Every few months I do something my granddaughter Jess finds hilarious: I sit down with my order history and write about the things I actually kept, actually used, and actually loved. Anyone can round up a list of shiny press releases. But a list of things a person spent their own money on? Different animal entirely. A writer recently did exactly that, sharing recent purchases including AirPods 5 and other gadgets, and it got me thinking about my own basket of purchases.

The AirPods 5 are what jumped out at me first, because I remember when wireless earbuds first hit the scene and I thought, who on earth wants to keep track of two tiny seeds that will inevitably roll under the couch? Well, I've lost exactly one earbud in all my years of using them, and I found it in a coat pocket two days later. The technology matured, and now a pair of wireless earbuds is just... a sensible thing to own. Most good technology stories go that way, by the way. The first version is a curiosity, the third version is a product.

Reading that list also reminded me that some of the best purchases I've made in the past year weren't screens or chips at all. A better kitchen scale. A doormat that actually traps mud instead of politely relocating it three feet into the house. Technology should work for you, and sometimes the most effective "tech" in your home is the humble thing that solves an actual problem you grumble about daily. My colleague Marcus could explain the signal processing inside those AirPods down to the antenna design, and I'd happily read every word. But when it comes to whether a purchase improves your Tuesday morning, that's a gut-check question, not a spec-sheet question.

A word of advice from someone who has bought a lot of junk over four decades of tech enthusiasm: before you add anything to your cart, ask yourself which problem it solves. Not which problem the advertisement invented, which problem you actually have. A fancy vacuum is lovely engineering, but if your current vacuum works, the lovely engineering can stay at the store. The smart lock I recommended to family members this summer earned that recommendation because it fixed a real routine, letting people in without hiding keys under a rock like it's 1985.

So go read the original list. You might find, as I did, that the items worth buying are rarely the ones making headlines. They're the ones quietly earning their shelf space, week after week. And if you buy wireless earbuds, do yourself a favor and set up Find My on day one. Trust me on that.