If/when doing plumbing work, look for places to install extra shut-off valves in strategic places.
Depending on where the problem is, you may have to shut off the water to the whole house. And when things go awry, an extra valve or two in some places can keep the water running to other places in the house.
I “zone” valved my house when I did some major plumbing work a few years ago and have valves that stop water by floor. Came in VERY handy later.
For those who carry a purse/other bag but don’t want to have to carry some sort of massive wallet or dayplanner: toss an empty envelope in there. It can even be one of the smaller ones. If it stays empty–no biggie, it doesn’t take up much space. but if you ever get something like a receipt you actually want to keep instead of tossing right away, or a business card, or a phone number, or (this one just happened with me) a parking sticker… anything small and papery that you need to transport from one place to another, put it in the envelope and it won’t get all mangled by the time you get it home/work/wherever it was going (and finally remember after however many days to actually take it out of your purse/bag).
Also, keeping a razor blade (this kind) handy is incredibly useful for many, many things. I keep one in the living room concealed in a decorative vase/jar of pot pourri (just stuck down in with the edge poking out–you can barely see it). When I get a package or something, I just grab it and open it and stick it back in the vase. Something stuck on some glass? Scrape it off with that puppy. I do own a box cutter, but I’d say I use the bare razor blade probably 20 times more often than a box cutter or x-acto knife or anything like that. And they’re so small you can conceal them all kinds of places, so they’re handy. As a bonus, in the case of a home invasion, you can grab it and slash up your attacker’s face!
Wrong thread, perhaps? 
It may not, in hindsight, be a jigsaw fit, but it’s a DIY alternative to carrying around a huge wallet in order to keep up with small papers and things in one’s bag, and a suggestion that a razorblade is a DIY godsend in so many ways, even over tools designed to do the same purpose. Anyway, like I said, possibly only partially on topic. Sorry.
