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Sometimes, no matter what you do, life will hand you some lemons.

It’s really easy to respond to that with a trite “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade,” but sometimes that just doesn’t work. Things you’ve been preparing for and working on for years have blown up in your face. The big dreams you had for the future are deflating. The worst part is that you feel like it’s not your fault – and it very well might not be.

For example, let’s say Bob has done everything right for the last few years. He has a nice emergency fund and has most of his debts paid off. He’s been working on a big project at work that he thinks is about to pay off and become a major project.

One day, his boss calls him into his office. The project is cancelled. Bob is being let go.

On his way home, Bob is trying to deal with this when all of a sudden his car overheats.

Readers often contact me asking for recommendations for technology items at a low cost. They have a use in mind and they just want the item that will fulfill that use at the lowest price without any serious negative drawbacks.

Four of these requests tend to repeat themselves quite often, so I thought I’d just combine them all into one post. Here are my low-cost recommendations for each of these items as of early 2014. I am assuming you’ve already decided to purchase the item and have already considered alternative options in your life.

A low-cost laptop for email, Facebook, and/or Netflix

I would buy a Chromebook. A Chromebook is a smaller laptop that runs ChromeOS, not Windows. ChromeOS is designed pretty much exclusively for the experience that’s described here – just email, Facebook and other web surfing, Netflix, and basic applications like word processing.

The clock shift in the spring is almost always difficult on our family. However, this year showed us a great little trick that really helped with the switch.

It turned out that Sunday – the day after our clocks moved forward an hour – was a really nice day outside. We spent quite a few hours outside during the day. I did about an hour’s worth of yard work that involved lifting some heavy things outside in the bright sun, plus we went on a pretty long family walk. Later in the day, I did another hour’s worth of outside activities.

By about 9:30 PM, I was really tired, so I went to bed earlier than I usually would. That was the effect of being outside so much, I’m sure. A lot of sunlight in the early spring after a long, cold winter means a giant shot of Vitamin D for your system, which can make you sleepy.

There are many moments in my professional and personal life when I need to bear down and concentrate for a little while.

I need to write an article.

I need to do my taxes.

I need to finish a book chapter.

I need to review my investments.

When I’m doing these things, I don’t want to be interrupted. Interruption disrupts my train of thought. Interruption causes my task to take a lot longer than before. Interruption often results in a reduction in the quality of my work, and when I’m doing an important task, I can’t afford that reduction. It eventually hits me in the pocketbook.

Interruption is bad. I want to avoid it.

In the past, I’ve mentioned a lot of techniques I use to minimize interruption. I turn off my cell phone. I turn off my internet router or block distracting websites. I close my office door. I shut off my email program.