Things for Recovering Hoarders Like Me [Live Post]

Apr 19, 2023 recs

Thought it would be fun to share useful things that I’ve bought for myself, as inspired by Andrew Connor, Alexey Guzey, and nudging from Vivek. Most other lists online are more comprehensive and I have taken many things from them. Most stuff is from Amazon (linked via short reflinks, but I still link to the cheapest version + only stuff I would have linked without that). I want to add software here soon as well.

This alive document will be updated every time I buy something incredible.

Household

Molly’s Suds Laundry Detergent Pods - $20. Cheaper than tide pods. A little worried about normal detergent inflamming my allergies/EoE so I decided to move away from standard detergent.
Heated Japanese Kotatsu Table + 300W Adapter - $200. Imagine a table with a heater inside and a comforter around it, but a flat surface to work on. It’s incredibly warm and cozy, especially in the winter. Takes a few weeks to ship from Japan, but is totally worth it.
Chromecast - $30. Only really useful to keep TV on ambient mode, flipping through Google Photos albums of me and all of my friends.

Bathroom

Mint Shampoo and Conditioner - $23. Spent way too long finding hair products that were SLS-free, EWG-approved, and smelled good.
Body Wash - $9. Cheap and smells good, doesn’t have SLS in it.
The Softest Bathroom Mats - $20. High pile and insanely soft and plush.
Snail Trail Bee Venom Face Moisturizer - $25. Feels super smooth even with just a little. Reddit recommended.
Double Line Floss Picks - $3. These make flossing fun and are useful on the go – it’s super easy to grab on your way out, and you can see all your tooth gunk stuck between the two strings. Normal floss cuts off circulation to my finger and so I never do it, and water flossers are too annoying to refill and carry around.
Sekkisui Face Sunscreen - $20. Non greasy, nice smelling, easy to apply sunscreen from /r/AsianBeauty. Half price in any convenience store in Asia.
Biore UV Sunscreen - $15. I use this as a body and face sunscreen, since more comes out per squeeze than the Sekkisui. Half price at any convenience store in Japan. Recommended by Andrew Connor.
Travel Toiletry Kit(Cheaper 3 Pack) - $15/$6. I dump shampoo/conditioner/bodywash in here before I travel, since I prefer to use my own.

Kitchen

Water Bottle Cleaning Tablets - $8. Put into your water bottle for 15 min to clean out the gunk.
Dishwand - $4. Basicallly a sponge with a handle. Put dishsoap onto it to clean dishes without having to touch a sponge.
Kitchen Torch + Fuel - $16. Way more fun than a lighter or matchbox for all things fire.
Ramen Bowls - $40. Sparks joy, useful for most soupy foods.

I also use Athletic Greens each morning and have gazpacho in the fridge for a quick breakfast. I hate cooking and use a rotation of microwavable frozen food delivery services to eat (I promise it’s less depressing and more tasty than it sounds).

Clothing

Enro Face Masks - $20. Wirecutter tested face masks for filtration and comfort, and this won both hands down. It claims a PM0.1 filter, and tested consistently with that claim. It also maintains high filtration for a few washes (but becomes half as effective at 50 washes; I usually lose mine before 10). I use it in any place with asbestos risk as well; it’s not a cure-all but it’s better than any other mask for that.
Shirt Stays - $13. Connect your dress shirt to your socks. Critical for formal dress shirts for me, to avoid it bunching up and look bad.
Neck Gaiter - $15. Tighter and smaller than a scarf, critical in cold weather.
Oura Ring - $300 + $72/year. I actually find this most useful to feel comfortable consuming caffeine; I don’t want to lose access to my own body’s tiredness signals, but I find the Oura recommendations to be a decent enough substitute on those days. It’s also cool to see the sleep staging – I wish their timezone tracking was better; it often screws up data when flying, which is when I most want the data. I got it before the subscription, so I don’t have to pay; with the subscription, it might be more worth it to get a secondhand gen 2 off of eBay instead.

Backpack

Osprey Talon 22 - $160. Backpacking backpack that I use everyday. It has a few key straps that make the weight feel a lot lighter, especially above-the-shoulder and hip straps. One disadvantage is that there’s no dedicated laptop pocket, so I have to use my tablet sleeve to separate it from my other things.
Sidecar iPad Mount for Laptop - $35. Lets you mount your iPad on the side of your laptop as an extended display. Useful for traveling without a monitor. Shoutout to Vivek for the rec.
Contoured Ear Plugs - $18. Normal earplugs don’t fit me that well and usually fall out when I sleep. These don’t, are super cheap, and are softer than normal earplugs. I stopped needing melatonin to sleep after starting to use these.
Mini Sim + Cable Box - $10. Has a SIM switcher, and small adapters nicely laid out. I carry this with a few USB to USB C adapters seperately.
Beaded Laptop Wrist Rest - $20. More comfortable for wrists on laptop + I used early in carpal tunnel journey before I discovered Sarno, and now I can’t type without them.
Bose 700 Noise Cancelling Headphones - $200. Can pair to my phone and laptop at once, USB-C charging, excellent active noise cancellation. The one issue is that on-headphone taps are sometimes either too sensitive or not sensitive enough, but I don’t use them much anyways. Bought on eBay for a 35% discount, mine is an Eclipse colorway.
Cheap Apple Pencil 2 - $30. You give up variable pressure detection but and pay 5x less, still magnetically charges. Useful as a backup.

I also have an iPad Air + Tablet Sleeve for notes and extra pockets, and a Kindle Paperwhite Kids for distraction-free books. I use Calibre on my laptop to format and load in arbitrary epubs and mobis from online. I also have an M1 Pro, but since Jony Ive left Apple, they’ve been getting heavier so I might grab an Air next time I upgrade.

Other

Proxmark 3 RFID Cloner - $75. Designed by the veritable and prolific Samy Kamkar. Can be a bit finnicky to first time setup, but once you have it then it clones basically all cards I throw at it.
RFID Ring - $30. Clone any card onto this, then just tap with your finger to use it.
Extremely Small Wallet Pen - $7. This ~1mm wide, ~4 inch pen fits in my wallet and is useful in a pinch or when geocaching.
Heated Eye Mask - $17. Plugs into a USB, very useful to use one eye at a time for dry eye.

Fun

Colored Flame Birthday Candles - $7. Cheap, simple, and cool on birthdays.
Joycon Controller Grips- $10. Turn each Nintendo Switch joycon into a mini controller.
Under the Door Tool - $35. Open any door. Useful to retrofit with a hook from a clotheshanger so it works on all handles.

My favorite board games are Decrypto (a word game that’s way deeper than Codenames), Smallworld (vaguely like Risk, but way more dynamic and fun), and Hanabi (team communication game). I’ve been recommended Paleo, Terraforming Mars, Forbidden Desert, Cascadia, Fort, and 7 Wonders but haven’t tried them.

Small PC Build

32GB DDR5 RAM - $80. Standard RAM.
Mini ITX Motherboard - $200. This is what will determine if you have a small (ITX), medium (ATX) or big PC.
SF750 Power Supply - $165. Enough to comfortably run a high end GPU with everything else.
i5 12400F IBM CPU - $160. You are optimizing for heat; the bigger and later gen CPUs run hotter, and this is extremely fast, better than lower tier i7s, and doesn’t need any extra cooling.
2TB NVMe - $140. Faster and cheaper than an SSD.

I also use a 3060TI and a Dan A4 Case. Build video and more detailed part breakdowns here.

Things I Want

These are things I’ve stopped myself from buying so far, but they seem intriguing…
Olfactory Water Bottle - $25 + $6/15L. Emits a smell near your nose, so that it feels like you’re having flavored water. 3-pack pods only last for 15L of water, which is why there’s the added unit cost.
EarOS One Concert Earplugs - $40. Developed with the MIT Acoustic Lab, and a few one-off reviews say it’s better than the popular alternatives.
Hair Clipper with a Vacuum - $40. I hate cleaning the sink every time I shave. Recommended by this post.
Portable Charger with Cables Built In - $20. The same price and capacity as the Anker equivalent, but comes with cables. Recommended by Sam Bowman.
Space Saver Compression Bags - $13. These bags have a one way vent when you compress them, so are useful to tightly pack clothes in suitcases. Good gift for people who travel a lot.
Travel Battery Electric Toothbrush - $20. Lasts for 180 brushes per AA, doesn’t require traveling with a bulky toothbrush charger. Recommended by Tynan.
Moisture Chamber Eye Seals - $45. My dry eye doctor recommended that when I’m on the computer a lot, to browse with these instead to maintain eye moisture. You can also just use goggles, but these result in notably more moisture for me.

I also want Kava powder as an alternative kickback substance.