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When shopping for cordless power tools, you'd think you could simply purchase the best option of each to fit your needs. But there's a big problem that makes this a lot harder (and more expensive) than it should be: battery incompatibility. By design, you can’t simply pop a Ryobi battery into a DeWalt tool and expect it to work. Engineering decisions aside, using proprietary batteries allows companies to create a sort of obligatory brand loyalty, forcing you to stick with their line of tools unless you want to invest in a whole new set of batteries for every new tool you buy.

If you've been building your cordless tool collection for some time, you may wind up with four or five different chargers and multiple batteries cluttering your workspace. And that clutter can be expensive, because you wind up buying more chargers and batteries than you might not need if batteries were interchangeable.

But it turns out they are, sort of. You can actually swap batteries between brands—you just need the right adapters.

Adapters let you swap tool batteries between brands

There are two kinds of battery adapters to consider:

• Inter-brand adapters allow you to use one brand’s batteries in another brand’s tool (like DeWalt batteries in Milwaukee tools).

• Voltage adapters allow you to use a different voltage battery than the tool expects (say, a 20-volt battery in a 18-volt tool).

These adapters are a fairly simple solution to the problem of incompatible battery systems. If you have a lot of DeWalt tools, for example, you can purchase a Milwaukee tool without a battery (which will be cheaper) and just use an adapter to plug in one of the DeWalt batteries you already have.

Of course, these batteries weren’t specifically designed for these tools, so there can be some trade-offs. While tool performance has been found to be broadly similar (and some tools even performed better when using batteries from different brands), for some tools (like grinders and some circular saws) there’s a dropoff in power and performance when using an adapter. That said, you might not notice it if you're just looking to tackling simple DIY projects around the house.

Another caveat to consider: You might lose some features. Some tools are designed to communicate with the battery to modulate power draw in order to extend the life of the battery, and using an adapter will remove this functionality. But again, if you’re simply using a power drill for basic maintenance tasks, this might not be a huge issue for you.

Universal adapters are a good solution if you own a bunch of brands

If you’ve got a bunch of disparate tool brands, of course, buying multiple adapters might not seem like much of an improvement over your collection of batteries and chargers. If this is you, consider something like the Ceenr PDNation Universal Battery System, which provides an 18-volt battery and a series of adapters that allow it to be used in a wide range of power tools, including major brands like Ryobi, Milwaukee, and DeWalt.

For example, you can buy a battery with an adapter for DeWalt tools, then buy a second adapter for the same battery that will work with Makita tools. This means you can standardize on one battery system for pretty much any tool you buy (it’s not a truly universal system, since you’re dependent on the range of adapters they offer, but it’s probably close enough for most people).

As with other adapters, there can be some performance loss using a universal adapter, but by and large, it’s probably not a big issue if you’re doing work around the house, as opposed to working professionally on a job site.

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Living in a comfortable, heated house is something a lot of us take for granted. When the cold weather hits, we just put on thick socks, turn up the thermostat (or take other steps), and go about our business. But most modern homes rely on the electrical grid to keep that heat flowing. Even if your home is heated by natural gas or heating oil, there’s most likely an electric component to your heating system.

That means that when the power goes out—say, in the middle of a fierce blizzard—so does your heat. Even recently built homes can lose interior heat pretty quickly, dropping to uncomfortable (and even unsafe) temperatures within a day at most. If you’re not sure when power will be restored, you’ll need to find a way to keep the place as warm as possible if you and your property are going to come out of the experience unscathed. Here are are four ways to keep your house warm if your heat goes out.

Pre-heat your home before a storm

If you have some warning that a power loss is possible during the cold months—a winter storm warning, for example—it’s a good idea to “pre-heat” your home. The warmer your house is when the power goes out, the longer it will remain at a safe and/or comfortable temperature. You don’t necessarily want to make it tropical, but a few degrees higher than usual will buy you some time if the power goes out. Combined with sealing the house as tightly as possible—by hanging thermal curtains or blankets over windows, applying plastic insulation kits to windows, and deploying draft stoppers under doorways and anywhere else cold air is getting in—this strategy can be very effective.

Isolate your family to a single room

Trying to keep a large house warm without an active heating system is a fool’s errand. Instead, focus on a single room where everyone in the house can gather, because a small room is a lot easier to warm up. A few considerations about which room to choose:

• Since heat rises, rooms on upper floors will be warmer than rooms on the main floor.

• A room that gets a lot of sunlight can be warmed during the day by opening up the curtains and letting that solar energy do its thing.

• Smaller rooms will be easier to heat up, but consider how many people will need to live and sleep in there.

• Rooms near bathrooms (or with en-suite baths) offer a bit more convenience, especially if you’re going to be hunkering down for a while.

Once you’ve selected the room you’ll be using, try to keep it closed up as much as possible (covering windows, stopping up drafts, keeping the door closed). Introducing an indoor-safe heater is a good idea if you have one (or you can make one; see below).

If none of the rooms in your house are ideal, you could also consider setting up a tent indoors. Tents are designed to hold in heat, and can create a small, controllable environment that will be easier to keep warm in a pinch.

Make your own DIY heater with candles and clay pots

If you’ve planned ahead and have an indoor-safe propane or kerosene heater (or even a solar-powered portable heater), that will obviously help to keep your home warm (just be certain to follow all the instructions for ventilating whatever space you’re heating up). If you haven’t, or you discover that your propane tanks have leaked and you have no fuel, don’t despair. You can still generate heat by building a candle-pot heater, which is an old-school way of generating some quick heat.

A candle-pot heater is pretty easy to set up: You’ll need 1-3 clay flower pots (or similar ceramic containers) in different sizes, some non-flammable materials to set up on (bricks or stone tiles will work), and some candles. Then arrange everything:

• Set up your bricks or other materials to create a raised platform, with plenty of airflow.

• Place your smallest pot upside down on the bricks and cover the hole in the bottom (if it’s a flowerpot).

• Place the larger pot on top, and then the largest on top of that if you have three pots.

• Place your candles underneath and light them.

The candles don’t produce much heat, but the clay pots will absorb that heat and slowly start to radiate out. Instead of the candles’ heat just rising up to your ceiling and being cooled by the frigid air already in the room, the pots capture it and intensify it.

Will this replace your home’s heating system, or even a portable propane heater? Not by a mile. But it will make a difference, especially in a small space.

A few things to keep in mind here:

• Candles are open flames, so never leave your heater unattended, and always be conscious of fire hazards.

• You can place a foil-covered panel behind the heater to help reflect the heat in a specific direction (say, toward the chair you’re sitting in).

Get a furnace battery backup

If you have a gas furnace, it’s not that hard to keep it running even during a blackout if you have an alternative power source like a generator or even a power bank. The furnace needs electricity to run the ignition, the blower, and communication between the thermostat and the furnace or boiler. A decent generator or robust battery can definitely keep your furnace running for a while—and those extra hours or days could be crucial in an extended cold-weather blackout.

If you can see an obvious on/off switch on your furnace, you can pretty easily install a transfer switch like this one (here’s a video demonstrating how it’s done). This allows you to plug in a generator or power bank and keep your furnace running even when the power’s out—all you have to do is plug it in and flip the switch. If you’re not entirely comfortable with electrical wiring, you can hire a licensed electrician to install it as well, of course. Once it’s done, you’ll never have to worry about a cold house again—as long as you pair the switch with a generator or battery solution of sufficient power to keep things running.

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Winter weather can be miserable, but there is one huge perk: snowball fights. Any time a deep carpet of snow gets dumped on us, you can count on a bunch of kids (or young-at-heart adults) engaging in epic snowball fights, sometimes involving surprisingly well-engineered snow forts and sophisticated tactics.

This is the 21^st century, however—if you’re still fighting your snowball fights with nothing but your bare hands and a sense of determination, you’re missing out. We can’t all be Buddy the Elf, shotgunning perfectly made snowballs like some sort of winter weather Terminator—but we can invest in some of the most fun snowball tech money can buy. If you’re looking to dominate your neighborhood’s winter wars (or put some snowball-tossing whippersnappers in their place), here’s what to buy.

Snowball makers

Your first step is to up your snowball-making game. A cosmetically pleasing, perfectly spherical snowball is your first step toward snowball fight dominance. This set of simple snowball forms will make it easy to stockpile perfect snowballs in just a few minutes. If you don’t have a few minutes because you’re already under attack, you might turn to this 5-in-1 snowball maker that will let you quickly amass some serious firepower.

If you want to get a little more whimsical, you can also pick up snowball-making sets that include other shapes, like ducks or hearts, if that’s your jam.

Snow throwers

Once you have your snowballs assembled, you’ll need something to augment your throwing power. This Snow Trac Ball (or these) can launch snowballs a lot further than you can with just your arm—up to 150 feet away. They also come with built-in snowball makers, so when you run out of your initial supply, you can quickly make and deploy fresh snowballs without missing a beat.

Snowball launchers

Throwing snowballs either bare-knuckled or using an implement is all well and good, but what if your opponents are serious about their snowball fighting? If you need more firepower, this Snowball Blaster is just what you need—load a snowball into the front, pull back the firing mechanism, take aim, and destroy your enemies. Want to keep things a little more primitive? This snowball slingshot keeps it simple—load a snowball, take aim, and launch for victory (this kit even comes with dye to color-code your snowballs in case you’re trying to keep score). Or go medieval on your enemies with this very cool Snow Crossbow, which even comes with a target so you can practice decimating your enemies.

Wham-O Artic Force Snowball Blaster with Detachable Snowball Maker | Comfortable Handle for Accuracy & Control | Easy toAim, Green

$35.00 at Amazon

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Defense

No one wants a snowball to the face, so having a snowball shield on hand can keep you dry and unscathed while you rain snowballs on your opponents. Of course, this doesn’t have to be a snowball-specific shield—just about any plastic shield will help protect you from the snowballs being thrown your way.

Bonus: Indoor

Itching to have a snowball fight, but you live in a warm-weather area that hasn’t seen snow in decades? Or there just hasn’t been enough snowfall? Or it’s summer? Get yourself an indoor snowball fight kit and go to town. While you won’t get the visceral joy of smashing snow into someone’s head from a distance, you can replicate just about everything else that’s fun about snowball fights without the cold, damp, or, you know, snow. Throw in some couch-cushion forts and you have a guaranteed good time.

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If you’ve been doing any kind of work around any kind of house for a while, you probably have a few trusty old-school C-Clamps on hand. The C-Clamp has been in use for thousands of years. It’s one of those dead-simple tools that just works. It’s also one of those tools you tend to collect multiple examples of, in different sizes.

Typically, you use a C-Clamp to, uh, clamp stuff together, like two pieces of wood, or to clamp something into place while you work on it (I use them a lot to cut lumber so I can have both hands on the saw, as I am allergic to emergency rooms.) But the C-Clamp is actually a very versatile tool that can be deployed in a number of creative—but useful!—ways. Here are some of my favorite ways to repurpose those old C-Clamps.

A carrying handle

If you need to carry something that’s bulky, heavy, and awkward, having some temporary handles always makes the job easier. If you have a few C-Clamps, you’re golden: Just clamp a couple onto whatever you’re transporting and you have instant handles to make the haul a little easier. They can also be used as handles for rolled-up materials, like rugs or mats—just thread the roll through a pair of C-Clamps, tighten them closed, and carry on.

A quiet hammer

It’s happened to all of us: You need to drive a nail somewhere, but there’s no room to swing a hammer, or for some reason you’re reluctant to make a lot of banging noise. The solution is your trusty C-Clamp: Just place the clamp over the nail head and tighten. The clamping action will inexorably (and silently) drive that nail into place. This isn’t an efficient way to drive a lot of nails, of course, but in a tight spot, it’s brilliant.

An emergency wrench

Need to tighten or loosen a connector, but you don’t have a wrench at hand? Tighten a C-Lamp around the bolt, cuff, or connection point so that it’s gripping tightly, then slowly turn it in the direction you need. Make sure the clamp is tight enough to prevent slippage, and you might want to use something (a handy piece of cloth works) to protect the connection from damage as you work.

A cord organizer

Whether it’s corralling all those extension and power cords on a workbench or work site, or organizing computer cables on your desk with an industrial vibe, C-Clamps can keep all those wires under control and out of your way in a pinch. Just gather the cords at the edge of the desk or table and clamp them down. This is a perfect temporary solution, as the cords can pass freely through the clamps without risk of damage, and the clamps can be removed when the job is done.

Bookends

Need a couple of bookends to hold stuff in place on a shelf? A pair of C-Clamps attached to the outer edge and clamped in as deep as possible will work. This could even be a permanent design choice if your taste runs toward the rustic or industrial.

Anchors

C-Clamps are ideal devices when anchor points are needed, but you don’t want to attach anything permanent that would require fasteners and drilling into a structure. Need a clothesline to dry your laundry when the dryer breaks? Two C-Clamps and some rope or twine are all you need. Need to hang tools, clothes, or anything else? C-Clamps attached to a shelf of any kind, combined with a hook, will work a charm. Need to hold a tablecloth or other covering in place? Nothing clamps stuff down to a horizontal surface better than C-Clamps.

Spool holder

Whether you’re spooling filament to your 3D-printer or feeding twine or wire to yourself as you work on a project, sliding the spool over a C-Clamp and then clamping it into place gives you a sturdy holder that you can pull from. This means you won’t have to juggle your spool every time you need more slack, and you can easily unclamp and reposition the spool if you’re on the move as you work.

The first supermarket, the Piggly Wiggly in Memphis, opened its doors in 1916. It was the first time people could wander around a store and pick their items from a shelf instead of handing a list to a clerk who would gather everything for them—typically without any choice of brand or style. Grocery shopping remains a daily or weekly ritual for most people, and it can be a real chore—especially if you’re shopping for a large family. My own grocery lists aren’t all that long, but I still find myself juggling my phone and a scrap of paper as I walk around the store, checking for digital coupons and trying to do quick math. So when I read that one of the local grocery stores (a ShopRite) was rolling out Smart Shopping Carts powered by artificial intelligence (AI), I was intrigued.

I’m naturally dubious about a lot of AI tools, but grocery shopping seemed like a place where a little digital help might come in handy. So I headed out to see whether these fancy new carts would offer real benefits or just a lot of targeted advertisements.

What are caper carts?

The carts in question are Caper Carts, which is owned by Instacart. They’re pretty large and tank-like, and kind of heavy to push.

The Caper Carts are pretty big and heavy. Credit: Jeff Somers

You need to have an account with ShopRite in order to use these carts, as they use your phone number to track your purchases; you can choose to store a credit card or other form of payment in there for convenience, but it’s not required. When you walk in the store, the Caper Carts are right there in the entrance area. When you pull one out, the screen lets you enter your phone number, then offers you a (mercifully brief) tutorial.

The welcome screen on the AI shopping cart. Credit: Jeff Somers

The log-in screen Credit: Jeff Somers

The carts have barcode scanners mounted on both sides of the back of the cart, and the cart itself is a scale, which is both how it ensures you’ve scanned everything in the cart and how it calculates the cost of loose produce. If you’ve ever used a self-checkout in a grocery store, it’s kind of similar: You hold items up to the scanners and then drop them into your cart. For produce, you look up what you’re buying and then drop it into the cart, where it’s weighed and added to the total. Along the way, the cart will look for potential coupons or deals you might be interested in. The carts can import your shopping lists from the store’s app, if you want, and will keep track of your loyalty points and rewards as well.

How to use a Caper Cart

The first Caper Cart I selected didn’t work; nothing would scan no matter how I held things up to the scanners. This wasn’t a big deal—I let the store folks know, logged out of the cart, and grabbed another. The second cart worked perfectly.

The Caper Cart screen while shopping Credit: Jeff Somers

These carts are pretty heavy, and the second cart I used had a loose wheel which made it rumble loudly as I walked the aisles—you aren’t going to be racing these carts and jumping on for a quick glide. When I dropped an item in the cart without scanning it, the cart politely showed me a video of me placing the item (creepy) and asked if I wanted to fess up to adding something to the cart. It did, however, give me the option to declare a “personal item,” which is a solid feature.

A video pops up if you try putting an un-scanned item in the cart Credit: Jeff Somers

I forgot to put my shopping bags in the cart, because I am frequently dumb. You’re supposed to bag as you go, which saves you time; I had to bag after checkout, which did not save me time. On the other hand, I don’t always shop in bagging order, so bagging as I go might result in some of my items getting crushed under heavier groceries, or me having to re-arrange everything in the middle of the shopping experience. I kind of like bagging at the end, when I can make decisions about how to arrange everything optimally.

If you change your mind about an item, you just remove it from the cart. The Caper system will notice and remove the item from your bill.

When you’re done, you just tap “Checkout” and head to the Checkout Area.

Checking out with a Caper Cart Credit: Jeff Somers

This will be different depending on the specific store you’re in—some stores don’t have checkout lanes for the Caper Carts, but this ShopRite did. There was only one lane for Caper Carts, and I had to wait behind someone as they checked themselves out. Then I scanned a barcode on my screen with a gun and tapped my card to pay while a security guard loomed nearby, presumably to discourage folks from making a run for it.

Barcode for checking out with a Caper Cart Credit: Jeff Somers

Scanning the checkout barcode on a Caper Cart Credit: Jeff Somers

The pros and cons of AI shopping carts

Overall, the AI shopping cart experience was a slight upgrade from typical grocery shopping. Bagging as you go is convenient, and checkout is a little easier because you scan a single barcode instead of two dozen. I didn’t receive many personalized coupons or recipe suggestions because this was my first time using the system, but I can see how that could become very useful if the cart is able to dig up coupons or offers that I missed.

A few specific notes:

• The cart can accidentally scan a barcode if you get close to a shelf, which can cause confusion, though the cart will quickly delete it if the weight doesn’t change.

• As noted above, the carts are pretty heavy. If you’re going to be buying a lot of groceries all at once, this could become a real workout.

• Adding produce can be a little complicated: You have to locate the “price look up” (PLU) code for the specific produce you’re adding, then scan or type it into the screen before dropping it into the cart. That means sometimes hunting for those little stickers and tapping a bunch of numbers into your cart over and over again.

• Seeing your total spend add up in real time is useful, especially if you’re tracking costs. If an item costs more than expected, you see it immediately, and if the overall cost is more than anticipated you have time to adjust your selections before you hit the checkout.

• Because you have to go through a checkout lane as usual (and there was only one dedicated lane for Caper Carts), during busy times you might wind up waiting a long time to get out of the store, which kind of cancels out the convenience factor. Of course, as more people use these carts, ShopRite might add more dedicated Caper lanes.

Depending on how you shop for groceries, these AI shopping carts might be worth a try—but don’t expect a revolutionary experience.

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There are two universal truths about tools: They’re expensive, and they take up a lot of space. If you’re trying to maintain a home or perform some DIY work in a small space or on a small budget, stacking up all the tools you might need to get the job done can strain your wallet and simultaneously pose a storage challenge.

The solution is actually pretty easy: Buy tools that combine more than one function into a single item. While having the specific tool you need for every job will always be your best choice, if you lack space and/or cash, combination tools like these give you all the capability you need without eating up all your storage space—or draining your bank account.

The universal wrench is a great multi-purpose tool

Having a wide range of wrenches on hand means you can tackle any job—but it also means you’ve got to figure out how to store those wrenches so they don’t take over your life. Enter the universal wrench, which can be every wrench and ratchet you need. It will fit spline bolts, six- and 12-point bolts, torx, and square bolts. It also handles damaged bolts and all standard sizes.

Hamind Universal Wrench 52 in 1 Socket Wrench Multifunction Wrenches Tool with 360° Rotating Head, Spanner Tool for Home and Bicycle Car Repair

$13.69 at Amazon

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This multipurpose screwdriver combines 17 tools into one

You might already have a multitool, but that’s nothing compared to this useful combination tool. This combines 17 standard tools into one hand-sized unit, including a screwdriver, tape measure, level, flashlight, and hammer. You’re not going to be doing major renovation projects with this, but if you need a complete toolbox for everyday DIY and have no space or budget for real tools, this will get just about every job done.

This five-in-one drill packs a lot of power into a small unit

This five-in-one drill from Dewalt is a terrific combination tool for two reasons: It’s multifunctional, and it combines a small size with a lot of power so it can be used in just about any situation. It comes with four attachments: an offset adapter, a quick-release bit holder, right-angle adapter, and a ratcheting chuck. You can bore holes and drive fasteners while easily changing the angle and position of your bit—the right-angle and offset attachments plus its small size means you don’t need any other drill to get your jobs done.

This hammer is also a prybar (and more)

Two of the most useful items in a tool box are a hammer and a prybar. If you’re looking to save some space, combining the two is a great solution. The Vaughan Rage model also works as a sledgehammer/demolition tool, and offers a nail-puller as well as the prybar function, making it incredibly useful for such a small and affordable tool.

Vaughan 15 Inch Multi-Function Demolition Tool With Pry Bar and Hammer

$25.38 at Amazon

$34.99 Save $9.61

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This eight-in-one hand saw has swappable blades

Having the right saw for the job is essential—trying to use a wood saw when a hacksaw would be a better choice is never going to work. This eight-in-one hand saw offers swappable blades for wood, drywall, metal, and plastic, allowing you to cut a wide range of materials without having to collect and swap out multiple saws. It also features a quick-change mechanism, so if you’re working with multiple materials, you can quickly switch between them.

This adjustable wrench is much more

If you’re going to fix things, you’ll need a wrench, a pair of pliers, and a screwdriver—and this tool combines them all, as well as a wire cutter and a knife. The adjustable wrench will fit most standard bolts, and it also provides multiple screwdriver bits so you’re not stuck with just the standard Phillips head. Instead of four or five tools taking up space, this one small piece will do it all for you.

This 10-in-one painter’s tool fits in your back pocket

You don’t have to be a professional painter to use this nifty 10-in-one tool to make your painting projects easier and your toolbox a bit lighter. This thing is a paint, caulk, and adhesive scraper, can (and bottle) opener, roller cleaner, spot hammer—it can even drive a flathead screw in a pinch if you need it to. In other words, instead of carrying a bunch of tools to deal with the usual irritations and challenges of painting a wall, you can slip this into your back pocket and get to work.

Premium Multi-Utility Tools 10-in-1 Folding Prep Tool

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America is a car-centric culture—more than 90% of U.S. households have at least one vehicle. There are a lot of different kinds of cars, from old classics being maintained with love, to snazzy new electric rides, or luxury cruisers filled with cutting-edge tech. Whichever kind you drive, getting the most out of your vehicle demands regular maintenance and sensible driving practices, but you can also goose just a bit more out of any vehicle with these universal car hacks.

Throw some anti-seize lubricant in your trunk

If you’ve been driving for a while, you know that flat tires only come at the worst possible times. Sunny days when you have plenty of time? Those tires are infallible. Whiteout conditions and you’re racing to a job interview? Guaranteed flat—and you will discover that your lug nuts have fused and become absolutely impossible to shift.

One way to prevent this is the judicious use of a little anti-seize lubricant, which is designed to prevent rust and other corrosion. Mechanics argue about this, to be fair—some professionals believe that using anti-seize on lug nuts changes the required torque, which can loosen them over time. But plenty of folks have used a small amount of anti-seize lubricant to make changing or rotating tires a lot easier without any adverse effects. The key is to use a very small amount—just enough to protect the threads.

Add silicone lubricant to your door gaskets

The seals around your car’s doors help to insulate the interior. Over time, these seals can become stiff and begin to fall apart, which makes your vehicle unattractive and less comfortable to ride in. You can prevent this with a simple hack: Grab some silicon lubricant and apply thin layer onto the rubber gaskets around your doors, trunk, and windows. It’ll save you a bit of frustrating maintenance in the future—and can prevent doors from freezing closed in winter. (An oft-repeated version of this hack is to use petroleum jelly, which is OK in a pinch, but it can cause rubber to degrade over time, which silicone lubricants won't.)

Track your tire tread wear with a quarter

Tire tread is essential for the safe and efficient operation of your car. Bald tires not only make it more likely you’ll hydroplane or otherwise lose control of the vehicle, they also make your car burn more fuel to overcome their rolling resistance, lowering your vehicle’s fuel efficiency.

Tire tread is measured in 32nds of an inch—new tires typically have a tread depth of 10/32” or 11/32”, and you should replace your tires when the tread is eroded to about 4/32” or less. You can track this easily with a quarter—find the most worn-down spot on your tire, slide an upside-down quarter into the tread. If you can see the top of Washington’s head, you should replace the tire. You can also use a penny to see if you can still see the top of Lincoln’s head, but this measures 2/32” of tire tread, which means you should replace the tire immediately. The quarter test warns you to replace your tire before it’s a dangerous situation.

Prevent small window cracks from spreading with nail polish

A cracked windshield is ugly, and even a tiny crack will probably spread, slowly but inexorably, until you have no choice but to replace the glass entirely. If you have a noticeable crack in your windshield, you should replace it—but if that’s not possible right away, there’s a short-term hack you can use: Nail polish.

This isn’t a permanent repair, but it will buy you some time by slowing down the crack’s spread. Clean the damaged area thoroughly, then coat the exterior and interior of the cracked area with clear nail polish. Let it dry, and go about your business. You'll still eventually need to replace the windshield (or have a more permanent repair job done to it), but this hack will let you plan for the work instead of having to deal with it as an emergency.

Stop stuff from falling between the seats with pipe insulation

Have you ever lost your keys, phone, or anything else between the seats in your car? If so, you know it’s like Mission: Impossible to reclaim your property. Those spaces were just not designed for human beings to get into.

An easy hack to prevent the situation from happening in the first place is to close off those gaps (this also prevents crumbs and other dirt from filling those spaces). Pipe insulation is the perfect material for this: Cut a piece to length and jam it between the seats (or the seats and the console), and never lose anything ever again. In a pinch, the ever-useful pool noodle could be used as well. Alternatively, you can buy storage organizers designed to fit in those gaps, which solve the problem while giving you some extra space for stuff.

Use a plunger to fix minor dents

A dent in your car is annoying—and potentially expensive to fix. For minor cosmetic dents, you don’t need any special tools or professional help. All you need is a heat source and a common bathroom plunger.

For the heat source, you can boil some water, pour it over the dent, then use the plunger to pull the dent out. You can also use a heat gun or a hair dryer, though the water might help the plunger get a nice seal on the car body.

Put socks on your wiper blades

Nothing’s more fun than fighting your way through frigid cold to your car, only to discover that the wiper blades have frozen to your windshield. Sure, your car will eventually heat up enough to free the wipers, but if you’d prefer not to have to wait for that miracle to happen, keep an old pair of tube socks in the glove compartment. On cold nights when frozen wipers are a good probability, cover your wiper blades with the socks. This will protect them from damage as well as prevent them from freezing onto your windshield.

Try to always turn right to save money on gas

This is one of those amazing tricks that people have difficulty believing, but it actually works: To save money on gas, always make right turns unless a left turn is absolutely necessary—yes, even if that makes your trip longer.

UPS put this policy into its vehicle routing software, instructing their drivers to avoid left turns as much as algorithmically possible, and it claims to use about 10 million fewer gallons of gas every year as a result. In fact, our greatest repository of scientific knowledge, Mythbusters, once did a segment proving that they used about 3% less fuel by avoiding as many left turns as possible while driving a fake delivery truck.

Note, this doesn’t mean never making a left turn. It means prioritizing right turns when planning your route, even if it makes your trip longer. Whether the extra time involved is worth saving a little gas money is a whole other decision.

Use hand sanitizer on frozen locks

Another annoyance on cold winter mornings? Frozen car locks and doors. While most newer cars have keyless entry these days, you can still find yourself dealing with a frozen door, and if your battery has died due to the cold, you might need to use a physical key to gain entry to the car. When that happens, a simple hack is to whip out the hand sanitizer you probably have in your coat pocket. Squirt some into the lock (or coat your physical key before you insert it) or around the edge of the door. After a few seconds, the alcohol in the sanitizer will have melted the ice and you’ll be able to easily open everything up.

Get a glovebox organizer to maximize your storage space

No one has used a car’s glovebox to store gloves in a long time. What most of us do is jam things in there on the theory that we might need them someday, then forget what’s in there and go a decade or two without actually opening it.

Instead, hack that space with an organizer. You can find some molded plastic organizers designed to fit specific models (like this one for a Toyota Tacoma, or this one for Tesla Model 3s), or you can find wallet-style organizers that will keep your documentation and other items neatly stored, making the glove box actually useful for a change.

Remodeling your house can be an exciting experience. It can also be an expensive one, which is why a lot of homeowners opt to go the DIY route. But any DIY remodel can also be daunting, even if you’re relatively comfortable with home maintenance and repair tasks.

Whether you’re contemplating a DIY remodel for the cost savings or because it’s a fun challenge, there are a lot of online tools that can make the planning and execution of your project a lot easier. The 10 apps below can help you find inspiration, identify furniture and other items that will support your vision, and even show you how to tackle the entire project, step-by-step.

Best apps for DIY inspiration

Every home remodel starts with a need for change: you're bored with your current look or you feel a sense of dissatisfaction with the flow or functionality of your house. But that feeling that something isn't quite right doesn’t mean you immediately know what you want. These apps can help you get inspired:

• Houzz. One of the most popular interior design tools out there, and for good reason: With the Houzz app, you can see nearly infinite examples of interior design that you can leverage for inspiration. You can search by paint color, design aesthetic, or other details to see what other folks have done so you can steal their ideas and make them your own.

• LIKEtoKNOW.it. Instagram can be a treasure trove of design ideas, but folks don’t always think to tag every stick of furniture or lamp in the photo for your shopping convenience. This app takes screenshots of Insta posts or other sources and searches for the product, serving up links to stores where you can buy it.

• RoomStyler. This website offers a 3D plan creator and a moodboard tool, but it’s best used for inspiration. You can easily browse through designs created by people all over the world, and connect with other people who are also planning remodels so you can trade ideas and tips.

• Morpholio Board (iOS) / MoodBoard Maker (Android). If you’re the sort who likes to make a mood board when tackling a visual project like a home remodel, these tools are perfect. Collect product images, color swatches, and other visuals from just about any online source with the flick of a finger.

Best apps for DIY planning

Once you have a project in mind, it's time to make it more concrete. These apps can help you plan out your project:

• CubiCasa. If you want to know whether your dream furniture will fit in a space, or you need to calculate how much flooring or cabinetry you’ll need for a kitchen remodel, CubiCasa makes creating an accurate floor plan of your house a snap. Just scan your rooms with your phone, and in a day or so you’ll get a clean floor plan with dimensions that you can use for planning.

• Pantone Connect (iOS / Android). It’s not free, but the myPANTONE app leverages the color-matching power of the Pantone folks to help you come up with pleasing, professionally-blessed color schemes for your home. It can even match a color in a photo and deliver a color palette for you.

• Paint My Room (iOS / Android). If you want to take a bit more of a DIY approach to choosing paint colors, this nifty app lets you apply a color to the walls of your room so you can see what it will look like before committing.

• HomeByMe. This is an incredibly useful app that lets you create 2D floorplans that you can easily convert into 3D floorplans. Then you can populate those floor plans with real, actual products to see what it will all look like.

• HomeZada. HomeZada is a platform that makes it easy to manage all aspects of running your home, from maintenance schedules to budgets. But it can be used more narrowly to manage a renovation or remodeling project, tracking materials, costs, and timelines in one handy place. If the sprawl of a remodel intimidates you (or you’re just the type to forget how much tile needs to be ordered the moment you’re standing in the store), this app can help keep everything managed.

The best step-by-step app for DIY projects

Finally, it's time to get the thing done. But how?

• wikiHow (iOS / Android). If you’re not sure you have the skills and experience needed to tackle your DIY project, this classic online resource can show you how to do just about any task, complete with photos and videos to guide you. Using the app is a lot more streamlined and organized than sifting through 1,000 YouTube videos.

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Outfitting that garage with the right gear is the difference between a useful and organized space and a chaotic black hole of junk. If you want your garage to be a place where you can get work done, where you can actually find stuff, and maybe also where you can park your car, here’s what you should have, ranging from the must-have essentials to some luxuries you could stretch for.

What every garage needs

If you want to get the most of any garage, here’s the short list of essentials:

• Overhead storage. An empty garage might seem like endless storage, but it fills up fast. If you don’t want to navigate a maze of junk every time you go in there, some overhead storage shelving is a must.

• Wall storage. For more readily accessible storage, some bike hooks and wall hooks for yard tools (like rakes and shovels) will keep those things easy to grab but off the floor.

• Absorbent mats. Your car will leak oil and other fluids, and the garage is where you do a lot of messy jobs. A large-format absorbent mat will save you a lot of cleanup.

• Fire safety. Every space in your home should have a fire extinguisher within easy reach, and your garage is no exception. You might also consider keeping some fire blankets, which are often more effective for small, contained fires.

• Sports caddy. If you’ve got a collection of balls for every possible sport, plus other implements, having a place to dump them all so they don’t roll around is a must.

• Tool storage. Whether you go with a classic tool box or a set of magnetic strips on the walls, don’t let your expensive, delicate tools get dirty, damp, and lost.

• Workbench. Even if you’re not a hobbyist or much of a DIYer, having a workbench in the garage is a good idea. If space is an issue, a wall-mounted folding one like this is an ideal solution.

• Creeper seat. Similarly, you don’t have to be a total gearhead to appreciate a creeper seat. Working in the garage often means working down low to the floor, so unless you enjoy sitting on he cold, greasy floor for a few hours, a creeper seat is a necessity.

What would be nice to have if you own a garage

You can always find an upgrade for any space, and your garage is no exception. Some useful-but-not-essential upgrades include:

• Rubber door bottom. Your garage door probably isn’t a very good seal. When the weather’s hot or cold, that can make the space uncomfortable. A simple adhesive rubber door bottom provides a nice seal to make the space a little nicer to be in.

• Climate control. You don’t necessarily have to install central air or a mini-split in your garage. There are plenty of portable heating and cooling solutions that will keep you comfy while you work without breaking the bank.

• Tire rack: If you have a growing collection of spare tires, or you’re rotating between all-weather and winter tires regularly, having a stable storage shelf for them is a lot better than stacking them up or having them rolling around.

• Stopper mats: It’s a universal frustration: trying not to ram into the wall or crush a bunch of stuff every time you pull your car into the garage. If you don’t want a tennis ball hanging from a string, some simple mats like these will let you know when to hit the brakes.

• Tile flooring: Even if you have a nice floor in your garage—maybe especially if you have a nice floor in there—a protective tile floor is a good idea. It’ll keep everything pristine and protected from damage (from dropped tools, for example).

Best garage upgrades

Want your garage to be even nicer? No problem—here are some very useful add-ons that fall into the “luxury” category for most garages:

• Speakers. These days, you don’t need a whole entertainment system in your garage—your phone and a Bluetooth speaker will do. But the speaker needs to be waterproof and designed for work spaces if you want it to survive.

• Fridge. If you’re still nipping into the kitchen for a fresh beverage while you’re working in the garage, it’s time to upgrade to a garage-specific fridge.

• Retractable extension cords. Necessary? Not really, but very useful: A retractable extension cord keeps wires out of the way when you’re not using them and prevents them from knotting up in maddening ways. Extra bonus: Have an outlet installed in the ceiling of the garage and mount the extension cord up there, too, so you just pull it down when you need it.

• Utility sink. Having a place to wash up and clean dirty tools in the garage is a godsend. If the garage isn’t plumbed and you don’t want to sink that kind of cash into it, an outdoor sink hooked up to a garden hose will do the trick.

• Hoist. Suckers get on ladders and lift with their muscles. Smart folks install an overhead hoist that can lift cargo boxes or other heavy things out of the way with ease.

• Garage door screen. It’s nice to open the garage door while you’re working in the warm weather—unless it invites every bug in the universe to assault you. A nice garage door screen lets you enjoy the breeze without the bugs.

• Laser guides. If a rubber mat or a tennis ball on a string isn’t high-tech enough for your parking needs, why not install a laser-guided system? You’ll never scrape a door or crush a garbage can again.

• Paper towel dispenser. Necessary? Maybe not, but being able to grab a paper towel hands-free as needed just makes garage life easier.

• Wall-mounted inflator. If you’ve got cars and bikes in your garage, installing a wall-mounted inflator will make keeping tires properly inflated and maintained a breeze.

• Seating area. And if you’ve got a large garage—or no car—why not create a comfortable place to sit and relax in-between projects? Some durable outdoor furniture and an outdoor rug are all you need.

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Recently, a few spots on the hardwood floors in my house have become mysteriously slippery—so slippery that they're kind of dangerous. I really feel like my feet might go out from under me when I walk there, and there were a few close calls before I started avoiding them (or at least bracing myself to walk over them more carefully).

This is no way to live, so I started looking into solutions, starting with the root cause.

Why your wood floors are suddenly slippery

Turns out it’s not uncommon for hardwood floors to become spontaneously slippery, and it can happen for a variety of reasons.

• Wax or polish: If you apply any kind of coating to give your floor extra shine, it can build up over time and turn the floor into an ice rink.

• Oil and silicone cleaning products: Some cleaning products that promise a shiny finish contain silicone or oil, which can also build up and turn your floors into a slip-n-slide.

• Dirt and humidity: Dirt, even the stuff you can’t see, can act as a dry lubricant, and high humidity can result in a moisture slick on the surface of the floors.

• Time: Finally, over time, all those feet walking over the floor can polish the finish, removing the microscopic imperfections that previously gave it some grip.

I don’t polish or wax my floors or use oil- or silicone-based cleaners, and I clean pretty regularly, so I discounted the first few causes and assumed that we’ve just polished the seal on our floors with regular foot traffic. This can happen to any sealed wood floor, but there are some pretty straightforward ways to deal with it.

Start with a thorough cleaning

The first step I took was a thorough cleaning. I clean my floors regularly, but it’s always possible that something spilled without being noticed—the spots where the slipperiness occurred are in the path from the kitchen to the dining room, and from my tool closet to everywhere else in the house. Cooking oils, WD40—there are a lot of things that could have dripped without being noticed. If you’re not sure about substance buildup on a slippery floor, a thorough cleaning might be the easy solution.

Always use a pH-neutral cleaner designed specifically for wood floors—and never use vinegar, even heavily diluted in water. Vinegar can eat away at the finish of your floor; while it might help with the slipperiness, it can also do some permanent damage. I used Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner and cleaned the areas a few times, but my floors remained slippery.

Add some rugs

A simple solution, especially if you’re dealing with one or two isolated slippery spots, is to just throw down a rug or a runner with a non-slip backing. Your floors will still be slippery, but won’t pose any threat. If the slippery area is quite large (or encompasses your entire floor), this might not work because the rugs might just slide around with nothing to grip onto. But for a small slippery area, it might be a quick, easy solution.

Apply a temporary (or permanent) treatment

If cleaning and covering up your slippery floors won’t work, there are some more involved solutions to try:

• Anti-slip sprays. There are a variety of temporary anti-slip coating sprays you can apply to your floors, like Rustoleum AntiSlip or Slip Doctors Safety Spray. Although the Rustoleum spray is okay for indoor use and wood, it doesn’t specify hardwood floors, and in a quick test it looked slightly cloudy on a remnant plank I had lying around. The Safety Spray, on the other hand, dried very clear, and reduced the slip factor significantly, so I’d recommend it. It does change the sheen of the floor slightly (noticeable in the right light), but it’s also temporary and will need to be re-applied every year or so.

• Slip NoMor. This stuff is actually designed for stages and dance floors, but you can use it on any wood floor. I didn’t test this, but the procedure is pretty straightforward: Clean thoroughly first, and dilute it with one part Slip NoMor and 20 parts water. Then mop it on and let dry. The coating will only last a week or so (and you can remove it with hot water at any time), so it’s not a permanent solution unless you’re okay with re-applying every week or so.

• Coatings. A longer-lasting and more involved solution is to coat your floors with a clear anti-slip product like Floor Grip, Bona Anti-Slip, or Loba 2K Invisible. These are essentially new finish seals on your floors, and all require you to sand the floor before application and allow them to cure for several days. It’s a DIY solution if you’re comfortable doing the prep work, but it’s not a quick fix.

• Paint. If your wood floors are in good condition, this might not be a great idea—but if your floors are a bit worn down, painting them with an anti-slip additive can be a cheap, easy way to eliminate the problem.

As a last resort, refinish

If cleaning and temporary sprays don’t work and you’re considering a coating to fix your slippery floor, you might think about going all-in and having your floors professionally refinished with an anti-slip finish. This will ensure a consistent finish and refresh your floors in the process. It’s the most expensive and disruptive solution, but also the most permanent. Most professional refinishers can suggest an appropriate seal for your floors that will increase traction.

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We travel for a wide variety of reasons—vacations, business, family obligations—and in a variety of different ways, but there’s one constant: The actual traveling can be hectic, stressful, and expensive. Considering Americans took nearly 2 billion trips in 2025 alone, that stress can be pretty epic. From planning to de-boarding, travel can be a challenge—that is, unless you know and utilize these hacks.

There are a lot of travel hacks out there in the wild, many of them dubious, but when a hack actually works to lower your costs, increase your comfort, or simply solve an irritating problem, it’s kind of magical. Here are the essential travel hacks everyone should be implementing, whether you’re traveling for pleasure, business, or any other reason.

Get a vacuum-seal travel backpack

You may have been instructed at some point to roll your clothes to make your packing more efficient. It’s not that this doesn’t work—rolling clothes tightly can improve your packing and unpacking experience. But there’s an even better way: Vacuum-sealing. You can use vacuum-sealed storage bags to compress your clothes, allowing you to fit more into your bag (or to travel much lighter with a single carry-on), but there’s a downside: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) may require you to uncompress your clothes for a special check as you pass through security, which can wreak havoc on your packing.

A better choice is a carry-on backpack with an included pump, like this. If you are flagged for a special inspection, you can quickly re-compress everything and be on your way.

Travel during off-peak times

If your main goal for travel is to see exotic places, have new experiences, or even see old friends, traveling off-peak is a powerful hack. Off-peak simply means going places when most tourists aren’t there. Most people travel for pleasure during the warmer months, for example, so deciding you’re going on a European tour in February nets you cheaper flights, cheaper hotel rooms, and less crowded everything.

Start using packing cubes

Raise your hand if this has ever happened to you: You realize you need something from a piece of luggage you spent six hours carefully organizing, compressing, and zipping closed. You dig through everything to find what you need, and then re-packing that bag is a sweaty, stressful fail. That’s where packing cubes come in.

Packing cubes don’t necessarily shrink your clothes and other possessions, but they make the whole experience of packing, unpacking, and actually finding stuff while you’re traveling much easier. They turn your chaotic piles of clothing and supplies into geometric cubes that can be organized individually and removed and replaced in your luggage easily. Because you’re dealing with uniform cubes, popping stuff in and out of your suitcase won’t result in a nervous breakdown, either.

Stash clothing in carry-on pillows

It’s truly a time to be alive: You can now purchase so-called “basic” economy airline seats that don’t allow a carry-on. And carry-on fees and restrictions are increasing as well. If you’re attempting to travel with just one small bag, you may find it a struggle—and that’s where the pillow hack comes into play. The basic idea is simple: Grab a neck pillow or pillowcase, remove the stuffing, and jam in some extra clothes instead. The pillow can still be used as a pillow (your clothes act as the cushion), but you get to smuggle extra stuff on the plane. It does work, though it works best with the neck pillow option—bringing an enormous pillowcase filled with jeans and T-shirts is going to be less successful fooling unamused flight crews.

Mount your phone horizontally

Entertaining yourself on long flights can be a challenge, especially if your whole survival plan involved sleeping for ten hours and you can’t seem to get comfortable. If your plane doesn’t offer convenient screens (I’m very fond of the “tiny screen up in the air four rows ahead of me” arrangement, myself), or the entertainment choices available aren’t appealing, you can always load up a device with movies, shows, and games.

If you find yourself stuck with just your phone for a screen, you can improv a phone holder from the barf bag typically supplied in the pocket of the seat in front of you, as demonstrated here. By clipping the bag between your phone and its case, then clipping the top of the bag under the fold-down tray, you can mount your phone horizontally at the right height for watching content. This could be a real sanity-saver (assuming you don't need to use that bag for, well, other purposes).

Pay for everyday expenses with a travel credit card

You’re spending money practically every day anyway—but by putting all those expenses on a credit card that awards you miles or points toward travel (and then paying that card off in full every month) you’re essentially getting free travel coupons. You’re going to buy groceries anyway, so why not get a hundred miles every time you do? Many travel credit cards offer large sign-up bonuses of anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 points (or more) once you spend a certain amount on the account, so by paying your everyday bills for a few months using the card you can fund an entire trip for free.

Reverse-image-search your Airbnb before you book

Booking a place to stay on your trip can be a hassle, and you have to wonder if you’re getting the best deal. An Airbnb might look ideal but put a big dent in your budget—but it may be listed elsewhere, and possibly for less money. You can find out using Google’s “reverse image lookup.” Pick a photo from the Airbnb listing, search for the image on Google, and other rental platforms will probably show up—or a link to a hotel’s direct web page. If nothing else, the image search might identify the apartment building or hotel depicted, which can give you a leg up on the pricing. There are also tools like HiChee that will compare listings across several platforms for you, but where’s the fun in that?

Use a pants hanger to clip your curtains closed

You drag yourself, exhausted, into a hotel room at night and don’t notice that the curtains on the windows are hanging loose. You collapse into bed, and then you’re awakened at 6 a.m. by a vengeful sun, shining through the gaps in those curtains. This hack is so simple, but it can make a big difference in your sleep quality: Take a pants hanger from your hotel closet (the ones with the metal clips) and clip your room’s curtain shut. When the morning sunlight tries to infiltrate your room and wake you up first thing in the morning, the clips will keep it out.

Store one shoe in the hotel safe

If you use the safe supplied in your hotel room to store some valuables or your essential travel documents, the worst thing you can do is forget them when you check out. A quick hack to ensure that doesn’t happen is to put something you can’t possibly forget in there as well. Some folks suggest a shoe, figuring that when you’re getting dressed for the next leg of your journey, you’ll definitely notice if one shoe is missing. But this will work with anything, as long as you choose something you can’t possibly leave without.

Download offline maps before you leave

We once lived in a world where finding your way around a new area meant paper maps and confusing directions from friends that referenced a lot of fast food restaurants as landmarks. These days, we have access to military-grade GPS systems, and a pleasant computer voice will tell us to turn right in one hundred feet. That’s amazing when you’re traveling in an unfamiliar place—until you lose your internet connection.

A great hack is to download offline maps of your destinations before you leave on your trip. You can do this with Google Maps or using an app like HERE WeGo. This requires some planning, as you have to download the maps while you have a signal, but once you have them downloaded you can use them more or less as you normally would, getting directions and seeing distances clearly. Take a moment to do this before every trip, and you’ll never be lost again.

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More than 37 million Americans moved last year—and while that’s actually a historic low, one thing that hasn’t changed is the levels of hair-tearing stress the experience can inspire. Everything about moving, from packing to hiring movers to switching utilities, comes with a little spice of stress and anxiety. Even the most competent and careful planning can leave you with an ulcer and an incipient nervous breakdown as you try to pack your entire life into a truck and transport it to another location.

There are lots of little ways to reduce that stress and make moving a little easier. These hacks can help anyone, no matter how far you’re moving or what your housing situation might be, because they each reduce the friction a tiny bit without much effort. Whether the big day is tomorrow or next month, take a moment and employ a few of these moving hacks to make the day a little less nightmarish.

Get free boxes

Buying moving boxes can be pricey—U-Haul sells kits that range from about $150 to $460, depending on the size of your household, for example. That’s not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but after paying for everything else associated with a new home, saving a few hundred bucks is a worthy hack.

Luckily, there are several ways to get your mitts on some free boxes, from companies like U-Haul that connect its customers to platforms like Freecycle where people often post used boxes for free pickup. And there’s always the old standby of contacting local grocery stores and the like to see if you can dumpster dive for some old boxes. If you start collecting boxes early enough, you can save yourself stress and money.

Size your boxes

When collecting or buying moving boxes, most of us just grab what’s available and wind up with a Tetris-like assortment of sizes and shapes. If at all possible, make all of your moving boxes the same size. This will make packing them into a truck or van a lot easier and more efficient, and make stacking them onto a handtruck or cart a lot faster and more stable. There will be obvious exceptions to this rule of thumb—garment boxes, television boxes, etc.—but the more you can make your boxes uniform, the faster things will go.

Stretch wrap

Moving stuff like desks or dressers often means playing whack-a-mole with drawers and doors that keep popping open, or having to make multiple trips because nothing fits together snugly.

The answer is stretch wrap. You’ve seen professional movers use this stuff, but you can easily buy your own. And you should—it makes combining oddly-shaped things into one unit easy, it can be used to ensure drawers and doors stay closed, and protects your stuff from incidental damage caused by your enthusiastic but careless friends who are just in it for the free pizza.

Vacuum bags

Sometimes moving can feel positively Kafka-esque in its suffering. For example: You put in some effort to score a bunch of boxes only to discover that each box fits approximately one fluffy sweater. Sure, that’s an easy carry, but now you have to go find 100 more boxes—or start thrusting your clothes into garbage bags.

Or, get yourself some vacuum storage bags. The same physics that allows you to store an entire winter wardrobe in the space under your bed will make your move a lot more efficient, shrinking down those bulky items to a more manageable size. Once shrunk, you can then roll or fold the bags to fit efficiently into boxes. Bonus: The plastic bags will also protect your clothes during the move, ensuring they don’t arrive stained, dusty, or torn.

Rubber band doors

It’s a ritual of moving: Propping the door. You’re up and down, in and out, and the front door keeps swinging shut and latching, forcing you to constantly fish out your keys or fobs to open it up.

There’s an easy hack for this, though: Take some (relatively large) rubber bands (you might need more than one), loop them over both knobs, and lay it against the latch so it’s pushed in. Now the door won’t latch, so you can just push or pull it open as needed.

Have a "go bag"

Sometimes, when packing up stuff for a move, you can fall into a bit of a trance and become a packing machine, just madly shoving everything into boxes and bags. And then you arrive at your new home and you can’t brush your teeth, find the bandages, or find utensils to eat your victory Doordash.

A great hack is to set up a “go bag” with all the essentials you might need. Treat it like staying one night in a hotel and bring everything you need to be comfortable, like hygiene products, toilet paper, basic utensils, and cleaning products. Throw in anything you might need: dry socks, fresh underwear, pet food, baby supplies, a first aid kit. This way, when you’re exhausted from the move, you won’t have to search through a pile of boxes looking for your toothbrush.

Hangers and trash bags

Transporting your finery safely can be challenging, especially if you’re moving yourself. Wardrobe boxes can help protect your clothes during the move, but they’re also bulky and cost money, and you have to take the time to drag your clothes out of the closet and transfer them to the box.

There’s a hackier way: Separate your clothes into groups, then slide a trash bag up from the bottom to envelope the whole group of clothes and secure the plastic ties around the tops of the hangers. In a few minutes your whole closet is wrapped up and ready to go. You can combine this with a wardrobe box if you have one, but if not, your clothes are protected and your closet is instantly organized and ready to be emptied out.

Keep track of the contents of your boxes

Moving houses can descend into chaos so quickly we often make our future selves miserable. What starts off as a relatively organized effort becomes a mad dash to cram stuff into boxes and finish the project, which means future you is stuck with a load of boxes filled with random stuff, and there will always be at least one treasured item that just seems to have dropped through a portal into another dimension.

You can prevent this with a simple hack: Mark each box with a number and take a photo of the contents of every box before you tape it shut and stuff it into the van. Sure, you could be more meticulous and have a spreadsheet, color-coded system of stickers, or other more robust way of tracking each box’s contents, but the photo method blends well with the barely-held-together chaos of many house moves. Later, when you’re searching for something, a quick scan of your photos will tell you precisely which box you put it inside.

Take pics of wire hookups

It’s amazing how wires proliferate as if they’re an alien species infiltrating our world. Everything seems neat and tidy in your house, and then comes moving day and you realize that each television, desktop computer, and device has at least one—and sometimes several—cords associated with it. Keeping them all straight when moving to a new place can be a real pain. While cords like HDMI cables are usually interchangeable between devices, that won’t be the case if your laptop uses a USB-C-to-HDMI cable, and sometimes your cables are ideally sized—a short HDMI cable between a Roku and your TV, for example, won’t hang down and be an eyesore.

To ensure you put everything back the way it should be without tearing your hair out, take photos of the back of your devices before you disassemble them for transport. Being able to see exactly where every cord goes and how it was set up will save you a lot of time and trouble on the back end of your move.

Clean while you pack

Cleaning is a huge part of moving. If you’re renting, it’s a vital aspect of your plan to get your security deposit back. If you’ve sold a place, it’s just the right thing to do (and might even be stipulated in your sale contract).

A simple but powerful hack: Don’t wait until you’ve moved everything out to clean. While it might seem like a completely empty house would be ideal for cleaning, it’s also kind of overwhelming. An empty room is just as easy to clean, and tackling each space as you clear it out instead of leaving it all to the end will make cleaning seem like less of a chore. Plus, alternating between packing and cleaning will actually make both go a little more smoothly, because at least there will be some variation.

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Gift shopping for the DIYer in your life can be a challenge. Tools are the obvious choice, but truly handy folks probably already have most, if not all, of the tools they need (in addition to a long list of tools they only needed once but still hang onto). And even if they do need a specific tool, your chances of picking out the precise make and model they want are pretty slim.

But no matter what level of DIYer you're shopping for, they likely need other stuff besides tools, from safety gear (which too many DIYers neglect), to cold-weather accessories, to the little extras that can make around-the-house projects a little easier, and maybe even more fun.

Protective gear is a great option for DIY gifts

Safety is paramount—it’s terrifyingly easy to injure yourself while working with any kind of tool. Just as important is the “wear and tear” your body goes through while working with loud power tools and while contorting your body in ways nature never intended. A few safety and comfort essentials for the DIYer in your life include:

• Work boots: Cold, wet feet make any job more miserable than it has to be, and if your DIY friend hasn’t dropped a hammer on their foot yet, don’t worry, they will. A pair of waterproof, toe-protecting work boots is a great gift.

• Cut-resistant gloves: Working with power saws or hand saws means risking a nasty cut. Cut-resistant gloves protect those hands from all kinds of nicks and scrapes—and worse.

• Safety glasses: The number of DIYers who think they don’t have to worry about eye injuries is, frankly, stunning. Do your handy loved one a favor and give them some protective eyewear.

• Knee pads: I once spent a few days bent over in my crawl space, working, and my knees took a real beating. Knee pads may not be sexy, but they will be appreciated.

• Hearing protection: Working with power tools can be hard on the ears. A pair of noise-canceling, rechargeable headphones that play music and allow hands-free operation of your phone while preventing hearing damage are a must-have.

Cold-weather work gear is a practical gift option

When I first started my DIY journey, my solution for working outside in the cold was to put on multiple layers of my regular clothes, which limited my mobility and made me sweat up a storm. A better idea? Some work gear designed for the cold weather:

• Thermal gloves will keep hands from going numb while still offering protection.

• Base layers: The key to staying warm without getting chilled by your own sweat while working outside lies in having the right base layers—tops and bottoms.

• Headgear: Keeping the head and neck warm while working outside is the key to keeping your whole body warm, because so much heat is lost through the head. A combination hat, scarf, and headlamp solves the problem.

Stocking stuffers for DIYers

Some gifts for the DIYer are just about making every job a little easier or a little more fun.

• Tool belts and work aprons: I went an embarrassingly long time carrying my tools around in my pockets or in awkward bundles. A tool belt gives you a perfect hands-free way to transport your gear, and a work apron does the same while protecting your clothes and body from dirt and projectiles.

• The Bucket Boss: Another solution for lugging around your tools is a bucket organizer like the Bucket Boss, which makes bringing along every tool you might need a lot easier.

• A magnetic wristband: Give the gift of never having to carry a dozen nails in your mouth ever again.

• A headband lamp: At some point, every DIYer gets tired of trying to balance a flashlight in just the right spot. A lamp they can use hands-free will quickly become a favorite gift.

• A rugged Bluetooth speaker: Sure, everyone owns a bluetooth speaker these days—but handypeople will appreciate a Bluetooth speaker that’s durable enough for a worksite and that also uses the same batteries as their power tools.

• Anti-fatigue mat: Ah, the simple joys of standing hunched over a workbench for hours at a time. An anti-fatigue mat will spare your DIYer’s back and leave them refreshed after every job.

• Boot and glove dryer: There’s nothing worse than getting up to continue a big project only to discover that your boots and gloves are still soaked from the day before. Drying those items out in an hour or less? Magical.

• Beverage holster: Anyone who’s done work around their house knows that DIY work is fueled by refreshing beverages. Whatever your drink of choice, make it easy to have on hand at all times with this nifty holster.

One of the best lessons I've learned across years of DIY projects is the fact that, whether powered by hand or by electricity, your tools can can serve more than the purpose for which you purchased them—provided you get creative with how you put them to use. Often, you can use two tools together to improve their performance, make them more versatile, make them easier to use, or even to to replace a tool you’re missing.

Here are 10 unexpected ways to combine your hand tools and power tools to make DIY work a little easier.

Stick an Allen wrench into your drill

Power drill and Allen wrench being used to extract eyehook Credit: Jeff Somers

Eye hooks serve a wide range of uses, but if you’ve ever had to drive a bunch of them into wood, you know how frustrating they can be. The usual move is to either slip a screwdriver through the hook and twist, which is slow and awkward, or to clamp a wrench or pair of pliers on top and twist, which is...also slow and awkward.

This works better: Place an Allen wrench in your power drill’s chuck, slide the end of the wrench into the eyehook, and let the drill do the work. It's faster, it saves your elbows and wrists the strain, and you’ll wonder why you never thought of it before.

Use a shop vac to inject wood glue

Wood glue can be a lifesaver when you have a damaged piece of lumber—but only if you can actually get the glue inside the crack. If you’ve ever tried, you know that you wind up with glue smeared everywhere, but only a small amount seeps into the crack, leading to a pretty quick failure.

By combining a shop vac with your gluing efforts, you can make this much more effective. Position the shop vac up close against one end of the crack and turn it on. Then apply the glue from the other end, moving toward the shop vac. The suction will pull the glue into the crack, filling it up and resulting in a stronger bond.

Use a sander to clean your putty knives

Orbital sander cleaning knife Credit: Jeff Somers

Drywall knives and putty knives can develop a thick, lumpy buildup of drywall mud, paint, and anything else they’re used to scrape. Eventually, they’re almost useless because their flat surface has developed its own topography.

You can try cleaning them, but water will rust them and it’s often a laborious process, especially if they’re covered in cement or thinset. If you’ve got an orbital sander, however, cleaning your putty knives and drywall knives is pretty easy. Using a moderate grit (120 works well) pad, just sand down your blade with gentle pressure—don’t overdo it; just let the sandpaper do its work. You’ll have shiny, clean blades in no time.

Use a carpenter’s square and a chalk line as a makeshift level

Getting things level is surprisingly challenging—at least for me. I can measure things five times and still somehow wind up slightly off. That makes a spirit level an essential part of my toolbox for any project (and even then, I am level-challenged, somehow).

If I forget my level, I’m in trouble—unless I happen to have a carpenter’s square and a chalk line. Place the bottom of the square on the surface you’re checking, and loop your chalk line over the top at the 90° mark so it dangles down. Then adjust until the line is directly over the 45° mark on the bottom. That’s means it's level.

Use a screwdriver and hammer to remove stubborn nails

Hammer and screwdriver extracting nail Credit: Jeff Somers

Trying to remove a stuck nail can be an entire project in itself. Your progress freezes while you sweat and strain, and eventually you start to damage the surface as your attempts to pull that nail get wilder and more violent.

To protect a surface you don’t want to damage and give yourself a little extra leverage on the nail, place a screwdriver under your hammer. This will give your pull a little more oomph while stopping your hammer from gouging the surface beneath.

Use a vise grip with a putty knife to remove a headless nail

Got a stubborn nail and don’t have your hammer or prybar? Or dealing with a nail that’s lost its head? You can get it free with the help of a vise grip and a putty knife. Lock the vise grip onto the nail and slide a putty knife onto the surface behind the nail. Rotate the vise grips like a lever, and the nail will slowly pull free, while the putty knife blade protects the surface underneath from damage.

Combine a wrench or pliers and a screwdriver for more torque

Screwdriver and pliers extracting screw Credit: Jeff Somers

When dealing with a screw that seems to be frozen in place, your hand screwdriver often can’t deliver enough torque, and using a power drill with a screwdriver bit is often overkill, stripping the screw in no time. To increase the torque your screwdriver can provide, combine it with a wrench or pair of adjustable pliers. Lock the pliers onto the screwdriver at a 90° angle, push down, and turn with the plier handles. Even the most stubborn screws will work themselves free.

Use locking pliers and a flat prybar to remove nails

Another way to tackle a nail that just won’t work itself free (or that’s lost its head) is to combine a vise grip and a flat prybar. Lock the grips onto the top of the nail to act as the head, then angle the prybar underneath and apply pressure. You can also slide a putty knife under the prybar blade if you want to protect the surface you’re extracting the nail from.

Use a hammer and driver bit to remove painted over screws

Hammer and drill bit cleaning screw head Credit: Jeff Somers

When I used to rent, I was always infuriated by the “landlord special” repairs that covered screw heads with multiple layers of paint, often to the extent that I couldn’t get a screwdriver or bit to bite. That meant a lot of slow effort scraping paint out of the grooves until I got them clean enough to extract.

Instead of doing that, combine a hammer and a screwdriver bit: position the bit on the screw head and give it some solid taps with the hammer. The crusted paint will fall right out, and you can get on with your work.

Use an adjustable wrench to find the right drill bit

How much time do you think you’ve wasted trying to eyeball a drill bit when driving bolts? You estimate the bit size, you drill the hole—nope, too small. So you grab the next-largest bit and do it again. Or, worse, you estimate the drill bit and the hole is too big, and now you’ve got a problem.

If you’ve got an adjustable wrench, spare yourself the drama. Tighten the jaws of the wrench onto the bolt, then see which drill bit matches the wrench’s opening. You’ll never have to drill three times for one bolt ever again.

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I’ve DIYed three kitchen and two bathroom renovations so far in my life; I’ve re-caulked countless old windows and doors; I’ve applied construction adhesive to a lot of things. And I’ve always struggled with caulking. It's difficult to get smooth, equal caulk lines, and when caulking large areas my arm gets pretty tired, especially if I’m pushing some thick and heavy material out of that tube. Plus, I always ended up wiping away accidents with my hands, leaving me smeared with caulk.

After years of constant frustration, it finally occurred to me that the culprit might be the old-school manual caulk gun I’d been using for decades. It’s bent, rusted, and covered in a crust of old caulk, cement, and dirt; I couldn’t think of a single reason why I hadn’t upgraded it. When I did, I decided to try out a power caulking gun, so I picked up this cordless one by DeWalt. It's not the cheapest option, but I love this thing.

DEWALT 20V MAX Caulking Gun

$159.89 at Amazon

$256.00 Save $96.11

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$159.89 at Amazon

$256.00 Save $96.11

What is a power caulking gun?

A power caulking gun is similar to the standard manual tool you’re used to. It’s a bit bulkier and heavier, of course, but it operates in much the same way: You pop in a cartridge (or a sausage tube if your gun can switch between them), you cut the tip, and the rod pushes the caulk or adhesive out. The main difference is that the rod advances automatically when you press the trigger—you don’t have to keep exerting force with your hand, and caulk is dispensed continuously instead of in the chaotic waves I always managed manually.

Why you need a power caulking gun

What’s fantastic about this power caulk gun is the level of control. You can set the maximum and minimum speed of the tool precisely, so you get exactly the flow rate you need for your job, and you can change speed within that range easily with the trigger. It comes with different canister trays to accommodate different tubes, and it has a nifty little light that allows you to actually see what you’re doing—something I didn’t realize I needed until I experienced it.

One thing I love is that the rod retracts when you release the trigger, preventing caulk or adhesive from oozing out of the tube. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve set the caulking gun down to do something and discovered a nice pile of caulk on my floor. That’s not an issue any more.

There’s a bit of a learning curve with this—it’ll take a moment to get a feel for the flow and to mentally calibrate what speed setting is right for what job. Once you get the hang of it, though, being able to caulk an entire run of tile or countertop without pausing feels like a superpower. And not getting covered in caulk is priceless.

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If you’re like most people, you bought a standard claw hammer once long ago and never thought much about its weight or design. I was like that for a long time, too, but I noticed that every time I worked on a project involving lots of hammering, my arm would get fatigued quickly, and the last half of the work would be a misery. I recently fell down a bit of a rabbit hole regarding hammers—the different weights and types-and decided it was time to splurge a bit and buy a titanium hammer (specifically, this one). It was one of the best purchases I’ve made recently.

Titanium vs. steel hammer

Most hammers are made from steel, with either a fiberglass or wood handle. They get the job done—steel is an excellent material for a hammer, and it will last a long time. I still have an old steel hammer handed down from my father; it has a nail bent over the head at the top to hold it in place, but it still works. And steel hammers are pretty cheap—this 16 ounce model from Estwing is just $25 as I write this. You can’t beat that price for a tool that will probably last decades.

Estwing 16 oz Straight Rip Claw Hammer

$24.98 at Amazon

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$24.98 at Amazon

The problem with cheap steel hammers is the strain they put your body through. If you use your hammer once a year, you’ll never notice. But when I started doing work around the house on a regular basis, I began to feel it: My arm would get tired, and my elbow and shoulder would ache a little after a few hours. Steel doesn’t absorb the impact of each strike very well, and transmits it to your arm. You can minimize that impact a little with anti-vibration wraps or grips, but it’s never going to go away completely.

Fed up with suffering through every project, I did some research and splurged on a titanium TiBone 10-Oz. Trimbone hammer—and it’s worked out amazingly well. The TiBone is just 10 ounces, but because it’s titanium, it has the same striking force—the force it delivers to the nail—as a much heavier steel model. In other words, whatever weight hammer you’re used to swinging, you can go much lighter with a titanium hammer. That’s less weight to swing, and less strain on your arm.

Stiletto TRIMBONE 10 Oz. Smooth-Face Framing Hammer with Curved Titanium Handle

$370.49 at Walmart

$289.99 Save 0.00

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$370.49 at Walmart

$289.99 Save 0.00

The Trimbone has a few other features I like—you can swap out the face and grip easily, so it will last longer and is more flexible for different jobs, it has a side nail-puller and a magnetic nail starter, and the grip is comfortable. But it’s mainly the lighter weight without sacrificing performance that I (and my shoulder) like. It’s specifically a framing hammer, but I find it’s terrific as a general-purpose hammer for most jobs.

The big downside is cost. It’s currently $370.49, which is, you may notice, almost 15 times more expensive than the perfectly good steel hammer I referenced above. You might be able to find it cheaper somewhere with a little effort, but it will still be an order of magnitude more expensive. For me, it was worth the cost—I haven’t needed to take a bunch of ibuprofen after working all day since I bought it. If you’re also struggling with arm fatigue with your current hammer, it might be time to consider the upgrade.

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No sooner do you dive into the DIY home repair and maintenance rabbit hole (a hole lined with all the money you'll save!) than you start to collect tools. Some of them will be single-use items that you'll store in your garage or toolshed for decades like a museum exhibit. But sometimes even these tools can surprise you by being way more useful than you might initially imagine.

For me, the mini chainsaw was one of those tools. This one, specifically (I considered others, but I really wanted a one-handed, cordless option because I live in a small, urban house, not a sprawling farm that runs on firewood and steam). I bought it specifically for landscaping/pruning chores, but it’s quickly proven to be one of the most useful little tools I own—so useful, in fact, that I think every DIYer should have one. Here are just a few ways I put it to good use.

Greenworks 24V Brushless Mini Chainsaw

$84.99 at Amazon

$99.99 Save $15.00

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Mini-chainsaws are perfect for pruning

The initial use-case for the mini-chainsaw was for pruning back invasive branches and vines from my neighbor’s yard, which is almost sentient in its determination to colonize my property. I love my neighbors, and it’s not a point of conflict, but if I don’t stay on top of that situation, my whole house will be enveloped by a creeping vine that’s been colonizing their yrad so long it’s almost structural, and I’d never see the sun again due to the encroaching branches of their backyard trees. The mini chainsaw is perfect for this work. It slices right through the (surprisingly thick and robust) vines, as well as the tree branches. As it's a one-handed tool, I can safely wield it from a ladder without risking my fingers (or more critical body parts).

Mini-chainsaws can cut through more than just branches

If you think you only use chainsaws on lumber—cutting firewood, or clearing fallen trees—you’re wrong. What’s great about a chainsaw in general is that it slices through dense, thick material like that with ease. I’ve used mine to cut through stuff like PVC when doing minor plumbing work around the house, and it worked a charm.

It’s also great for quick cuts on wood. While I wouldn’t use a chainsaw in place of a circular saw or table saw for precision cuts, it’s been a real time-saver to just trim a bit here and there, especially after I’ve secured a 2x4 in place with screws only to realize I miscalculated the initial cut by a quarter inch. The mini chainsaw just lops off the excess without drama.

Some folks online claim they’ve used mini chainsaws to make quick cuts in drywall, but I’m not sure I’m going to try that. I'm sure it works, but it sure seems like unnecessary overkill.

Use a mini-chainsaw for demo work

Every DIY project starts with demo and removal, and a mini chainsaw has become an essential tool. For example, when I re-did a deck recently, I had to pull up and haul off all the old planks and structure. The mini chainsaw made it easy to cut everything down to a more manageable size so I wasn’t navigating 10-foot boards through the house. It was a fast, easy way to reduce a lot of cumbersome junk and prevent a bit of the inevitable damage I caused (to my back as well as my house).

Mini-chainsaws let you have fun while DIYing

This isn't really a use-case, but it's worth mentioning all the same: mini chainsaws are fun to use. The ability to just press a button and slice away anything that’s irritating you is well worth the price all by itself. (If you're like me, the opportunity to make your own chainsaw noises while you use it is just an added, unnecessary bonus.)

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If you own a home or just like to maintain your stuff, you probably own a bunch of tools that help you do stuff that would be impossible otherwise. (Unless you've had more success than I have at hammering a nail into a block of wood with your fists). But tools themselves can often be augmented with accessories that make them a little easier to use, more effective, and safer—think of these accessories as tools for your tools.

Even the best-stocked tool chest can be improved with the addition of a few simple, low-cost accessories. Here are eight that every DIYer should pick up to make their next project a little easier.

Bucket organizers keep things at hand

My DIY process used to involve several trips back and forth between the project site and my tool closet, because I can only carry so much stuff at one time. Stuffing tools and loose screws into your pockets might get the job done, but it isn’t pretty, especially when the clawtooth hammer gets stuck in your pocket and you rip your pants open while standing on your roof in full view of the neighborhood, which is definitely not something that has ever happened to me. That’s why a bucket organizer (like the Bucketeer) is a must-have. It’s so simple it’s ridiculous: These organizers slide into the bucket and act as a tool belt around the exterior. You can still use the bucket as a bucket, while also easily transporting your gear.

Depth stop collars prevent over-drilling

One lesson I’ve learned in my DIY journey is that I’m never as in control of my power tools as I think I am. The evidence for this is all the times I’ve drilled way too deep for what I need. Whether you need a series of holes drilled to a precise depth, or you want to avoid overdrilling through the back of something, you quickly learn that eyeballing stuff and drilling by “feel” is an easy way to screw everything up. Having a set of depth collars like these is the answer. They clamp onto your bit and prevent you from over- or under-drilling. Aside from the precision, they also allow you to put full force behind the drill, because you don’t have to worry about losing control at the critical moment and over-drilling.

Anti-vibration pads keep things from moving

DIY projects can be pretty noisy. An anti-vibration pad like this one is an essential tool accessory. It reduces the noise from vibration and helps to protect the surface under your tools or materials so you can work safely. You can buy these in pre-sized versions, but buying a roll allows you to cut it up to fit your needs, so you can create pads for use under appliances (like the washing machine) to reduce noise and vibration, to use under portable saws and other tools, and to slide under materials that you’re working on. It’s a simple fix that makes DIY projects a lot more pleasant.

Dust collectors make cleanup easier

Dust is a byproduct of just about every project you’ll ever do around the house. You can try hanging plastic sheets or using tape and/or envelopes to catch dust, but in my experience, neither really works—dust still gets everywhere. That's why this dust collector from DeWalt is a genius tool accessory: It suctions to the wall and connects to your wet/dry shopvac, effortlessly capturing all that dust from drilling and sanding.

Anti-vibration gloves or wraps protect your hands

If you’ve ever used a power tool for a long stretch of time, you know how tired your hands and arms can get. You can reduce that stress on your body by reducing the vibrations you absorb from your tools with either anti-vibration gloves or an anti-vibration wrap that you can apply to hand tools (like hammers). These accessories absorb those vibrations, not only making them more comfortable to use but also increasing your control, because the tool won’t vibrate right out of your hands.

Magnetic wristbands save you from hunting for screws and nails

If you’ve ever wasted an hour of your life trying to find a dropped screw because you had no spares (I can neither confirm nor deny I’ve done this), you need a simple magnetic wristband like this one. It gives you a hands-free way to hang onto screws, bolts, nails, drill bits, or anything else metallic that you’re working with.

Flexible drill bits can get into hard-to-reach places

Inevitably you’ll find yourself pondering how you can drill or screw something around a corner, or in a very tight space where no power tool could possibly fit. The answer is this amazing tool accessory: A flexible bit holder. With one of these, you can drill around corners or inside tight spots where a traditional bit can’t go, thus removing one more obstacle to getting your project finished.

Laser saw guides prevent waste and save time

If you use a miter saw or any kind of circular saw, you know that even when you carefully measure and mark your materials, you can still mess up the cut. Undercut by the slightest margin and you’ll waste time sanding ends down or trying to make impossibly small extra cuts. Overcut, and you just wasted your time, effort, and materials.

Adding a laser guide to your blade eliminates this risk. It clearly and accurately shows you exactly where your blade is going to bite, so you’ll know immediately if you’re a fraction of a millimeter off. You’ll be able to adjust before you cut, preventing frustration and waste.

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Amazon Big Deal Days end tonight, Oct. 8, and until then, Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before it’s over.

• Follow our live blog to stay up to date on the best sales we find.

• Browse our editors’ picks for a curated list of our favorite sales on laptops, fitness tech, appliances, and more.

• Subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.

• New to Prime Day? We have a primer on everything you need to know. Sales are accurate at the time of publication, but prices and inventory are always subject to change.

The multi-tool is one of those things that you can’t understand just by looking at it—you have to use one to understand why they're so valuable. And once you use it, you will wonder how you managed your repair and improvement projects around the house without one. I use mine constantly—to start cuts, to trim stuff, to sand and scrape, and to make cuts in awkward spots where a hand saw or even a power saw just won’t fit. When I remodeled my bathroom, using the multi-tool to dig out grout lines was a lifesaver.

Flex 24V Cordless Oscillating Multi-Tool

$94.04 at Amazon

$169.99 Save $75.95

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Get Deal

$94.04 at Amazon

$169.99 Save $75.95

Recently, I’ve been thinking about swapping up to a cordless model, because this is the year 2025 and dealing with snaking power cords all the time is getting old. Therefore, this Prime Day deal jumped out at me: The Flex 24V Brushless Cordless Oscillating Multi-Tool—45% off until the end of Prime Day (a savings of more than $75).

Reviewers love this multi-tool, noting that it runs smoothly, without the hand-aching vibration and shaking of some models. Offering up to 20,000 oscillations per minute (OPM), it’s also powerful enough to cut through almost anything you need, including metal pipes, 2x4s, or drywall. And that high OPM means it will cut pretty fast, saving you time and protecting your hands and arms from fatigue. The battery life is solid (though the sale is on the tool alone; if you don’t have a Flex battery and charger you’ll need to either buy it separately or buy the kit).

Looking for something else? Retailers like Walmart and Best Buy have Prime Day competition sales that are especially useful if you don’t have Amazon Prime.

• Walmart’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. ET through Oct. 12 and includes deals up to 50% off. It’s an especially good option if you have Walmart+.

• Best Buy’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Sept. 27 through Oct. 12, and has some of the best tech sales online. It’s an especially good option if you’re a My Best Buy “Plus” or “Total” member.

• Target’s Prime Day competition sale runs from Oct. 5 through Oct. 11, and it has deals going up to 50% off. You can become a Circle member for free.