A bidet.
Japan has ruined toilets for me.
I can ruin toilets just fine myself, thank you.
Bidets are from Italy though.
They may have invented them but Japan perfected them.
Bidets are french, source
I was gonna ask how they got such a French name.
You better wash your ass- if you must!🎶
Or else you’ll be FUNKAYYY! 🎶
I’m too intimidated to try one despite staying in hotels round the world that usually have them. What if it goes wrong? How bad much shitty water do I and the bathroom end up covered in? How do you know if it’s clean? Doesn’t other peoples shitty water end up on the same appliance that you’re now using? Does that mean I end up with other peoples shitty water being jet streamed towards my anus? So many questions, so much doubt. Similarly for those handheld nosel things popular in the middle East and parts of Asia.
The only way for it to go wrong is if you turn it on while standing over it looking directly into the nozzle. You couldn’t get the room or yourself wet without really trying.
The water is clean because it comes from the water that fills the toilet, not the water that drains from it. Nothing from other people ends up on the appliance or you. Clean water sprays from the device, onto the user, then draining into the toilet bowl. Bidets are much cleaner than toilet seats.
Mine won’t turn on unless someone is sitting on it properly. The chances of it going badly are essentially zero.
Italian here. Get a bidet, nobody died or took any infection from them. Your brain is over thinking it. Get a bidet. Thank me later. Go get a bidet.
I’m gonna use a bog roll like a caveman until the day I die
does stealing it count? because that would be a boxed copy of redhat linux from best buy in the late 90s/early 2000s. yes, i found a way to steal linux
Building and running my own server for self hosting multiple tools for my home.
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Bitwarden Password manager, now sharing logins/passwords for stuff my fiance and I both use is easy, and every single website we use has its own unique randomly generated password so when one site gets breached, our logins aren’t compromised anywhere else
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Plex, it’s like your own self hosted Netflix. My file copies of any movies/TV shows go on here and it parses em all, keeps it all grouped together, streams in 4k.
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Shinobi, for my security cameras. Self hosted free CRTV application, works with any open spec cameras. Has movement detection and tonnes of other open source options for plug-ins.
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Deluge, handy UI for downloading torrents onto my server. Conviently added presets to it that let me download to the very folders Plex scans… cough cough.
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Kavita, self hosted server for books/pdfs. Some e-readers can even connect to it. A couple popular manga reading apps also work with it. Can also just use its own browser web interface as an e-reader, it has multiple options for styles (infinite scroll, page swiping, left/right click, and even supports right to left mode for manga!)
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Nextcloud, pictures/document storage. Sort of like a selfhosted filesshare/file backup. Has a mobile app that can automatically backup every picture/video you take on your phone!
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Gogs, open source super lightweight git repo. Has only the bare minimum of features, basic web hook, authorization, permissions, simple web ui to edit. It does the job I need it to and that’s good enough.
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OpenVPN, self hosted VPN so I can securely access all the above stuff without exposing it to the internet.
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Also I host my own websites on it, publicly exposed. Blog, a writing project, nothing terribly fancy.
Eventually I plan to add some more stuff to it. Migrate my smart home dependencies over to Z wave and install Home Assistant, so I don’t have to rely on sending my info to google/amazon/etc to do basic smart home stuff.
Plex
You should check out Jellyfin
Plex is getting shittier by the minute, and this is a good alternative.
I havent had any issues with Plex so far, so I continue to use it. Ive definitely looked into jellyfin and it doesnt seem painful to swap over, but at the moment there hasnt been a compelling reason to make the switch.
I put media in my folder, plex scans it by the time I sit on my couch, I click button, show plays. No issues to speak of so far.
I generally have issues with subtitles. Sometimes they don’t work out are out of sync, etc.
Try different subtitle files, usually if the first one is off, the second or third will sync up properly
Ah interesting, I havent had such an issue yet, or at least not to a degree I notice it egregiously.
While Plex has moved towards the “free” content, it still does remarkably well with apps on all devices. It also makes user management extremely easy without having to manage yourself. Password resets aren’t your problem if you share with others.
It has its limitations and it’s development budget isn’t in the self hosting space as much. But for what it is, it’s still a good value.
Have been using Plex for years, thought I’d give Jellyfin a shot but my god how ugly it was 😩
I prefer how Jellyfin’s UI, but you can also use a third party client IIRC
I personally would never recommend someone to self host a password manager. There’s a lot of things that can go wrong, and any number of them could cause you to lose your passwords or at least access to them when you need them. There’s a lot of value in paying $10/yr for Bitwarden, to have a clear mind, and know that your information is safe, and accessible.
The value in self hosting is your passwords aren’t exposed to the internet at all, and can only be accessed over VPN from outside the house.
If you care about security and you know how to run a network properly, then it’s definitely worth doing.
In terms of things that can “go wrong”, the first rule of homelab is “Back your stuff up”, and the second rule of homelab is “Back it up again”
Seriously, when you have a single small file which is that important, it’s really not hard to make sure it’s backed up in several places.
The issue he/she is taking about is reliability of personal infrastructure. Its never run a password manager without HA, and since I’m not going to run servers in HA, I suppose I’m sticking to pen and paper for the important ones
Im not sure I would classify “back up your access key” as HA but you do you
I’ve used Keepass along with dropbox/onedrive/nextcloud (changed over the years) for a decade now and never had a problem. I keep a backup copy of my database on a flash drive in case I somehow lose all my devices. Takes like 5 minutes to set up.
I would not self host a password manager, simply because I don’t want running something like that on a 24/7 online server.
Still, if I needed to run a password manager on a server, I would rather self host it than use a hosted service from someone else.
In my opinion, running such a service commercially is a much harder problem than self hosting it and has a much bigger attack surface.
This is IMHO what many people do not understand about hosting as a service vs. self hosting: The full time DevOps/Admins etc. people who work at the hosting service are hopefully better than me at hosting stuff. At the same time the problem they have to solve is so much harder than self hosting, that even if they are 10x as good as me, running my own little service with a firewall, rate limiting and monitoring should at least not be less secure.
In my opinion the risk of something killing my server and wiping my passwords out is much much scarier than the prospect of a semi competent company hosting them getting hacked. Like several orders of magnitude scarier.
Fair enough!
As I said, I would not host it myself.
My solution is much simpler and more redundant: A KeepassXC file backed up to different physical locations and 2 different cloud providers.
If I ever forget my password, I am totally screwed. :-P … but OTOH an event which would lead to the deletion of all of my backups at the same time would be extinction - level. ;-)
Shinobi is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the suggestion
You may also want to take a look at zoneminder. I’ve had great luck with it over the years.
I was using Shinobi for like a year, but I’m enjoying Frigate so much more now. Shinobi is definitely more feature rich though.
Excellent choices. Might I hint towards lovely alternatives?
Emby instead of plex (cheaper, and equally capable (use jelllyfin for really free but less reliable))
AgentDVR. Super reliable, mega flexible PVR totally free for private use. Even got options for AI-motion detection and stuff.
And especially: KeepassXC. You’ll never regret switching in time.
All the stuff I listed is also free for personal use. But yeah, all those are solid alternatives as options.
I used emby briefly after ditching Plex then settled on jellyfin. It’s been over a year and I’ve had no issues with reliability.
I tried hard with jellyfin after ditching plex. And it was horrible. Then jumped to emby and that was years ago with no single issue.
Jelly might be better now, haven’t tried since then.
Maybe, I messed around with things about a year ago now
Me 3 yrs ago… So probably it IS better 😊
That was a fair bit of scrolling to find the homelabber. Thanks
Shinobi
If starting from scratch - what camera recommendations would you give to connect to Shinobi?
I honestly am not sure I would recommend shinobi at this point, it seems to be very unstable and has a lot of issues with randomly failing.
Im not sure if its my cameras or shinobi’s fault, but Im gonna try out a few other FOSS options.
I use Reolink cameras personally.
Thanks to you I have today discovered Kavita. It’s excellent!
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A Kobo e-reader. I now read much more than before because of the convenience, and I also became a book pirate. It has paid itself multiple times on the money I’ve saved in physical books.
I found a picture of you.
Everywhere I go suggests Lemmy returned the pictures feature, but then I try it and it still won’t work. What’s going on here?
Not sure what issues you are having. I am using the Jerboa app on android.
Tested it again just now. It says “uploaded image is too large”. Tried it again with a picture that was one pixel by one pixel. Still I get the same warning.
It’s been like this for a month (due to Lemmy disabling the feature to combat people posting risque material). They did this by reducing the maximum image size to zero.
Your instance probably has a very low upload size limit
Edit: lemm.ee has a limit of like 100kb.
The picture I tested it with was 49kb. I just tested it again to make sure, it still doesn’t work.
I know it plays a role though, and it kinda sucks too, Lemmy told me specifically to sign up for this instance because when I was making this account, the other instances were becoming overbooked with people trying to sign up and it was causing too much server stress. And it’s not like I can just transfer everything to a new account.
Can just use an external image host in the meantime.
That will be available in the next version of lemmy IIRC.
Is it something specific about a Kobo e-reader that is amazing or would any e-reader have turned you into an avid bookworm you think?
I have a Kobo and my wife has a Kindle - I like the Kobo way better, primarily because the Kindle is trying to sell me stuff all the time.
That’s why you never connect the kindle to the internet and simply upload copies of the books into it
I prefer the Kindle because it’s so easy and cheap to buy books I don’t need to bother pirating.
It’s just as easy on Kobo and it has a price match guarantee.
Does it have the same selection as Amazon?
Most of it. 99% of the stuff they don’t share is generally stuff you don’t want to read. With that said there are a few Amazon exclusive series’ like the “Cradle” series.
It’s likely because kobo’s can be flashed with a custom OS https://inkbox.ddns.net/, which can sync with https://calibre-ebook.com/
I am using Calibre to fill my Kindle
I’ve just been downloading books from Anna’s Archive and throwing the azw3 files on my kindle.
How easy is Calibre?
Very once you figure out the few steps to do conversions. But if you are simply adding an azw3 file, it’s 2 clicks
My unmodified kobo syncs with calibre.
Have a very old nook (with light!) Got it mainly because it handles epub, but getting books from my server to it is a pain. Can kobo connect to my calibre server and grab books automatically? Or does it need plugging in to sync up?
I have a kobo as well and I I did a lot of research before selecting it. Imho it’s the best on the market for my personal needs and that definitely changed how often I use it vs an alternative. Some of the things I like about it are direct integration with the library and the ability to do audiobooks. I also like that it is only an ereader and I can’t play games or surf the web on it. I think knowing what’s gonna help you as an individual is the most important thing. If you’re more likely to take a fully fledged tablet with you somewhere because of the versatility, and would otherwise leave a plain ereader at home, then a tablet is better because if you decide to read at least you have it with you. Like a lot of tech, I think it really depends on the user.
For me it’s the ability to read outside in bright days, so I can take care of kids in the beach/pool.
I went for a boox since it’s an Android and can run not only my favorite e reader app but also dictionary, browser for Wikipedia, and any apps for Android such as news Guardian, DW etc.
Obviously it also runs official apps such as Kobo, kindle etc, so I can try/ buy the book wherever and later I de DRM it and upload epub.
Oh also I have severe dust allergy from physical books, and moved countries a couple times leaving behind lots of unread stuff.
A dog.
Have had a dog most of my life. Hard to imagine living without one. They’re better than people, fantastic companions, and the entire relationship is based on each other trying to make each other happy.
How do you deal with losing them? It’s as hard as losing a loved one imo
It’s very hard. I cry for days and drink a lot. It is a huge piece of life suddenly gone. But, like my last dog, I see all the things we did, so many adventures, and how many people are upset—even strangers at my climbing gym reached out because they knew him but not me; someone even drew an amazing portrait of him for me and it’s on the wall. That made me realise how awesome a life he had and how many people loved him. A truly good boy that got a hell of a life.
I know I’ll be sad, but it passes and I’ll be very happy with what I did for my dog and what they did for me. Then I’ll get another dog and they’ll get an awesome life too.
True, it’s so hard to loose them. But it’s worth it. The pain and sadness goes away and all that’s left is good memories.
It’s been years since I lost my first dog and I still think about him. Sometimes the eyes are kinda wet but it always end up with some smile on my face.
take peace in knowing that i gave him a good life, and i got to share it beginning to end. it’s nice to know i could do that for him.
I lost my first dog last week. He was a great friend.
I love my airfryer and may upgrade it to a larger one. I’ve started making my own food again instead of eating fast food every day (depression sucks).
I almost bought an air fryer, but ended up with a convection toaster oven. Does everything an air fryer does and much more. I bought the Gourmia one from Costco and would buy it again in a heartbeat.
What’s the difference between an air fryer and a convection toaster oven. Everybody’s so excited for air fryers but AFAIK, both just blow air around.
Exactly! I read some air fryer reviews and one of the reviews said the best air fryer is a convection toaster oven, so I thought, “well it’s Costco and if I hate it I can return it and get an air fryer.” I use this for so many things and almost every day. Reheating food is generally better in this than the microwave oven too.
Convection toaster ovens have been around for a long time, but for the most part have been “toaster oven plus a little fan.” Air fryers showed up with an emphasis on I’M BLOWING ALLLLL THE HOT AIR!!! I’ll make frozen mini pizzas in my air fryer and have to stab the pepperoni with toothpicks or they end up God knows where lol.
I have both, but would be willing to just have the toaster oven version if it stepped up its blowing game. Until the day comes when one of the appliances craps out on me, I’ll use both.
What does your convection toaster oven do that the air fryer doesn’t?
I can fit a baking dish in it so I can use it for many of the things I might want to bake in my oven (lasagna, casserole, small batch of cookies/muffins) but don’t want to heat the entire oven for. It fits a standard frozen pizza, I’ve occasionally baked bread or rolls in it. One of my most frequent uses would be the broiler setting where I just want to quickly brown the top or melt cheese onto something.
One of the drawbacks of my current air fryer is that the fan blows so hard I have to make sure that what I put in there is heavy and secure enough not to get blown around. My son was heating something and put a piece of cheese on it to melt. The cheese was definitely NOT where it was supposed to be when it melted.
I’ve only had non-convection toaster ovens and the one thing they did better than my air frier is toast. My air frier tends to dry out the toast by the time it’s properly browned. However I’ve never had a problem with it blowing food around.
What are some food recipes you recommend?!
Any subs you posted on or learned from that you would advise others to follow, curious.
Thank you!
Not OP, but we make roasted carrots with garlic, Italian spices, and parm cheese sprinkled on top.
Be sure to use avocado oil instead of olive.
They’re fucking delicious.
Edit: 325 for about 18-20 minutes. Just check for tenderness that you prefer.
Awesome!
Always great when we come together as a people to share recipes!
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Great!
Do you like soaking potatoes to remove starch or you go without?
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I bought a Philips device and installed the companion app (Kitchen+). It has a decent selection of recipes that you can filter by appliance and other stuff. You can add your own recipes too.
Game changer. We love ours.
We have two different Ninja air fryers. One that’s the bin/grill style and the flip version that can be used as a toaster oven as well.
They get used in one form or another almost daily.
Glasses.
Now I’m addicted.
As in lenses for your face, or drinkware?
Either way, yes.
Just any kind of glass.
Microscope slides, dildos, windows, bongs, pyrex
Addicted is a good way to put it. I suffer withdrawal symptoms like dizziness and nausea when I go more than a few waking minutes without my glasses.
Just say no to glasses kids, or you’ll end up like this guy.
I put on glasses once as a kid, now i’m glasses for life!
I got hooked in my mid 20s, and it’s like I can’t imagine how lived without them
I went through a glasses addiction myself as well lol. I found an eye-care clinic where they would cut the lenses and have them ready within 3 hours.
I would go to garage sales, thrift stores, and swap meets to find glasses to put lenses on. They were like $60 for the lenses and I never spent more than $10 on frames.
I ended up with 3 seeing glasses and 4 sun glasses before I realized it was going to be unsustainable to get new lenses for my new prescription every year.
Bidet. Amazing for a North American, I know RoW has had them for eons. You are so clean that a couple of squares of tp to dry off and you are golden. No more endless wiping.
Bicycle. No gas expenses, no tabs, no loan, free parking. I understand how it works and can mostly fix it myself for very little money. I can take quiet side streets and arrive in a much better mood, plus my fat lazy ass gets some exercise.
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Smart vacuum cleaner. You pay once for not needing to vacuum your house anymore - best deal ever.
I had a very different experience with mine. I bought a middle range one, not the cheap one, with very good reviews at the time. I absolutely cannot trust it. It’s always getting stuck, getting lost and not able to go back to charging station, or say that it’s “finished” and leav obvious spot of dusts.
My living room is indeed a bit cluttered as it’s not that big, but there is still enough space for it to move…
My experience is very similar to this. Sometimes it can go a full week or two with no interaction, but mostly it needs a bit of prodding and helping
I’m always having trouble with mine, we still have it hooked up and we let it run when it decides it’s able, but we basically replaced it with a Sebo Felix
I have a thousand wires hidden under my couch, my rug, my chair, and anywhere else I can hide them. Chargers, home theater, other chargers, smart-ish devices, and whatever else that I don’t even want to go look at.
I’m terrified it’ll eat all my cables because that’s what my last one did.
You can just set that zone as of limits
Can I ask which one you use? I’ve heard such horror stories
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I got Xiaomi Mi vacuum cleaner 4 years ago.
I got one of those. Thing’s been a pain. Last time I let it run, it drove into the kitchen, did a small donut over a tiny spot immediately in front of the door, drove back out into the hallway, proudly announced that it had completed cleaning, started towards its charging station, made 2 attempts to park, missed both times, announced that its path was blocked, and just stopped. I absolutely do not trust that thing to be able to do anything unsupervised, at which point why even have a robot vacuum? I don’t use it very often anymore.
If it’s so smart, why does it clean for you?
I passed an Intelligence check and outsmarted it.
Looks like a great thing to have indeed. I’m a bit too worried about the personal data harvesting.
You can always just not connect it to the internet. Always an option.
Don’t you need an app to operate it ?
I operate my Xiaomi Roborock S5 entirely by the buttons on the device, no internet required.
The app can allegedly give you access to more functionality, but I don’t really need that.
I absolutely love my Dreame L10 Pro.
I also installed Valetudo Cloud on it to self host.
In the early 2000’s, I bought a 1986 Honda XL250R. Just an old dirt bike.
The motorcyckle shop was across the road from the pawn shop I was originally going to buy a gun from, for the express purpose of taking my own life, for reasons that made sense at the time.
Since I bought that bike, I’ve made friends, learned a lot of new skills, and I met the best person in existence, who I am now married to. I passed on a final exit, and ended up with a pretty great life.
First place, aSmartwatch.
I all but stopped checking every fcking notification, my life has become peacefull and tranquil.
Second place, my 4yo daughter. Achieved the exact opposite.
A house. My mortgage is cheaper than rent, and now I get to actually address annoyances with my living conditions.
It’s almost 100 years old, and a bit of an fixer upper, but the important stuff is solid. Last summer I invested in proper drainage around the foundation so that I can start making the basement livable. This year I invested in a proper bathroom. Next year it’s a new kitchen. And if time allows I’ll start rebuilding the basement mainly for one extra bed room and an office.
God I wish my mortgage was cheaper than rent lol.
Hold onto it long enough and it will be eventually. Home ownership is the only real cheat code we have against inflation.
Oh yea 💯
It’s just gonna take a while. My PITI is 3350/month.
Depends on market. In Vancouver existing rentals are controlled until you move, the house sells, or you are reno-evicted. This involves evicting the tenant to “fix up the suite” and then renting it out at a much higher rate.
There is also the move to evict for a " family member" to move in but often this is abused to get low paying tenants out.
New mortgages are much more than existing rent here. As much as renters go through credit checks, I think landlords should too as you don’t want to rent a place where they can’t afford the interest rate increases. Often they cheap out on repairs and usually sees the place being sold or one of the above abuses of the evictions to get a higher paying tenant in.
The market is really tight in places like Vancouver and Toronto. The interest rate hikes will eventually catch up to most renters as properties are moved/sold.
This is a good one. I finally teamed up with family to invest in a house last year. I’ve found a lot of issues that I’ve since fixed, especially with the electrical. There’s still a lot to fix, but I’m elated that I can actually take action to fix stuff.
While renting, my hands were severely tied. The only benefit with renting was that if anything was literally broken, it would be fixed by the landlord, free to me. “Fixed” is subjective, usually done as cheaply as possible, which is often making things less convenient.
Now I can have things fixed correctly, making things more convenient overall for me and my family.
Long term, we’re planning on renovating and adding another kitchen and bathroom, possibly another entrance and I’m considering splitting the HVAC for one portion of the place and almost splitting it into two independent homes that are conjoined.
Same, cut my monthly housing cost by almost $1000 two years ago. So many good things have happened as a result as well, because it was a move between regions and opened up alternative employment options not previously available. As a result I also doubled my income.
My mortgage is cheaper than Rest
That doesn’t make any sense. Unless the market at your country is completly broken, that simply does not happen.
Australia checking in: mortgage repayments are absolutely cheaper than rents. Especially if you bought pre-pandemic.
This only talks about rent. And when rent increases, so does the value of the property, because you can get more money as rents are higher.
If you now consider the amount of work you have to invest into owning property and the associated risk of owning a house or flat, in an ideal market its simply not possible.
And while the housing market is imperfect due to the high burden for entrance, I have never seen a proper calculation where mortage, insurance and maintanance comes out lower than renting.
And, as a matter of fact, it doesnt even in your own example Sydney: https://www.smh.com.au/money/saving/as-costs-soar-is-it-cheaper-to-rent-or-buy-20230407-p5cywp.html
I’m not going to doxx myself by giving the exact address, but my landlady in 2019 wanted to sell the house we were in. She first offered the place to us for $430,000 - which would have been a discount because she wouldn’t have needed an agent etc.
Assuming we had the 20% deposit to borrow $344,000 and taken her up on that offer, our current repayments would have been about $464 per week. Even without the discount, repayments would have been under $500.
Instead, she eventually sold the property and we had to move to a smaller house where we are now paying $650 per week. Going from a 4 bedroom house with a yard to a 3 bedroom townhouse sharing the block with two other residences. No yard. Admittedly, we moved a suburb closer to the CBD.
Take a look at Real estate for a 3+ bedroom house within 10km of any Australian city, you’ll see that $650 is not extravagant by any means.
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The 20 % deposit has to be taken into the calculation as well.
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You are completly neglecting insurance.
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You are negleticing maintanance.
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You are comparing two different properties.
- The 20% deposit is the entire point. It’s the barrier of entry to home ownership that keeps people renting. Of course I factored it in, it’s why I spoke of a mortgage of $344k and not $430k.
- What does insurance have to do with anything? We are comparing rent to repayments. We have renter’s insurance now. We’d be changing that.
- Are you saying you spend over $100 per week, every week on maintenance?
- True. We’ve downsized from a four bedroom house to a three bedroom townhouse. You’ll just have to take my word for it that 4 bedroom houses in the next suburb go for about the same as the place we have because I’ve already told Lemmy enough about where I live.
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Often rent covers the owner’s mortgage plus their benefit, so yes, it’s easy for your mortgage to be cheaper than rent.
Mortgage cheaper than rent here - just outside of Washington DC. (Only true when comparing like for like living spaces, same bedrooms, square feet, etc)
Synology NAS (basically a hard drive always connected to the home network and internet) - has been amazing for auto-backing-up photos from the family phones and for running Plex run my own personal streaming service for the whole family around the world. Has been great for file transfer too. I can easily move files between my phone, PC, Steam Deck, etc and all the USB memory sticks I had have been sitting in a drawer ever since.
Exercise compression thermals - wear these is super comfortable and really warm. I wear them constantly at home and can have the heating off almost all winter (UK). Saves tons of energy and money.
Electric blanket - another great low energy purchase for relaxing under when watching TV or warming up the bed before sleeping. Gets super hot while hardly using any energy at all.
Split unit air con installation - this was expensive and I thought it would be unnecessary in the UK, but it seems to be used more and more every summer as we get more heatwaves and summers are becoming unbearable.
Safety razors - I have really thick facial hair and the multi-blade razors from big name brands would dull really quickly and cause tons of shaving rash. These razors are sharper, last longer, are recyclable and much better for my skin.
Liquid ink refillable rollerball pens - I tried fountain pens after seeing the online communities that are crazy about them, and really didn’t like them. I found rollerball pens I like that take fountain pen ink and have been super happy with them. I write a lot at work and this has gotten rid of the plastic waste of throwing away used disposable ballpoint refills every couple of weeks.
Hitbox controller - I’ve been playing Street Fighter 6 since release and I made a leverless controller box myself and I’ve loved using it to play SF6. Managed to make it for one third the price of what these things sell for and completely customised it.
