At a tag sale I found a bucket of vintage spring clothespins I got for a quarter. I surmise they were made by the Forster Co. in Maine....to heck with the Chinese junk you find today.
Posted on 11/21/2014 7:52:29 AM PST by SeekAndFind
I spend a lot of my time mulling over the large purchases in my life.
And for good reason.
Still, I tend to forget about the small, everyday things that matter most and have the power to make life a whole lot easier.
The following household items are extremely useful and — better yet — each costs less than $10.
1. Chip clips I don't know why it took me so long to purchase a set of inexpensive chip clips for our kitchen. We end up using them for far more than just sealing bags for freshness. Use magnetic clips to stick to-do lists and bills up on your refrigerator — you'll save the $10 you spent to buy them in avoided late fees.
2. Reusable coffee filter If you're a coffee-addict like my husband, you'll want to invest in a reusable coffee filter to make your morning brew. You can find one fit most coffee makers on the market for less than $5. In other words, it'll pay for itself in a couple months of use.
3. Compact fluorescents Haven't yet switched your bulbs to compact fluorescents? Now's the time. These bulbs use far less wattage than traditional lights, yet they give off the same amount of glow. They'll last longer, too (the ones in the link are guaranteed for nine years!).
4. Plastic jar lids I'm that person who uses Ball jars for absolutely everything. I can tomatoes in them, I drink from them, I store bulk foods in them, I organize bathroom items (like cotton balls) in them, and I even started freezing foods in them. These plastic jar lids are extremely useful for all these purposes and easy to clean.
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I wonder if her less than $5 coffee filter is leaching chemicals in her hubby’s coffee.
I buy stainless 3” big document clips off Amazon and use them. They work great and won’t break after freezing like plastic eventually does.
I would buy the LEDs but the ones I have seen here are all 60 watt equivalent. I would like the 100 watt equivalent but they all seem to be the multi watt bulbs at 100 watt. Or hey are flood light sized bulbs. I don’t have the lights for that. I have no problem spending the money but have not found what I like yet.
At a tag sale I found a bucket of vintage spring clothespins I got for a quarter. I surmise they were made by the Forster Co. in Maine....to heck with the Chinese junk you find today.
Agree whole heartedly. At night we turn down the temperature to between 60 and 64 in the winter. These damn little CFLs can’t light up enough to see much of anything.
I recently bought two of those new Flat LEDs and they are EXCELLENT! Great, bright daylight light. Cost between $8 and $10 depending on store, but as LEDs they cite a 20,000 MTBF.
Let one sit for two hours and put my hand all over the bulb for two minutes....barely even warm.
Excellent.
We should start a thread about what makes us *cheapskates* and what works for us.
I, however, have been switching some of my more high-use (also, hard-to-reach) bulbs over to LED's. They're expensive - about 20 bucks each - but if they last like the manufacturer claims, I'd pay that not to climb around on the ladder entirely too often. My back of the envelope calculations say that they'll start paying for themselves in a little over 2 years.
It's been a year. So far, so good. They light up instantly, and are bright, which is pretty much what I want from a light bulb.
They're "Cree", from Home Depot. Packaging says that they're manufactured in America, which was a selling point for me.
“I stopped at #3...CFL’s don’t come close to illuminating as they claim.”
We just replaced 4 of these wastes of money last night.
My wife and I both have reading lamps on the tables where sit tio talk, read, watch, and talk to our family and friends who visit.
These lights are only on for a few hours each evening. The bulbs are supposed to last a long time. They don’t. They burn out and have to be replaced about every 4 months.
They last even less if you put them in an an enclosed diffused lightening globe or box for outside or inside use.
I have a high intensity spot bulb over my sink that has been there for about 5 years I think. Bright light, great on/off and steady output. It’s an LED that was in the 20-25 dollar range and has been functioning flawless and very cooly, IMO.
Oh, I think the 'bulbs' (the CFL tube part) will last like they say, I think the electronics that drives them are what aren't up to snuff, IMO.
The web has a lot of sources you might want to check out. One of those I use is known as superbrightleds (the website goes by the same name with a dot com following). Ditto for the local hardware and bldg supply stores.
You just won the Internet!
I spend a lot of time in my basement and I have 100Watt CFLs that cover the whole basement and they work well after temperature runup. Likewise for the front porch light which stays on all night. But for intermittent use upstairs, I don’t use them...I’ve been transitioning them out for LEDs, too.
“reusable grocery bag “
And if any blood leaks from a package of meat into that reusable grocery bag it will become a wonderful petri dish of bad bacteria. The lettuce you put in the bag on your next trip will give you food poisoning.
This has been the unintended consequence showing up in save-the-earth California. If you use these things you better wash them.
FReeper "RKBA Democrat" has already done a few of those threads.
No, MOST of us don't because we don't live in leftist redoubts and/or we tend to dislike bacteria and mold around our fresh groceries.
What boring list! I have to think about the small antique items that I bought 50 years ago for nothing that are now valuable.
I invested in an LED bulb for my Dad some years ago. It was back when they first came out and were 50 bucks or so.
It was for a fixture at the top of a stairwell, and I came in to find him replacing the bulb for it by tottering on top of a ladder, which was balanced on some stuff, that was balanced on the stairs. Talk about giving me a heart attack. I invested in and installed the LED bulb that week (him: "It's so expensive!" me: "So is a fractured hip!") so that I didn't need to think about him doing that again. It still works fine, though it's not particularly high usage.
I like the Cree bulbs that I've purchased. They're the "Instant-on, Soft-white" ones. Nice light, no flicker.
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