21. Disposable Toilet Seat Covers
Best Place to Purchase: Amazon
Average Product Price: $10.49/60*
Most of us try to avoid using a public bathroom, but, sometimes, there is no choice and we have to. Disposable toilet seat covers are a hygienic way to use the bathroom, but they don’t always flush completely. When you pull out a disposable toilet seat cover, place the handle that you used to pull the seat cover out with at the front of the toilet.
Disposable Toilet Seat Cover @u/LloydChristmas1 / Reddit.com
That will make it easier to flush. Also, you might not know this, but you don’t have to rely on the public restroom’s owner to supply toilet seat covers. Amazon and other retailers sell disposable covers (sometimes in bulk) for personal use.
22. Vegetable Peelers
Best Place to Purchase: Dollar/budget store
Average Product Price: $1-$5*
Despite the name, veggie peelers do much more than just peel, and they aren’t that expensive either. You can buy cheap peelers at local grocery stores like Kroger or Giant Eagle, as well as budget/dollar stores often have a cheap kitchenware section that has peelers.
Veggie Peelers @Karen – The Art of Doing Stuff / Pinterest
Try using your peeler for slicing. This works if you want thin-sliced carrots or onions, for example. While using a knife is also, obviously, fine, sometimes it’s just one more dish that you don’t really want to do. A peeler can be a convenient way to get thin-sliced veggies that make the perfect, healthy addition to any meal.
23. Bobby Pins
Best Place to Purchase: Amazon, local beauty stores
Average Product Price: $6.44*
Back in 2016, a bunch of women had the realization on social media that they’d been using a common product wrong their entire lives: bobby pins, like the kind you can buy at any local drugstore such as CVS (or on Amazon in bulk).
Bobby Pins @wikihow / Twitter.com
The incorrect way to use a bobby pin is to fasten them with the open-ended, wavy side upwards and away from the scalp. Actually, you should fasten your bobby pin with the wavy side pointing downwards and the open end towards the scalp. This gives them a better grip. Daily Mail described Twitter as “in meltdown” after people realized this fact.
24. Oven’s Bottom Drawer
Best Place to Purchase: Costco Wholesale, Home Depot, Lowe’s
Average Product Price: $1,000-$1,500*
If you go into peoples’ kitchens, you’ll find that the oven drawer usually has baking sheets, pans, and similar kitchenware in it. However, that is not what that part of the oven is for. The oven drawer is for keeping food warm after you’re done cooking it. Tasting Table explained that, for electric ovens, the drawer is intended to keep food hot until you’re ready to eat it.
Oven Bottom Drawer @Bonazai/Twitter.com
The best place to buy an electric oven is usually a hardware store like Home Depot. The Spruce also listed Costco, AJ Madison, and Best Buy as other locations with good prices.
25. Laundry Detergent
Best Place to Purchase: Target, Walmart, local grocery stores
Average Product Price: $80/year*
This one might seem counterintuitive, but it’s true. You might think that the more detergent you use, the better the stain-fighting power. However, that’s not the case. Reader’s Digest found that, if you use too much detergent, you can cause more problems, such as residue or stains on clothing, odors in the washing machine, and increased wear and tear.
© The Creative Exchange on Unsplash
Loads of clothes might not have a chance to drain properly, leading to wetter clothes and the potential for mildew. Laundry detergent, whether from Target, Walmart, or local grocery stores, costs the average household $80 per year. Make sure you don’t overuse the detergent to get your money’s worth.
26. Natural Peanut Butter
Best Place to Purchase: Wholesale stores, local grocery stores, Whole Foods
Average Product Price: $4.34*
Natural peanut butter, to many people, is far superior than regular peanut butter. Those of us who buy organic peanut butter have likely noticed the oils that collect on the top, making for a messy opening. While you can open it right-side-up and stir the oil in, that causes extra cleanup for you.
Store Peanut Butter Upside Down @ellsea58 / Pinterest
Instead, store the peanut butter upside down. This will force the oil to mix with the peanut butter, making it easier to open. You can buy natural peanut butter wholesale at places like Costco and Sam’s Club. Just make sure that you store unopened, organic peanut butter in the fridge if you won’t eat it within a month.
27. Kitchen Sponge
Best Place to Purchase: Dollar stores, Bed Bath & Beyond
Average Product Price: $2.96*
This one is high-ranking on the “grossness” scale. If you don’t clean your kitchen sponge after every use by running it under the water and squeezing it out, you’re at risk for spreading harmful bacteria throughout your kitchen (if not your home). Whether you have a regular old dollar-store sponge or a fancy sponge from Bed Bath & Beyond, you have to clean them.
Kitchen Sponge @How Does She / Pinterest
Discover Magazine looked at fourteen different used kitchen sponges to see the bacteria count. The researchers found 118 genera of bacteria, with 54,000,000,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter. Though many are harmless, NY Times cautioned that some kitchen bacteria could pose a problem for people with weaker immune systems.
28. Staple Remover
Best Place to Purchase: Staples, Office Max, Office Depot
Average Product Price: $1.50*
How many times have you almost broken a nail trying to get a key off a key ring? Key rings are supposed to be hard to pull apart—otherwise, our keys would go flying every time we left the house. However, it can be a source of frustration when you’re trying to remove a key deliberately from the ring.
Staple Remover @Mix 100.7 / Pinterest
Use a stapler remover, such as those from Office Depot or Walmart. They have thin, sharp teeth that you can place between the keychain’s rings. Use them to pry apart the keychain’s rings and take off the key (or put a new one on).
29. Toothpaste
Best Place to Purchase: Drug store, dollar store, Costco/Sam’s Club
Average Product Price: $3.59*
Kids are especially vulnerable to this one, particularly if they are just learning how to brush their teeth. Kids might not realize that you don’t need to squeeze out the tube for one brushing session (the fact that the tubes are so easy to squeeze doesn’t help either). Using too much toothpaste can actually harm enamel.
©Adobe Stock
The harm to kids’ enamel is caused by them swallowing too much fluoride, leading to dental fluorosis, tooth discoloration, and white marks. The proper quantity of toothpaste, whether from Dollar Tree or your dentist, is a pea-sized dab, according to Harris Dental.
30. Bananas
Best Place to Purchase: Local grocery stores, Whole Foods
Average Product Price: $0.57/pound*
A YouTuber helpfully made a how-to video on this subject, titled “How to Peel a Banana PROPERLY.” Turns out, we’ve been peeling bananas wrong this whole time. It might seem like the stem-end is the easiest place to peel a banana, but that’s actually not true. If you peel the banana from the bottom, you’re less likely to bruise it.
Bananas @DelMonteFresh / Twitter.com
Also, the stalk of the banana is easier to hold while eating. As one YouTube commenter put it, this way of eating a banana is “superior.” So, to review: peel from the bottom up, not from the stem down.