Not to sound like one of those people, but a bidet. It hasn’t eliminated my use of toilet paper, but certainly has reduced it, while leaving a squeaky clean feeling. I miss using it while away from home nowadays.

Other things are eye masks (I have sleep quality issues) and ereaders (never moving with ten boxes of books again).

Electric toothbrush.

Invest in your teeth. Trust me.

Both specific and in general 1.) Nectar mattress. The only mattresses i’d ever bought were from amazon and very on sale. Important Life Advice: whatever you have to do to make i happen, get a good mattress. Even my bed approves and it thinks everything is beneath it, including me.

2.) My bed.

Oh boy, here we go. This goddamn bed.

I bought it roughly twenty years ago and it literally took my entire tax return at my first job and then some to get it and the very first piece of furniture I personally picked out and bought for myself which may explain absolutely nothing about how I ended up like this.

It’s fairly straightforward, plain four poster queen bed but so incredibly melodramatic no matter the room I put it in, this thing will dramatically not fit and carry on like it’s actually in a castle tower in 1700s Frances waiting for a princess to sleep in it (it did not act like this at the store, okay). It has an unnecessary number of parts (some really could have been consolidated and a couple I’m not sure even have a function other than to add time to assembling it) every piece of it is awkward to move, even the parts that have no reason to be and don’t look like they are, and every single piece is ten times heavier than than look or is reasonable, sane, or really should even be possible. The wood is dark and does a very cool dark gleaming thing, and it takes hours to clean and oil it to a soft gleam (so. goddamn. many. parts). Twenty-four hours later it’s sitting there dull and dramatically telling everyone who sees it I never clean it and also use substandard wood oil

It takes a very base minimum of two people to even attempt to put it together and you better not have plans for the rest of the day because it doesn’t matter how many times you have done this, somehow, you will always get six parts wrong because whoever designed this has another job making complicated puzzle locks that you will never solve and will die mad about it (this person is a sadist). Just looking at it in any given bedroom I live in, it makes me feel I should be wearing something long, white, and flowy while waiting for my angsty vampire lover to visit me in the dead of the night and not taking my night’s sleep shorts and a tank top.

This bed is a snobby, judgemental asshole who acts like I didn’t buy it at the goddamn Roomstore at ten percent off because it was a floor model.

But. it’s a goddamn tank that’s been in substandard moving vans and the backs of multiple trucks and dropped down stairs and sometimes forgets to at least look scuffed. It will survive all the wars and still give its occupants a great night’s sleep. Those deceptively slim posts are strong enough to joust with a burglar, beat him to death, and then put back and rehang my very melodramatic bed curtains on them (though I’ll need a little hysterical strength to hold them up for very long; I am not kidding how stupid heavy those thing are and should not be). I love this bed, it is my soulmate, and it is where I will sleep until I move to a convenient grave. I hope all of you are able to have one of these in your life and if you already do, you have my condolences; but it’s ride or die now.

3.) The best headphones I can afford and a budget for potential upgrade/replace every two years (you don’t have to use that timeline,but it works for me). Related: Sonos speakers. No, they are not the best in any class but they are good to really good in multiple speaker classes and are affordable–if you budget strictly and buy a piece at a time or watch for amazon sales like it’s your job–for normal people.

4.) Kindle may actually be the most important single decision I have made in my life. I like books; I didn’t want to use a screen. I did it and a decade and change greater with slowly degrading eyesight I bless the day I decided to try it every day. Currently on an Oasis.

5.) Giving up and budgeting specifically to pay a ridiculous amount of money for my jeans. Sure, the receipts legit horrifies me, but they fit perfectly, are crazy comfortable, can pretty much survive anything I do to them (and I am hard on my clothes) and some have been with me since before the Obama administration and don’t even have a loose thread on them. I have literally every single pair i ever bought and they still look great (and I never add up the cost of them all and what thing I could have bought with that much money, God).

Tea from a now-defunct tea store called Teavana. The woman who would become my wife was working the counter there and gave me her number.

Kitchen stuff:

1. A good chef’s knife. It’ll run you around 200-300 bucks, but if you treat it with respect, it will last you forever
2. A mortar and pestle. They’re big and heavy, but grinding your own spice mixes is something that will absolutely change the quality of your cooking. A mortar and pestle used to be super cheap, I bought a huge one for 20 bucks a few years back, but they’re kind of expensive these days.
3. A decent cast iron or stainless steel pan. Learn how to use it and maintain it, and it will last you forever.
4. Nice dishes. Spend a little more to get something decorative for hosting. People coming together to eat is one of the most ancient social traditions we have. Make it your own experience. I don’t even spend that much, I just raid places like Homesense when they’re changing their inventory and have bought all my bowls and dishes for around 50-70% off. Sure I only have two units of most of them, but I’d rather have a bunch of cool high quality dishware, than a bunch of boring looking, feels like it’ll break while I’m washing it garbage from Ikea.
5. Get some glass tupperware. I have something like 10 pieces that I’ve picked up over the years and now I barely use plastic wrap. They’re great for prepping, they’re great leftovers, they can be used in the oven (not all of them, double check what you’re buying) and they’re freezer safe.

Clothing stuff:

1. One nice black suit. You can go to a shop like Banana Republic and get one of theirs and take it to a tailor to get it adjusted. A custom made suit is prohibitively expensive for a lot of people, and the ones that aren’t are usually made from polyester bullshit. Make sure it’s a classic fit, don’t go for skinny or wide anything as those go in and out of a fashion, but a proper fitted suit will always look good. Make sure it’s made from wool, a wool/cotton blend, or linen if you live in a warm climate.
2. A couple of nice fitted dress shirts. 2 white ones, and then the other three can be your choice of color. Before you start going crazy on patterned shirts at Dan Flashes, make sure you have your bases covered. I say this as someone who wears a lot of patterned shirts.
3. 2 pairs of quality jeans. One black, one dark blue. Don’t skimp out here, check the stitching, check the quality of the material. Cotton only, unless it has like maybe 5% spandex for extra stretch. Just like the suit, get it with a regular fit, no weird carrot shape, wide leg, bell bottom or anything else.
4. If you live in a cold or rainy area, get wool underlayers. It stays warm when it’s cold, stays cool when it’s warm, dries out on its own, and is naturally antibacterial.
5. Never buy anything made from synthetics except for a windbreaker or a raincoat. They feel like shit, they make too much noise, they look like shit, they have garbage insulation properties, they straight up melt from heat (I watched someone’s $1000 Arcteryx coat melt to a chair that was too close to a space heater; the nearby wool coat was completely unaffected), they pollute the environment through microplastics and by taking forever to biodegrade, they trap your sweat (the wicking away moisture thing is complete 100% marketing bullshit), and if you have sensitive skin they are prone to causing outbreaks and other dermal irritation. Stop giving your fucking money to those planet destroying criminals at DuPont and say no to synthetic fibers.

Probably a bidet, I hate going to the bathroom at other people’s homes now.

Bidet. Telescoping shoehorn.

A $100 brother laser printer (2280dw but it has been discontinued). It’s like a printer from an alternative universe where printers aren’t evil.

Had it for about 6 years now. Printed thousands of pages and only needed to replace the ink cartridge a few times. Had no issues with 3-rd party cartridges. Surprisingly never required any maintenance.

Other laser printer brands that can probably perform similarly, but I can only vouch for this one.

A passport.

As someone who lives in an apartment, whatever noise cancelling Headphone I use at the moment (Bose QC right now). These things changed my life for the better.

Lodge Cast Iron - Haven’t replaced my skillets and pots just make sure you know how to clean them.

Vacuum Sealer and Sous Vide - Perfect steak every time.

My Steam Deck. I regularly refer to it as the single greatest video gaming purchase I’ve ever made. I got spoiled for a while by a Switch so i stopped playing PC games because there was no handheld option I liked. The SD gave me convenient access to almost my entire Steam library.

My iPad Pro. I’m normally not an Apple person because I’m so rooted in the Android ecosystem but for my purposes, it’s an excellent little toolbox for sketching up writing ideas and as a little music production machine.

Andaseat Kaiser 2. I spend all day working out of my chair and a considerable amount of my free time there, too. Really sturdy, large, comfortable chair. I’d estimate I’ve got at least 5-7 years before I start thinking about a replacement. The fake leather will probably start to go well before that but I don’t care.

So far:

• Aeropress. Extremely convenient, easily replicable coffee making. I use a Timemore C2 grinder with it, and buy coffee from local roasters.
• Nintendo Switch. I’ve played more games on it than any other console, it’s just so convenient.
• Zojirushi Rice Cooker. Best investment into daily living I’ve ever made. It makes the best rice, bar none.

E-reader. I agree that nothing beats the smell and feel of an actual book but e-readers are incredibly convenient and comfortable to read from. Definitely one of the best things I own.

1. My PC. It’s not a beefy system by any means… it only has an i3 8100, a 1060 6GB, and 16 GB RAM, all bought for about $600 in 2018, but since then this has been generally the best thing that’s ever happened to me coming from a low-income household. My family lost a lot of financial and emotional stability over the past few decades so as a person growing up I always felt like I was going to stumble. Thankfully this little big thing has provided that stability for me as a troubled individual. As I get older it’s allowed me to catch up on my traumas and build my own life out of it on my terms. It may not see use forever, but some part of it (no pun intended) will always be a part of my life.

2. My and my wife’s rings. We’ve given ourselves to each other so much and while it was always a given that we would spend the rest of our lives together, it unexpectedly strengthened these feelings when we made it official. We’re each other’s pillars.

3. My coffee grinder. Hehe.