I purchased a Blunt umbrella for AUD$90 mid last-year when i lost yet another umbrella due to windiness. If you don't think you'll leave it behind you anywhere I'd recommend it.
Also just purchased a Jawbone Up, I felt was a good balance between subtly motivating good behaviours without being too involved. Mainly bought it for the alarm function though.
I buy biltong from Byron Bay Jerky, only place I found that uses grass-fed beef. Prices are pretty comparable across providers for this but if you can find someone to split the 2.5kgs with then you've got a pretty good deal. Other healthy snack ideas would be nuts (pre-soaked to remove phytates), chia pudding (chia seeds + some sort of milk + flavourings. i use coconut milk but any will do), coconut chips & more involved things like frittata muffins.
Meditation classes seem a good option, I've tried a couple though and they had a lot of spiritual baggage that didn't appeal to me. If you find a secular class I'd be interested.
Cycling is a low-impact exercise, and has the benefit of being able to get you places. Replacing your commute with a bike ride - if feasible - would be a good way to integrate exercise into your life.
"nuts (pre-soaked to remove phytates)" what are phytates, and why should I be scared of eating them? (given I've been eating un-soaked nuts since I was a kid without (apparent) ill effect)
The biltong looks good. I'm surprised about the grass-fed beef thing... is is just that Byron Bay is the only company that claims to use grass-fed beef? AFAIK grass-fed is much more common in Australia than, say, the States - due to our huge outback ranches - almost all sheep are grass-fed, and a much higher percentage of beef is free range too.. though I'll adm...
What can I purchase with $100 that will be the best thing I can buy to make my life better?
I've decided to budget some regular money to improving my life each month. I'd like to start with low hanging fruit for obvious reasons - but when I sat down to think of improvements, I found myself thinking of the same old things I'd already been planning to do anyway... and I'd like out of that rut.
Constraints/more info:
Background:
This is a question I recently posed to my local Less Wrong group and we came up with a few good ideas, so I thought I'd share the discussion with the wider community and see what we can come up with. I'll add the list we came up with later on in the comments...
It'd be great to have a repository of low-hanging fruit for things that can be solved with (relatively affordable) amounts of money. I'd personally like to go through the list - look at candidates that sound like they'd be really useful to me and then make a prioritised list of what to work on first.