What are your favourite things under 50$ that make your life a bit easier or more pleasant?

fossilesque@mander.xyz to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 372 points –

I need some holiday gift ideas (that I will probably gift to myself as well)!

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Knife sharpener.

Your knives aren't bad, they're dull. A knife sharpener will make every knife you own good as new (and it's cheaper than any single knife as well)

I also recommend a honing rod; a good ceramic one will run you 40 dollars or so. Takes some skill to use, but it will change your life. Your blades need to be realigned.

It differs from a sharpener in that a sharpener takes material off the knife. You should hone every few weeks; sharpening should come once or twice a year. Sharpening too frequently will a noticeable reduction in the knife's physical size relatively quickly (not that it still wont cut).

Hrm, my sharpener has two ways to use it, one that takes material off and one that doesn't.

I would be interested in seeing what kind it is. A lot of sharpeners have both coarse and rough whetstones.

Which model would you recommend?

Get a sharpening stone, brand doesn't matter imo. I have one with 1000 grid for rough sharpening and 6000 grid for making it really sharp. It does require some learning tho.

And my knife sharpener, get a whetstone. It's kind of therapeutic and you get sharp knives

If you're willing to learn, whetstones are a lot better for your knives and remove less material!

As other comments have alluded to, a sharpening stone is a far better investment and only takes a half hour to learn.

Even if you do a bad job it'll likely be a better result and better for your knives. Most sharpeners absolutely destroy knives and take far too much material off.

1000 grit is a good place to start.