I'll repeat one of keiferski's responses and add another related to food:
- Slow cooker
- Instant pot
Between the slow cooker and instant pot it's harder to make an excuse not to cook dinner even when we're really busy. Cooking with these we have also gotten better about buying raw ingredients to cook with, versus packaged or pre-made foods. This has led to much healthier eating in our home and improved health for both me and my wife.
Non-food:
- YNAB. I was reasonably disciplined about money before getting it, but definitely improved after. And with getting married, my wife and I have very different approaches to money, it's helped us to stay on the same page. We've resolved our differences by throwing a chunk of money at a generic pot for her to use more freely, but still within a reasonable limit.
- TRX. Not normally under $100, but I got a good deal on it via a sale. Made body weight exercising much more interesting than what I'd been doing before, and scalable (especially useful after a shoulder injury where I couldn't do a regular push-up for a few months). You can make your own version cheaply.
- Merrill Barefoot series running shoes. These hover around $100, but when I got them and started running in them I had no shinsplints compared to previous running shoes. I had never been able to run for fitness before I got these, and then I went on to run a half-marathon in them. You do have to ease into it though, and if you have bad form (how you land on your foot) you will probably injure yourself.
Can an instant pot not operate as a slow cooker? I have a non instant pot electric pressure cooker, and it slow cooks great!
Second your running shoes as well, much less ankle pain for me compared to more cushioned shoes. I think that because they punish you more for bad form, you learn to run more naturally, at least that’s what happened for me!
Ditto YNAB and minimalist shoes. I like my Merrill’s. But I think they look silly. I tried Xero first. They were great but Swedish quality. I’m thinking I’d trying Lems next.
- Slow cooker
- Instant pot
Between the slow cooker and instant pot it's harder to make an excuse not to cook dinner even when we're really busy. Cooking with these we have also gotten better about buying raw ingredients to cook with, versus packaged or pre-made foods. This has led to much healthier eating in our home and improved health for both me and my wife.
Non-food:
- YNAB. I was reasonably disciplined about money before getting it, but definitely improved after. And with getting married, my wife and I have very different approaches to money, it's helped us to stay on the same page. We've resolved our differences by throwing a chunk of money at a generic pot for her to use more freely, but still within a reasonable limit.
- TRX. Not normally under $100, but I got a good deal on it via a sale. Made body weight exercising much more interesting than what I'd been doing before, and scalable (especially useful after a shoulder injury where I couldn't do a regular push-up for a few months). You can make your own version cheaply.
- Merrill Barefoot series running shoes. These hover around $100, but when I got them and started running in them I had no shinsplints compared to previous running shoes. I had never been able to run for fitness before I got these, and then I went on to run a half-marathon in them. You do have to ease into it though, and if you have bad form (how you land on your foot) you will probably injure yourself.