If you’ve just moved into a new home and you don’t know what appliances and gadgets you first have to purchase for your kitchen, we’re here to help. In this article, you’ll find several suggestions that you can use whenever you’re feeling insecure about which things you need and which ones you can do without.

It goes without saying that we won’t be mentioning things like your refrigerator, freezer or stove, and that’s because most people whose kitchens are new have probably made those purchases already. After all, you do need something to store your food in.

It is very tempting to get as many cooking appliances as possible so as to make your life easier. We’ve made this mistake in the past, and the fact is that your kitchen space will become crowded and you’ll find that you have no use for that brand new waffle maker or expensive juicer because you like making pancakes in your good old skillet or you enjoy using your citrus squeezer more.

That said, one of the first pieces of advice that we can give you is to try to keep an open mind and understand whether you really require all that equipment. Perhaps you lead a somewhat busy life, and you have little to no time at your disposal to cook that much food. In this case, your kitchen needs to be packed with highly functional and compact appliances and gadgets that can help you save time.

Here are four types of products you may want to consider if you want to make the most of your cooking.

A scale

If you have no prior experience when it comes to cooking or you like to try new things in the kitchen, we urge you get a gram scale or a digital one for your recipe-making endeavors. It’s practically impossible to get it right the first time if you wing it and use your eyes to measure the amounts of ingredients you should utilize. You wouldn’t believe how useful a scale can be in your kitchen, and the best thing about most of the models we’ve stumbled upon is that they do not cost a pretty penny.

An electric kettle

Whether you want to use it to make tea or coffee in your French press, or you sometimes require it to make different types of dough, the fact is that an electric kettle can save you time and make your life a whole lot easier. Sure, if you have a microwave oven, you can also use it to heat up some water. However, kettles are healthier and often have a larger capacity compared to the amount of water you can heat up in a microwave oven.

A convection oven

The best thing about convection ovens these days is that they can be used for a variety of purposes and they come with heaps and heaps of settings. Some of the units we’ve found even have functions for microwaving and toasting bread.

This kind of appliance is by far one of the most useful ones we’ve come across. Unfortunately, most convection ovens are quite expensive, so you do need to figure out whether or not you’re going to use the product often.