4 Useful Gadgets Under $20 to Improve Your Garage

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Not all garage improvements have to be expensive. Although many of the most useful garage upgrades have a high price tag, that shouldn’t stop you from filling your garage with some useful gadgets. Of course, gadgets aren’t all cheap, especially when you’re buying a brand-name tool like DeWalt. However, we’re willing to bet that some of these basic products, which you probably have in your home, haven’t made it into your garage.

That said, we have to present our choice on a premise: $20 isn’t a lot of money. For some of these products, that’s all you need to get a great gadget. For some, it’s not enough to pay for a basic model of a potentially useful gadget. It will still be useful, but it may not last as long or be as good to work as the fancier version. If you see a more expensive model, perhaps on sale, know that it may be the best investment.

The nail falls behind the drawers; your beautiful all-metal pen rolls under the car; you drop the editor box and spill your drill bit collection on the floor. What do these events have in common? All can be solved quickly and effortlessly with a magnetic capture tool – unless your drill bits are non-metallic, in which case we can only suggest that you be a little more careful with your tools.

If you’ve spent any time around nails, pens, and other cylindrical objects, you know how much they love to roll under furniture. Instead of moving the entire cabinet, just grab your NoCry Powerful Telescoping Magnetic Pick Up Tool and get to work. You may be thinking, “Do I really need an ‘extremely strong’ capture tool for some nails and a screwdriver?” No, it’s not, but considering how many incredibly cheap (and possibly ineffective) download tools there are on Amazon, we’re pretty confident in recommending something with more heft than you might need.

If you want to save money and have a wider selection of pickup tools, look no further than the Horusdy Four-Piece Magnetic Pickup Tools Kit. Now, “Horusdy” might not be the kind of brand name that inspires a lot of confidence, especially not on Amazon. And sure enough, this kit appears to be made from standard products found all over Amazon that were tagged with the brand name. However, this Horusdy imaging tool has more upgrades than its competitors and comes with three magnetic imaging tools (two telescoping, one flexible) and a collapsible tray for bits and pieces.

Hopefully, your garage already has some form of artificial lighting. Unfortunately, it’s probably not enough for any kind of direct work. You don’t want to risk covering the light when you’re hunting over your work table, and you don’t want to rely entirely on a bad white light stuck all the way up in the ceiling. Fortunately for you, the solution is simple and affordable.

If you have the space, pendant lights are easy to install, easy to adjust, and fit in many places that can keep their (relatively) low weight. You can find a pack of two lights with great reviews for $16.99 on Amazon. If you’re looking for something less rigid, Ikea’s Tertial is probably the cheapest lamp with a replaceable bulb and a flexible body you can find, and it can be mounted on walls and tables.

Of course, clamp lights are only good if they have something to hold onto. If you don’t have one of these, you might want to look into a floor lamp, but those are usually more expensive. Once again, Ikea helps. The Tågarp floor lamp/reading lamp is ridiculously dimmable, and the light bulbs keep going off, but it’s the only floor lamp under $20 to include a dimmable light that’s just the right height to serve as a task light. I’ve had a Tågarp in my house for years – always the same, surprisingly – and although I wouldn’t trust it with my life, I have to admit that it’s a lot stronger than it looks at first.

Power strips are great, but a better suggestion would be to install more outlets. There are two problems with that: Installing new outlets costs more than $20, and it’s not really an option if you’re not a homeowner. A power strip, on the other hand, is such a common household gadget that you probably forgot to buy one or two in your garage. Everyone knows the feeling of needing a power cord that should be somewhere, but just can’t find it. Do we really need to explain why you should have your own garage?

Just buy a few extra power strips. You know you will use them, and they are very cheap. Amazon Basics six-prong power outlet with six-meter extension cord is just $10.14; you can get two of them for about $20. If you don’t need a long cable, Amazon will even sell you two power strips for $13.34; Short cable aside, it seems to be just as good as Amazon’s more expensive power cables.

While you’re at it, you might want to get a power strip that protects the incision. Depending on the type of equipment you use, you may want to invest in one of the better types of surge protectors with a higher Joule rating. Otherwise, basic surge protection is built into cheap power lines, including the two Amazon Basics models we linked above.

Sure, $20 isn’t enough to buy even one drawer from one of the big tool chest brands, but you can find several tool boxes and organizers for that price, perfect for keeping your small tools and parts together. The Craftsman 16-inch toolbox is a great option at $18.98. It’s not very big, but it includes a tray and two lids to keep small items separate from your hammers, pliers, and more.

If you can choose something with multiple containers and don’t have a handle, skip the boxes with the tool maker’s logo and go with a standard organizer. Sure, you can spend about $30 on a Craftsman 30-bin organizer, and spend a bit more on third-party dividers to fit between its long, tall drawers. Alternatively, you can spend about $20 on a pack of three standard organizer boxes with plenty of dividers to put them in. Your nails won’t mind if you put them in a container made for Lego sets and knitting materials.

If you’d like to fit your small tools into the larger toolbox you already have, consider a third-party toolbox organizer. Just because it didn’t come with your purchase doesn’t mean you can’t buy an organizer beat set now. And if you’re using DeWalt’s ToughCase system, the Tough Case Organizer is cheap (about $9) and locks onto other toolbox system members.

Since we were working on a tight budget of $20, price was the starting point for everything we chose. We also considered personal experience, user opinion, and internet articles from various sources when creating a list of essential garage gadgets. But price was ultimately the deciding factor on which gadgets to include in the article. The same thinking dictated which specific models we chose to highlight. For example, we didn’t choose Tågarp as our floor lamp because it’s the best lamp on the market. Instead, we chose it because it was the only floor lamp with good reviews and a price under $20.