Things You Can Just Do And/Or Buy 2025 Edition

• 20 September 2025
• personal

I really like posts that are lists like this, or this: things you might not have thought were possibilities or just might not have thought to do if someone hadn't suggested it. I also like posts that are lists of items that you use and recommend, like this, this or this. While trying to write these in parallel, I realised the two cross over when "introducing you to a category of item you didn't realise existed", so I have, in a revolutionary move, combined the two. (Some of this stuff will be UK specific.)

Household

• The HiccAway straw is a cure for hiccups. It actually works. Obviously you either need to be at home or take it around with you but it works! You don't have to try and drink from the other side of the glass or whatever.

• If you cook at all, getting decent kitchen knives (or a knife sharpener if you've already got decent knives) is extremely worth it. I got this Wusthof chef's knife a few years back and it genuinely reinvigorated my desire to cook, after having used pretty rubbish old dull blades for years had reduced it. While a bad workman blames his tools, sometimes bad tools significantly reduce your incentive to do something.

• This Lakeland garlic press is the best garlic press I've every used, virtually no wasted garlic. You don't need to worry about removing the skin, just pop a clove or two in the chamber and squeeze.

• Quite a common one for these lists is a microwave rice cooker. They are really good; just better and easier than making it on the hob, stays warm for a while after cooking, and while I trust everyone who says electric rice cookers are the bomb, the combination of low kitchen space and cost makes the microwave alternative preferable for me.

• When I moved out of my uni flat, which had all its own tableware, it was a pain finding plates and bowls that I really liked. Lots of the stuff I found online was too busy or too plain. Cornishware is great: it's simple but not plain, and while a bit pricey, two-and-a-half years in is proving extremely hard-wearing. I dropped one of the mugs on my glass oven worktop and it was the worktop that ended up needing replacing (it'd have been a lot cheaper replacing the mug but certainly speaks to their manufacturing quality) If any of it does ever break, it'll be easy to get new ones. I have it in Brighton & Hove Albion trademark blue-and-white, but you can get it in all sorts of colours.

• Crystal deodorant—another favourite of the product-lists—really is good, really does work, and saves you a fair bit of money too! I've been using this one.

• Pillboxes for the week: not just for your grandparents, if you're (say) a vegan with hayfever and ADHD there are tablets you should be taking every day, particularly in the summer, and this makes it nearly impossible to forget.

• If you're a vegan in the UK, Aldi's own-brand oat milk is 90% as good as Oatly/Alpro/Minor Figures but only costs ~80p for a 1l carton rather than ~£2. In general, Aldi (and probably Lidl too—I just have an Aldi very close by) have a lot of food and household goods that are as good as what you'd get in other supermarkets at a far better price. Their 1kg tubs of peanut butter are as good as Meridian/Pip & Nut for half the price (if you just add in 10g of table salt), their maple syrup is cheaper than and as good as any other supermarket (this difference has been eroded somewhat recently), their Blast kitchen towels are as good as Plenty but much cheaper and cruelty free, their vegan brioche burger buns are the best burger buns out there, full stop. Their tofu is extremely cheap too. When I was a student, I used to live right by a Sainsbury's and I'd shop there out of habit even over the summer when my budgets were such that I was surviving on toast made from dry old bread. Beware that local optimisation!

• Songnomics-style hangers with the notch that lets you slide things out without stretching the neck really make putting away the laundry very easy. I don't have a chest of drawers any more: socks and pants go in over-the-door pouches sorted by day and everything else lives on these hangers (bar a few coats and jackets that are too heavy for them, which live on the over-the-door coat rack). This also has the happy side-effect of everything being visible: it's very difficult to forget clothing when it's all right in front of you all the time!

• Darn Tough socks are pricey but they really do last very well, and they really will replace them for you if they've got something wrong with them!

• While we're talking about clothes: shopping in charity shops and second-hand is great for saving money, but if you're time-poorer or sit too far outside the middle of the main sequence of clothes sizes, it's often easier to use services like Vinted (which I've had best results with), where you can find good, cheap stuff that you're looking for and fits without having to spend all afternoon trawling (though I'm aware that's part of the fun for some people). If you have specific size measurements I've found it easier searching for those than using the size filters.

• If you've got finer hair, hair powder, a thing I did not realise existed until my barber introduced me to it a few months back, works better than gel and doesn't make your hair look wet. I use Fudge, as it's easily available in Boots and Superdrug and cruelty-free, unlike VO5 which is the most easily available other brand.

• My skin's a bit sensitive, so I've used this Braun Series 7 electric razor for years (uhh, not this exact version, the version that was available 10 years ago). It's a bit pricey but really good, and provides a shave that's ~95% as close as a standard razor. (It gets a bit less use these days as I've kept my lockdown beard, so it mostly just shaves outside my beard neckline (if you have a beard and don't know what I'm talking about, please have a look at something like this), and I'm using this cheapish beard trimer for keeping my beard short.)

• The containers that many foodstuffs come in often aren't the nicest, buying things in bulk is cheaper and you can spend the savings on more visually appealing re-useable containers. Nice bottles for oil, nice Kilner jars for flour, sugar, pasta, rice, etc. Dispenser bottles for hand soaps and shower gels/shampoos etc, too!

• If you're into making cakes and you haven't considered it, something like this cake decoration kit is worth it for the turntable and palete knives—it makes evenly icing way easier.

• If you live in flat you might not have space/wall-drilling permissions for a normal spice rack, or one big enough to accomodate all your spices. Spicy Shelf, which is also a very funny name for a product, allows you to make the most of inner-shelf space.

• If you've got limited space, these desks on Etsy made from reclaimed wood are robust (solid wood!), have a built-in shelf to put your monitors on (they do models of desk without it too if you don't want that) and can be made in a wide number of sizes (I believe they also do custom sizes if asked). They also look really good, and you can choose what colour you want the wood stained! Pair with an under-desk cable tidy to keep things organised, and a big mousemat/desk protector... thing to keep the desk from getting scuffed up too.

Tech

• Monzo is genuinely a lot nicer and easier to use and interact with than most high-street banks (providing you don't have to deal with a lot of cash). I was talking to a friend about budgeting the other day (running through the UKPF flowchart, an invaluable resource if you've not encountered it before!) and recommended opening a Monzo account simply as a day-to-day "spender" account to more easily keep track of outgoings. They're starting to try and upsell their premium tier and their loan products, but if you're easily able to say no to that, I would strongly recommend going for it.

• If you're looking for a savings account, or cheaper bills (or almost any other advice on how to save money) the MSE site has frequently-updated advice as to the best providers (and I mean frequently: I opened a new savings account about a month ago and it's already been displaced by another provider as their top pick).

• If you read a lot of articles but you find they go right through you, be more selective about what you're reading. If you feel like they had things you'd like to remember but it doesn't happen, I make pretty extensive use of Readwise Reader for my feeds and read later, and highlight/note up passages, and then use the main bit of Readwise to review what I've read.

• Overcast (iOS only) is the best podcasting app. Great to use, and pioneer of many of the features (e.g. smart speed) that have found their way into other podcasting apps. Free to use with an optional small subscription.

• If you want to start running, Couch to 5k is probably the best place to start—the NHS has a free app here. If you want to start weightlifting, either Stronglifts 5x5 or Starting Strength are good, and Hevy is really great for keeping track of your workouts.

• Password managers, which store all your passwords and allow you to quickly generate secure ones when creating new accounts, are phenomenally useful; I use 1Password as I've found it to be the nicest experience of all the different solutions out there.

• Getting a clipboard manager—a piece of software that 'remembers' what's in your clipboard so you can paste the thing you copied three copies back or whatever— has been genuinely transformative to the way I interact with text. If I'm writing or editing and I'm trying to move stuff around I can just stick it in this 'buffer' and come back to it. I use Flycut on Mac (Windows has it built in).

• Some Mac-specific recommendations: for writing, IA Writer; for emails, Spark; some general quality-of-life improvements: Amphetamine lets you suspend your Mac's going-to-sleep behaviour (this replaces an app older users may remember called Caffeine, which stopped being updated a few years back); if you use multiple different browsers OpenIn is a nice little tool that lets you select which browser you want a link to open in rather than just the default; Rocket lets you enter emojis by typing a colon, Slack-style, anywhere.

• If you work from a laptop but like to get out of the house, a Nextstand K2 and a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse (I use an external Apple trackpad and keyboard because I'm a sucker—though I was able to get them refurbed on eBay) let you work in a more ergonomically friendly position, rather than hunching your shoulders.

• As someone who spent most of his teenage years completely destroying wired earbuds at a rate of around one a fortnight, wireless earbuds are transformative (I use Airpod Pros because I use a lot of Apple products).

• If you live somewhere with dark short-day winters and suffer from seasonal affective disorder, a lightbox (the Lumie Vitamin L is the one I use) really does help lift your mood! I keep mine on my desk to give myself a blast soon after waking up in the morning.

• If you've got an iPad and like using the Pencil, this JETtech matte-effect screen protector (or similar) make writing/drawing a much nicer experience.

• If you live somewhere where running cables around the place is a huge pain, these TP-Link powerline adapters for ethernet will make your life a lot easier. It's remarkable how often internet connectivity issues are actually wi-fi issues, so if you spend a fair amount of time at your desk anyway it's worth plugging in.

Wellbeing and organisation

• If you find yourself wondering whether you might have some kind of treatable or manageable neurodivergence, it's worth googling "[condition] diagnostic form" (you probably don't want the Buzzfeed quiz, or whatever the current version of the Buzzfeed quiz is, I'm old and my references are old too) and running through it to at least get an idea of whether this is plausible. It took me way to long to realise I had ADHD, and the sooner you get that looked at the better off you'll be! Alternatively, get yourself a fidget toy.

• Getting therapy. If you find yourself displaying persistent patterns of behaviour that you feel isn't beneficial, or you find yourself repeatedly in situations you don't think you want to be, even (especially?) if you don't think of yourself as "the kind of person who has therapy", it's worth seeking out—there will often be local clinics that can do an initial evaluation, then assign you to someone they think you'll vibe with. Don't be afraid to change it up, too—I've definitely had therapists who I like but don't feel like it's clicking, and asking to change is considered fair play.

• Try not to feel beholden to Doing Everything, especially on trips and holidays. When I went to Edinburgh a few years ago, exhausted after an early flight followed by a morning/early afternoon of non-stop Doing Stuff on the day I arrived, I checked into the hotel at 3pm then slept for several hours. It was absolutely great, and I was then able to have a lovely evening full of energy.

• This may sound strange, but I often forget things I enjoy doing if I don't think they're "important" or "useful" in some way. I love "fail video" compilations (for those unfamiliar with the genre, an admixture of 4/5ths You've Been Framed-esque pratfalls to 1/5th really quite full-on Russian dashcam videos) but it's surprising how seldom I think to watch them. (Even better are "expensive fail" compilations—Lamborghinis catching fire, superyachts getting dropped by cranes etc). But I feel compelled by my inner Stakhanov to focus on things that are useful, or if I must do something for enjoyment, it should be enriching. I think that, as with all advice, the opposite could be true—if you find yourself regularly losing hours to TikTok, it might be worth trying to find a challenging book or something, but if you've been trying too hard lately, give yourself a few minutes to do something you enjoy that's of no value other than bringing joy.

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