Holiday Gifts and Gadgets That Cost $30 or Less

At my house, the Lodge Grill Pan gets used at least once a week to cook mahi mahi or turkey burgers (to name just a few). It's a cheap and easy way to bring the essence of the grilling experience to your stovetop, which is especially useful during the winter months. 

Buying a gift for someone who's always misplacing their jacket, purse or backpack? With an Apple AirTag in place, that problem should become a thing of the past: Just pull up the Find My app on the iPhone, and the missing item can be tracked down anywhere there's an Apple device nearby (which is pretty much everywhere). Order early enough from Apple.com, and you can order with custom engraved initials or emoji (as shown here). A single AirTag is $29, and you can get a four-pack for $99. Buying for an Android owner? Get a Galaxy SmartTag (for Samsung folks) or a Tile (any other Android phone owner).

Author and illustrator David Macaulay has been publishing detailed hand-illustrated books since the 1970s, in which he meticulously documents the designing and building of everything from castles, mosques, pyramids and cathedrals to the functioning of specialized or mundane equipment ranging from electric guitars to dentist drills in How Things Work. While these books are designed for readers as young as six, they also double as great coffee table books for all ages. I received several of these books as a child, and still enjoy thumbing through them decades later. Macaulay has even returned and updated some of his classic black-and-white books to add color, including Castle (shown) and Cathedral. 

For under $30, this basic smart clock will give you the time and temperature, as well as Google compatible voice control. (If you're buying for an Alexa household, you'll pay closer to $35 and lose the handy USB charging port on the rear.) Read our Lenovo Smart Clock Essential review. 

There are plenty of great Lego sets available for under $30, including some great Star Wars and Marvel options. Ones I'd recommend for kids as young as 6 or 7 include the 501st Legion Clone Troopers Building Kit (shown); the 3-in-1 Off-Road Buggy Kit; and the Holiday Camper Van.

Some old-school D&D is a nice face-to-face break from the virtual world of video games. The Essentials Kit gives you everything a group of pencil-and-paper adventurers need to get questing, but true beginners can opt for the equally affordable (and newer) Dragons of Stormwreck Isle Starter Set instead. (Those already bored with D&D can dip their toes into the world of Gloomhaven with the Jaws of the Lion set, which is just a tad over $30.)

There are plenty of cheap smart plugs out there, but the Leviton D215P-2RW is our current favorite. The killer feature here is universal compatibility: It works with Google, Alexa or Apple HomeKit smart home setups. Moreover, this gadget's trim design leaves the second outlet open for business. 

True story: In my collegiate days, 3.5-inch floppy disks were a thing, and they stored a whopping 1.44 megabytes of data on them. This flash drive costs under $21, and it stores 128GB, the equivalent of almost 89,000 of those floppy disks. This model sports both USB-A and USB-C connectors, so it'll work with any computer out there as well as newer iPad Pro and Mini models.