Endoscope. $50. Uses phone as screen. 10' wire with camera and light on the end. Saved my ass when wiring through the walls so many times.

My advice is: Avoid buying anything until you really need it.

Otherwise, you end up buying a ton of stuff that you never need and it just sits around collecting dust and you're that much poorer for it.

Source: I have a bunch of stuff I bought over the years thinking I'd need it and much of it is rarely used. Save your money because money can be anything.

When you do need a tool, check out garage sales and estate sales first because you can get some top-notch stuff at huge discounts. Alternately, pick up a cheap version from harbor freight and use it until it breaks, then get a good one because you know you'll use it enough that quality becomes worth the extra cost.

Neat, I wonder if there are other form factors for the microwave one. This particular one might not work well for some dishes.

For the second tool, what kind of stuff have you used it for?

For my submission: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seam_ripper

I got it to cut off itchy tags and frayed threads, etc, but you can also use it to slice open envelopes

iFixIt style kit. Drills and standard screwdrivers are a given in a household but when you need to fix your glasses or get the batteries out of something small it makes a world of difference, especially with little spudgels/tweezers to help the cause.

General rule is if something in your house breaks and it's cheaper to buy the tool to fix it than to call a repair person, then buy the tool and fix it yourself. So you do some work but get a tool out of the deal. After a while you have enough tools to fix typical problems.

My other big epiphany is avoid cordless tools except for a few that get used a lot, like a cordless drill/driver. I use a corded handheld vacuum instead of a cordless one and it's cheaper, way more powerful, doesn't need constant recharging, just better all around. Obviously this isn't a hard rule but consider corded when you can. Remember you can use a portable inverter or similar for lots of this stuff. Like I bought a cordless glue gun early on, a popular tool, but it was a dumb purchase in retrospect. Corded would have been fine.

I got a metal pick set for under $10 and I use them all the time for cleaning out crevices.

I searched for

"microwave bowl grabber silicone"

and first result was a bunch of dicks!

--

And yes the 8250 is excellent for many precision, polishing, or cutting jobs.

Hand powered drain auger. This isn't exactly a quality of life enhancer but it's one that new homeowners probably won't buy right away. It is one of those items where you pray you'll never need it and thank whatever deity you want that you do when you do.

Other enhancers: automatic occupancy light switches if appropriate for your home setup. We have them on garage stairs for safety reasons so we dont have to reach for switches while carrying things.

Good task lighting. I have a second switch in the garage for high output lighting when I need it to be bright as daylight inside while working on the car etc. And bright under counter lighting in the kitchen for cooking or entertaining.

Calipers. I bought a cheapo pair (this one) because it was convenient for measuring the parts on a mechanical watch that I was modding. Now I use them all the time around the house for finding the size of nuts, bolts, rope thickness, etc.

Good lithium jump starter, and keep it in your car. Better than cables. I must have used mine 20 times between kids leaving my lights on all night and helping strangers.

Best advice I can add is don't buy new. Broadly speaking, prices from high to low run: eBay, FB Marketplace, thrift store, flea market, garage sale. That's also a rough outline of how available a given item will be.

Looking around, I'm not sure 1-in-50 items in our house was bought new, outside of consumables of course. I could show someone around for at least two hours, showing off the things I found, repurposed, repaired, reused, recycled, etc.

I try to snap up rockin' deals as I find them. I don't need box knife blades ATM, but if I find a great deal, MINE. If you're in a area like ours, keep your eye on the sides of the road for people putting items out to take away. The richer the neighborhood, the better! That's one of many reasons I have a truck. We've found amazing goods being thrown out.

Get to know your local thrifts and flea market(s). We know exactly what sorts of things we can find at our flea market and hold off until we're setting up or shopping there. And don't forget you can bargain at the flea market, FB and garage sales! Don't do that at the thrift, the price is what it is and the clerk can't change that.

Multimeter and a quality drill

Stud finder and spirit level.

If you're mounting something moderately weighty to a wall, you need a stud finder. Then to ensure it's straight, you need a spirit level.

If you ever have to deal with a bunch of writing, a €25 pair of good "automatic wire strippers" just make life that much easier.

Also just keeping 3 pencils and 2 permanent markers in every tool kit has saved me countless hours of searching.

A good box cutter and replacement Blades save similar amounts of headaches, and a good head lamp with a replaceable 18650 li-ion battery too.

I'm doing most of the remodeling around my place, I did the entire floor with nothing but a jigsaw and right angle. I use the right angle infrequently but have found myself using the jigsaw much more than I thought I would.

If you don’t have a wet-dry vac (shop vac being a popular brand) they tend to be a huge help in cleanup when it comes to really sucky jobs (pun absolutely intended).

Especially for water-messes such as flooding or sludge when you drop a glass jar of jelly or whatever. Turns a super bad time into a slightly less bad time.

If you have a yard, a pickaxe, a digger bar, and a hand truck. A hi-lift jack is also one of my favorite tools. Never would have bought these but sort of happened into having them and if they were lost or something I'd buy them again without a second thought.

You will probably want to do something in the dirt at some point (sprinklers, electrical lines, landscaping, etc) and a pick is super useful when you need to trench or dig in hard or rocky ground. Same with a digger bar but it can also double as a large pry bar.

My hand truck gets used for moving everything from new/old furniture to rocks and logs around the yard. Just makes moving stuff easy.

I've used my hi-jack lift a lot more than I thought. Used it to pull up fence posts, raise walls when I built a shed, works for changing tires, can be used as a winch, used it to hold up gates I was hanging, just a surprisingly useful tool.

Last one I'll add is a vice - very helpful to have when you need a third hand.

There used to be a joke in the 3D printing community about buying a cheap printer just for the pair of flush cutters that comes in the box. They're super cheap, I keep a pair designed for first aid (mostly hang nails and splinters) and a toolbox pair for removing store tags from clothing, removing zip/ twist ties, small gauge wire cutting/ soldering, 3d print clean up- generally any time I need to cut something and don't want to risk cutting into something else.

I don't think I have anything to recommend that isn't a fairly common home tool in the U.S.

Nice sets of metric and imperial wrenches, and at least one adjustable crescent wrench. You'll use the wrenches all the time, and at a basic level you can get away with just an adjustable crescent wrench. Fixed wrenches are much nicer to use, and it's super useful to be able to use a fixed wrench and the adjustable wrench for those bolts where neither end is fixed.

A flat pry bar. It's definitely not necessary, but I find them really helpful. It's much easier to remove nails than the claw on a hammer, and it's really helpful for applying leverage in a variety of situations.

A circular saw, chop saw, or table saw. A powered saw is another extremely helpful tool, but you don't need all three of these. Most people should pick one and I'd prioritize them for in this order.

Random orbit sander. Sanding by hand takes forever and it just sucks. If you use it even once it will have been worth the purchase.

Battery powered shop lights, from whatever brand you've bought power tools from. Having a handful of lights you can move to anyplace you need them is really helpful. I think every tool maker these days also makes something like this, just buy the ones you already have batteries for.

Shopvac. Immensely helpful for cleaning up the dust and crap created whenever you working on the house. You can integrate them into most of your power tools (might need some adapters) so that you're working cleaner, and you won't burn it out like you could with a household vacuum.

When did you stop using thorns?

Something I don't use a whole lot but would buy again if I lost it:

Cable staple gun. It's just like a regular staple gun (and about the same price) but it shoots U shaped staples so you can quickly run cabling throughout your shop/garage etc.

Beats drilling holes for cable mounts or accidentally pinching the cable with a regular staple.

Soldering iron with some flux, tin and electrical tape. Anything that has a cord is at risk of breaking, it's a life Dave with Christmas light. Takes seconds to fix and it's cents Worth of Material

Watch knives.

https://www.amazon.com/YXQ-Opener-Remover-Repair-Battery/dp/B09XK1632G/

All-purpose opening and prying tools. I use them for everything from small electronics and random containers to popping 3D prints off the printer bed.

I’m gonna add not so much a single item as an idea. If you are a car owner, find your car in an online owners’ message board. There will usually be a post or more detailing socket sizes and types, specialty tools, and common issues with your car model. Take notes and go to Harbor Freight to assamble a dedicated tool kit to keep in your car. Mine cost about US$50 and fits in a small soft bag. You only have to get tools to cover repairs you’re comfortable performing yourself, though if you break down and a good samaritan stops to help, they can make good use of them.

If you're feeling rich and sassy, think about adding oil changing tools like a filter wrench, and more extensive accessories like a torque wrench (the clicky kind is fine) and a basic engine code reader. You can always Google the code for your vehicle once you know it. If your car has special bolts for something, make sure you get the sockets for them. You don’t have to keep the entire set, just the sizes your car actually needs.

Include baling wire, zip ties, gasket maker, hose clamps, and some repair tape that will withstand pressure. If there’s a repair manual for your car, get one.

The idea is that, should anything happen when you’re out and about, you’ll have everything with you to get yourself back on the road, even if all you’re doing is limping the car to the nearest shop. At the very least, it’s handy to have all the car tools in one place.

Multi-meter

Good soldering iron

Oscillating multi-tool (power tool)

Infrared heat camera (great for assessing energy loss, engine, electrical diagnosis).

Screw removal pliers for extracting stripped screws.

1. Garden twist ties - Not only are these useful if you do gardening but having a source of cut-to-length twist ties has proven to be invaluable if you're doing crafts, need temporary ties, etc.

2. While a power drill with various tips, and a solid set of screwdrivers are indispensable, a power/cordless screwdriver can really save your wrist/forearm if you're doing a lot of tasks. It is low speed low torque so you don't have to worry about stripping screws but it really saves on fatigue of you're replacing a lot of switch plates, hinges etc.

3. Headlamp - Perfect for having to work in lowlight places and don't have room/places to put work lights or try to maneuver flashlights.

4. Light gloves - it reeeaaally made replacing switches/receptacles much easier! Like the headlamp it gives you precision lighting in tight spaces?

Battery powered construction stapler.

Get a good pair of extendable poles for your vacuum, makes cleaning high spots like ceilings and blinds way easier. They're not fancy, but way better than a ladder for hard to reach places

We got a 3' toy grabber for my younger son when he was like 5 years old.

He is 16 now and we use it to reach all sorts of things behind the dryer, under furniture, etc. It's a plastic toy yet it has lasted for years and works surprisingly well.

Cable Tie tool