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What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

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Re: What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

#91

Post by lmarcos »

valdiorn wrote: post #66

I didn't "purchase" anything - but I upgraded from a "cleaner" to a "housekeeper". What's the difference, you might ask? My wife and I are both working parents and we commute to London at least twice a week, leaving very little time for things like laundry and general tidying up. We have an absolutely fantastic lady who comes in 3x a week, and rather than only doing the usual cleaning, i.e. mop the floors, clean the…

May I ask how much does an assistant like that cost? If you cannot (don't want to) tell the price in absolute terms, then maybe in relatives one? (e.g., 5% of your monthly net income?)

Re: What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

#92

Post by simonsquiff »

thiht wrote: post #87
simonsquiff wrote: post #46

Boiling water tap. Amazing to make tea instantly without boiling the kettle, it’s also brilliant for cooking (boiling pasta or veg) and filling up hot water bottles. Amazing to have boiling water on tap (ha) cutting lots of time and no noisy kettle. Even free up worktop space by removing the kettle!

You should not use boiling water for tea as it will burn the leaves. It’s good for herbal tea and infusions but not for tea. As a rule of thumb, you should never go over 80°C for green tea (preferably 75°C), or 90°C for black tea. If the instructions on your tea say 100°C, it’s either not tea, or very bad quality « leaves » (more like scraps)

Black tea is what most of us kettle owning Brits drink, and apparently 100c is what you want. In fact it's a selling point of some boiling water taps that do true 100c rather than 98c of competitors

https://www.billi-uk.com/perfect-temperature-hot-cold-drinks...

Re: What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

#93

Post by pacifika »

maxbond wrote: post #68
pacifika wrote: post #38

Logitech G903 mouse. Using a responsive mouse made computing more pleasant.

This is a personal nitpick, I'm glad this mouse works well for you & that's all that matters, but I hate the light on the "G" mice. When I was using one I covered it in electrical tape because the light was really bright and hurt my eyes when my hand wasn't resting on it (eg I was typing).

Oh really, sorry to hear that! Wonder if it’s a setting in the Logitech macOS configuration app? It doesn’t bother me fortunately

Re: What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

#94

Post by franciscop »

vertis wrote: post #6

It wasn't 2022, but 2020 when my SO got femtolasik (of all places in Estonia). €1700 and a couple of days of discomfort. It's not surgical so the recovery is speedy. Such a massive quality of life improvement as an outside observer (and by her own account as well). The procedure is quite fast, circa 10 minutes, and of course meetings before and after to determine suitability and post procedure care.

I strongly agree with this! I expected a slight improvement of life, but it has actually been massive. You do get used to it really fast, but when you are being conscious about it a lot of the small things are an order of magnitude easier now that you can properly see without help.

From a simple shower where you see your reflection, finding your glasses in the morning, falling asleep with glasses or contacts, carrying an extra bunch of things when traveling etc. to none of those being a problem at all.

In fact this is what has allowed me to save enough space to do some trips with just a backpack, instead of a backpack + small luggage.

Re: What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

#95

Post by jacknews »

netsharc wrote: post #83
jacknews wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, does it just heat instantly on demand, or does it keep a small reservoir? How is the energy efficiency compared to a kettle?

That comment got me curious so I went searching, looks like one supplier is called QETTLE and they have many videos on YouTube. And a FAQ that mentions energy use: https://www.qettle.com/support/faqs , although the prices are probably from before the 2022 UK Government Omnishambles. Here's another brand's innards of the reservoir: https://youtu.be/Q7TV73Y5kmo?t=614 . If I had to guess they keep it under high pressure…

I guess it uses steam pressure to push the water out of the tap anyway.

I see several examples where the tap seems to be integrated into the sink or actually just another setting on the regular tap. That seems dangerous to me.

Re: What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

#96

Post by 0xbadc0de5 »

A cheap 4k 50" TV mounted on the wall over my desk to replace my multi-monitor setup. This was an epiphany I had not long ago when I noticed the price of these cheap 4k TV's. I was running two 27" monitors previously, but the large 4k is a game-changer because it's large enough that I can actually take full advantage of those pixels and nearly double the usable screen space of my old monitors.

Re: What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

#97

Post by thimabi »

Two inexpensive G-Shock watches: the DW5600 and the DW9052.

I’ve had a fair share of broken wristwatches over the years, so much that I began to “babysit” them.

It’s comforting to know that the G-Shocks can take a beating and keep working as intended. There is no need to take care of them and, if you get a model with solar power, you don’t even need to worry about the battery dying.

I’ve chosen two non-solar models because their modules display the time even in stopwatch or timer mode, and I alternate between them so as to extend battery life.

Re: What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

#98

Post by usrusr »

jansan wrote: post #63
usrusr wrote: post #45

A cheap hand-cranked coffee grinder. I usually buy pre-ground coffee and have zero desire to switch, but (because reasons..) I happened upon a pack of unground beans and was convinced (still am) that it would be much less bad for the environment to dispose of the beans than getting a grinder for just one pack and then dispose of that. Until I stumbled upon an Amazon page (yes, that Amazon :( ) for a cheap grinder whe…

I bought a hand cranked coffee grinder several years ago. After a while I got a little annoyed by the work it took to grind some coffee, so I made an adapter for my cordless drill. This made grinding coffee a lot easier when I needed a quick cup of coffee.

Hey, don't tempt me into buying a cordless drill! (I really like that approach of extending the utility of that device, but I think I can resist)

Re: What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

#99

Post by nunez »

AeroPress (with the Fellow Prismo attachment), VSSL grinder, collapsible water kettle.

ABSOLUTE LIFESAVER while traveling. I often travel to places where I can't reliably get a good cup of coffee (either because of meeting times or the town not having a decent coffee shop that's not Starbucks).

Not a problem anymore with these three things. The VSSL grinder is relatively really expensive, but highly worth it given how precise its grinders are. I bring my own heat-sealed beans (4oz coffee bags are really cheap; 1000 for like $10, and you can heat seal with a curling iron) and brew a cup 45 minutes after I get up.

Consistent coffee, all of the time, no matter where I am.

It can even make iced coffee too.

Definitely a huge enhancement to my life.

Re: What things did you purchase that enhanced the quality of your life in 2022?

#100

Post by nunez »

valdiorn wrote: post #66

I didn't "purchase" anything - but I upgraded from a "cleaner" to a "housekeeper". What's the difference, you might ask? My wife and I are both working parents and we commute to London at least twice a week, leaving very little time for things like laundry and general tidying up. We have an absolutely fantastic lady who comes in 3x a week, and rather than only doing the usual cleaning, i.e. mop the floors, clean the…

I'm glad a housekeeper works for y'all, but to provide a contrarian view to round this out, I've found that doing a little bit of chores every day avoids the three hour pileups that you've described, i.e. throwing expired items out when they expire, doing the bed/clothes/etc every morning, etc. I personally would never ever pay for a housekeeper, but I'm also a neat freak!
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