I use an old phone that doesn’t hold a charge as an always-on Home Assistant kiosk. Even if you don’t run Home Assistant, there might be some other sort of dashboard-like thing that could be useful to have always visible.

If youve got the space, it can be as simple as just piling them up and leaving them for a few years. My mom does this, they take about three years to break down into usable compost. They’ll go faster if chopped up by running the lawn mower over them before raking, or using a reverse leaf blower that shreds them.

There’s also definitely no need to buy a fancy compost bin - you’d do just fine with a garbage can with the bottom sawn off to let the worms in. My municipality also had bins for sale for like $25 that have worked well for me.