Adulting 101: Things It Helps To Have When You're a Grown-Up

Whether you think you have it all together or not, these must-haves will help you along the way.

Published September 6, 2023
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Welcome to adulthood! You're finally old enough to do all the exciting things you couldn't do before, like... paying your taxes. Although being an adult can feel overwhelming at times, it can also be wonderfully freeing to know that, if you wanted to, you could have ice cream for dinner every single night. (Not that I've taken advantage of this or anything.) 

So what do you need when you’re an adult? What products will make you look at your life and feel like you’ve finally gotten this whole “being a grown-up” thing figured out? I’ve collected a list of products that not only make your life easier, they'll make you feel like you’ve finally reached adulthood.

Let me guess. You have roughly 8,000 food container sets sitting in an unorganized heap in one of your kitchen cabinets, and every time you try to tidy it, they just end up the same way two days later.

This lid organizer provides an easy solution to this annoying problem with the perfect place to store your lids for easy access. No more digging through a pile only to still be unable to find the matching top.

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Stop blowing your monthly budget on takeout and plan out your meals like the grown-up that you are with this weekly meal planning pad from bloom daily planners. It has spots for every day of the week as well as a separate area on the side for you to write out your grocery list.

The grocery list even has a perforated line next to it, allowing you to easily tear it off and bring it with you to the store. Brilliant!

Want to know a secret? Just because you're an adult does not mean you have to spend any of your time ironing your clothes. But you also don’t have to walk around in clothing so wrinkled that it looks like you found them in the gutter.

The solution? This portable clothing steamer. Just run the handheld steamer over a garment and watch as the wrinkles disappear like magic. It’s also compact enough to fit in a suitcase, making it a travel must-have.

If you don’t have an enormous plastic bag under your sink filled with other empty plastic bags, are you really even an adult? Free up some cabinet space without throwing out those useful little bags with this grocery bag dispenser from the great minds over at simplehuman.

Just mount it to your wall, fill it up with your stash, and grab a bag whenever you need one. You can even hang it inside your cabinet drawer to completely hide it from view.

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Reach peak adulthood with these fridge organizer bins. The six-piece set is made from clear, durable plastic and includes five pull-out drawers and an egg holder.

The large capacity is perfect for the stuff that otherwise has zero organization in your fridge, and the built-in handles make it easy to pull them out and grab what you need. After buying these babies, you may find every excuse to open your fridge and show them off when you have guests over.

There’s another area of your home that is begging for some semblance of organization: your underwear drawer. Luckily, these underwear organizer drawer dividers are up to the task.

The set includes four unique bins that make it simple to find spots for underwear, socks, bras, belts, ties, scarves, and even shirts. They’re made from breathable fabric, have reinforced stitching, and the foldable design makes for easy storage. 

For years, my oven would smoke every time I cooked anything. I always just thought I needed a new one, but I avoided doing so because, well, stoves are expensive. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that every time I cooked a frozen pizza, cheese and toppings fell onto the bottom and would then burn every time, thus causing the smoke.

These oven liners would have solved that problem for a whole lot less than the cost of a new appliance. Just place them in the bottom of your oven when you cook something, and clean off fallen food afterward. You can even cut them to fit!

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This car trash can is one of those products that’s so simple, yet so ingenious, you wonder why you didn’t come up with it yourself. It provides the perfect place to put all the random fast food wrappers that usually go on the floor of your car, and the built-in magnetic buckles make it easy to secure a garbage bag.

The waterproof liner ensures that nothing leaks onto your upholstery, and the universal design works in any type of car or truck. 

Plants have a way of bringing the outdoors into your space and making it feel more fresh, alive, and exciting. The problem? Dead plants tend to have the opposite effect. But what do you do if your thumb is more brown than green? You give these plant food spikes from Miracle Grow a try! Just insert one or two into the soil of your potted plant and watch it thrive. 

Plumbers are pricey, so if you want to avoid a bill that’s higher than your car payment, I suggest you invest in one (or two or three) of these TubShroom drain protectors.

The mushroom shape creates a tight seal in your drain to keep out hair and other debris that could clog it while still allowing water to pass through freely. To clean, simply pull it out, remove the hair, and re-insert. You’ll be amazed (and horrified) by how much hair has been going into your pipes all this time without you knowing it.

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Looking for more products that will helping you win at adulting? Check out this list of 20 products designed to boost your productivity.

Adulting 101: Things It Helps To Have When You're a Grown-Up