<p>I was using my little garlic peeler thingy (don’t know what it’s called but it’s a cylindrical sleeve made of rubber and when you put the garlic clove in it and roll it around on the counter, it takes the skin off the clove) when I started thinking about some of the small, simple and inexpensive items that I wouldn’t give up for anything. Items that cost little or nothing but save me a lot of time and trouble.</p>
<p>Another one that i just love is an old credit card or plastic card hotel key that I use to scrape glue, paint, etc off tables and counters.</p>
<p>not sure it’s my favorite, but since you mentioned a kitchen gadget…I love the jar opener we found at BB and Beyond. It’s all plastic and looks a lot like a bottle opener. You just position it under the lip of the lid of a jar and lift and it breaks the seal making jars very easy to open.</p>
<p>I love my apple cutter! It’s a metal circle with pie wedges cut out. You push down (forcefully) on the apple and voila! nicely sliced pieces with no core!</p>
<p>Also, I have a spiral cutter (hard to explain) for pineapples that I adore.</p>
<p>Along the lines of the credit card, a .79 cent scraper from Bed, Bath, Beyond - came in handy so many times, for so many things!</p>
<p>Dollar store florist wire - pull it out all the time. Use it tie up unruly tomato plants , helps me attach red Christmas bows on the deck so they don’t fly away, etc.</p>
<p>Shoboemom, I was going to post the same thing. Love my jar opener.</p>
<p>I also like my apple cutte. While not so inexpensive, I adore my Cutco peeler. It makes peeling things like apples, potatoes etc painless and fast.</p>
<p>Wooden tooth pick are my favorite pottery tool.<br>
My apporach to peeling is the cheapest and the least time consuming of them all. I just stopped peeling, do not even peel my ginger. We do peel some things, but not many. I peel avocado, mango, papaya and all melons. We do not peel potattoes, apples, carots…it save time and adds to taste.</p>
<p>My icepick with a wooden handle and wooden sleeve that the pick part slips into. I have used that thing hundreds of times. It opens clogged glue bottles and caulking tubes, gets into and scrapes crevices that need cleaning, starts a screw, and every once in a while, it breaks up ice!</p>
<p>Not a thing but a technique. I saw Heloise, the hints lady on TV 30 years ago showing how you can re-close bread bags without ever using the plastic or wire closure ever again. You just twist them closed, then flip the top inside out and over the part underneath the twist-like folding over a sock top. I haven’t used a plastic or wire thing since.</p>
<p>I use my apple cutter all the time. The other cheap kitchen thing I use a lot is the hand-held grater.</p>
<p>sseamom- I do that all the time with bread. It works great.</p>
<p>I love the $1.00 paring knifes that you can find being sold by cash registers. They fit my hands perfectly. DH and I also love this silly round plastic pizza cutter that we got free from the local bank. Menards often features it. Works like a charm and so easy.</p>
<p>Another way to peel garlic easily it to microwave the cloves. </p>
<p>I do one or two at a time and it is in the micro for just a few seconds. Maybe 10 - 15 at most. You’ll hear a ‘pop’ sound and then you are done. The ‘pop’ is the sound of the skin opening up. Take the clove out of the micro, let it cool for a second and then the skin will very easily peel off. No special tool needed (assuming you already have a microwave).</p>
<p>For getting hairballs out of bathroom sink and tub drains, I take a wire coat hanger, straighten it out into single strand, bend tip of one end with pliers into tiny ‘J’ hook and then stick it down into drain to yank out hairballs clogging drain pipes. Beats paying a plumber $100.</p>
<p>Warning alert–I did that several times in the house we had recently moved into many years ago. turns out the family before us used a LOT of Drano which must have been eating a whole in the J pipe (kitchen sink.) hanger went right through the pipe.</p>
<p>This comment is not really tiime saving… but good time tracking. </p>
<p>Last weekend I spent $7.95 (minus 15% coupon, plus tax) for a new leather watchband for my beloved Timex watch. The jewelry clerk took care of the work swapping out the tattered black band for lovely more summery light brown band. </p>
<p>The watch has easy to read numbers and the handy indiglo feature to light it up as needed. I suspect others on Parent Cafe might also have older eyes annoyed by teeny watch numbering.
[Timex</a> Gold-Tone Leather Watch - Women](<a href=“Timex® Women's Leather Watch - T2H341”>Timex® Women's Leather Watch - T2H341)</p>
<p>about clogged drains: there is a narrow plastic “zipper/snake” that has little hooks all along both sides. Once I was buying some chemical drain cleaner at Walmart and the guy in front of me had one of those “zippers”–the checker said–Oh, I love those things–they work great. I asked her what aisle they were in and ran back to get one. Only about $2, cheaper than Drano and won’t hurt your pipes.
(I have 4 daughters–all with long hair. It really does work great. I’ve had the same one for years and it hasn’t broken.)</p>
<p>Not such a cheap gadget, but relatively cheap for the convenience and time it saves–we can’t live without our microwave oven.</p>