There are more useless money-suckers than good products these days; this is especially visible in the market for household maintenance tools. You search for cool DIY tools, expecting something at the crossroads of utilitarian and innovative, but all you seem to find are Allan keys with vice grips, PSI gauges, and sextants attached.

Here at TalkLocal, we think a sextant sounds like something nobody is interested in, so we’ve compiled a list of DIY tools to help you declare independence from your contractor and feed your increasingly addictive DIY hobby.

Essential DIY Tools

These should be in any toolbox:

– Adjustable wrench
– Screwdriver set
– Tape measure
– Electric drill (worth the price, trust us)
– Level
– Hammer
– Nailset
– Pliers
– Utility knife
– Flashlight
– Sandpaper and sanding block (whenever dealing with wood)
– Safety goggles and gloves
– Super glue
– Duct tape and WD-40 (seriously)

Useful Extras (Your pipes won’t burst without them but they’re not superfluous):

– Crowbar
– Staple gun
– Rubber mallet (good for tapping together laminate)
– Dremel
– Hot glue gun
– Automatic nailer and circular saw (useful for woodworking projects)
– Jigsaw (another useful woodworker’s tool)
– Multi-tool (those Swiss Army knife-things with a million tools – if you think they look unwieldy and useless, consider that these are essentially whole toolboxes you can fit in your pocket!)

Gather these together over time; they’re too expensive to buy all at once, and you might not end up needing all of them. Instead, get the ones that seem necessary for the project at hand, and make sure it’s a project you actually can tackle yourself so you don’t waste money

For all of those tasks too big, too onerous, or too time-consuming for a mere mortal with a toolbox, let us handle it. Go onto TalkLocal and our unique search system will put an end to that obnoxious research-call-repeat headache.