high mileage. I generally get 100,000 miles out of them, so 4 mostly dependable vans and 400,000 miles for about $12,000. You'll lose $12K in depreciation alone just driving a new car off a lot. I've lived in them safely and comfortably for a total of about 3 years, living all over the western US from New Mexico to Montan…

Awesome! How long do you plan to live that way? Do you work out of your van as well?

Not sure. I love the fact that I can travel with the weather. Too hot? Go where it isn't. Too dry, go to beach. Forest fire surrounding your van in Northern California? Freak out for a couple minutes, and then drive to another forest. ;)

The temptations of the lifestyle are many; but, be careful. That much freedom can ruin. You might not be able to return to “normal life", where people supplicate themselves to unbelievable amoralities. Ex. "Two weeks vacation".

Two weeks? Sir, can I have some more, Sir?

I'm a chef. I wasn't always. I can find work anywhere as a chef. I guess that helps.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#182

Post by zikzak »

cupcake-unicorn wrote: post #145
ozzythecat wrote: post #52

An electric toothbrush and floss. Brushing with a regular toothbrush doesn’t give me the clean/fresh feeling my electric toothbrush does. The model I have was maybe $25 or $30. Using the electric toothbrush and flossing before bed every night, I feel like in my morning my mouth actually still feels fine. Of course I would never start my day without brushing, but my mouth doesn’t feel icky when I wake up in the mornin…

I was interested in a Waterpik but I thought it would be too difficult to maintain. I found out about both a toothbrush and an oral irrigator that you hook up to your shower which are really cool. There are also some tricks for oral hygiene that you don't get traditionally or when you go to the store for toothpaste. You can try putting a drop of Dragon's Blood on the toothbrush or brush with a bit of ozonated oil to…

I purchased a generic water flosser from Amazon. Works great. I put an ounce or two of mouthwash in the reservoir when I fill it and I occasionally clean it by washing the reservoir. Very simple to maintain and an extremely effective oral hygiene tool. I have many teeth that are very close together and floss just breaks constantly (I can use those floss tools but don't like throwing them out each time).

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#183

Post by gordon_freeman »

tmaly wrote: post #119
gordon_freeman wrote: post #35

Libby - I used to buy so many Kindle books and had an expensive Audible subscription a year ago but all that stopped when I discovered Libby. I can read ebooks and audiobooks right in the app using my local public library card for free and the entire UX of the app is just beyond awesome. I can now read/listen to 5-7 books a month using Libby.

I do this with the Overdrive app and my local library. I think they have Libby also. I prefer the audit books during my commute to work.

Libby is pretty much same as Overdrive just in a nicer package. In fact it's developed by the same company that created Overdrive so you can easily switch from OD to Libby. And I'm sure you won't regret as Libby has such a great polished UI compared to OD.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#184

Post by jimmygrapes »

cupcake-unicorn wrote: post #145
ozzythecat wrote: post #52

An electric toothbrush and floss. Brushing with a regular toothbrush doesn’t give me the clean/fresh feeling my electric toothbrush does. The model I have was maybe $25 or $30. Using the electric toothbrush and flossing before bed every night, I feel like in my morning my mouth actually still feels fine. Of course I would never start my day without brushing, but my mouth doesn’t feel icky when I wake up in the mornin…

I was interested in a Waterpik but I thought it would be too difficult to maintain. I found out about both a toothbrush and an oral irrigator that you hook up to your shower which are really cool. There are also some tricks for oral hygiene that you don't get traditionally or when you go to the store for toothpaste. You can try putting a drop of Dragon's Blood on the toothbrush or brush with a bit of ozonated oil to…

Alright I'll bite, what brand does both? And more importantly, what in the world is Dragon Blood in this context?

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#185

Post by zikzak »

bxparks wrote: post #71

A Fujitsu S1500 ScanSnap, dual-sided, document scanner (now discontinued, replacement might be the iX1600). Completely changed how I manage my personal documents (e.g. financial, invoices, receipts, product manuals, medical info, business docs, recreation and hobby stuff, etc). Anything remotely important, I scan to PDF, which triggers automatic OCR that is reasonably accurate, then I upload the PDF to Google Drive,…

The monthly filing makes so much sense, great idea. Implementing this immediately. I like to keep the last thing I got (e.g. most recent insurance policy docs, last 12 power bills, etc) but very rarely for more than a year. Reminds me of the tickler file from GTD.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#186

Post by threeio »

bxparks wrote: post #71

A Fujitsu S1500 ScanSnap, dual-sided, document scanner (now discontinued, replacement might be the iX1600). Completely changed how I manage my personal documents (e.g. financial, invoices, receipts, product manuals, medical info, business docs, recreation and hobby stuff, etc). Anything remotely important, I scan to PDF, which triggers automatic OCR that is reasonably accurate, then I upload the PDF to Google Drive,…

Very much this.. I don't use it now as much as I used to, but this workflow simplified my life for taxes, record keeping and organization. In my case everything flows to Evernote for simplicity and search-ability, when I'm at my accountant for tax season if I missed something I can AirPrint it on their printer in minutes.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#187

Post by squintychino »

noahjk wrote: post #88
bxparks wrote: post #71

A Fujitsu S1500 ScanSnap, dual-sided, document scanner (now discontinued, replacement might be the iX1600). Completely changed how I manage my personal documents (e.g. financial, invoices, receipts, product manuals, medical info, business docs, recreation and hobby stuff, etc). Anything remotely important, I scan to PDF, which triggers automatic OCR that is reasonably accurate, then I upload the PDF to Google Drive,…

Does anyone have a suggestion for a dual-sided feed scanner like this which can be used to semi-automate document scanning and which is not discontinued? I've been thinking about this for a while but I don't know enough about the market

I just ordered the Brother - DS-740D duplex scanner. Hoping to do the same as OP and scan/organize my life.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#188

Post by poulsbohemian »

This is kind of a combo... a wallet case for my iPhone plus coded door locks on my house. Now when I go out, I don't have any reason to carry anything beyond my phone and I never have to worry about keys. If I forget something at home, I can send the neighbor a temporary code to get into the house.

Re: Ask HN: What tiny purchases have disproportionately improved your life?

#190

Post by TuringNYC »

App "Scanner Pro" - feels like a professional scanner, always available on the go and auto-uploads to GDrive. Use it extensively.

Google Voice (until it stopped working well) - I could not have lived overseas for 3yrs w/o Google Voice. An absolute lifesaver while I was making 12-15 transnational trips a year doing both business and grad school at the same time. Google Fi would have been great, but the overall system degraded by then. Concept is amazing and i'd pay big $ for this, I imagine most high end consultants would also.

Apple Music - Seriously, I feel like a thief -- all this music for $10/mo? This should cost $100/mo. I'm on it at least 10-12 hours a day, sometimes even sleep to it. The catalog is extensive. I cross-cut across artists, decades, genres, sub-genres, associated acts, everything.

The Kindle - because I ran out of space for books and never had the book I wanted to read when I was traveling.

Electric Kettle - I make tea 3x as much now because boiling water is so fast and easy.

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