ecosophia | Frugal Friday

Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.

Rule #1: this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc. I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2: this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3: please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about. Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Me, I'd can the electric coffee maker and use a stovetop cowboy coffee set up instead. The coffee maker is nice, however it takes up so much counterop space. It has a built in coffee grinder, which I regret, it's very loud. When I was a kid my grandma used a simple Amish-sytle coffee grinder, probably cost a dollar, worked fine.

I'd also can the microwave.

I won't be doing either, however. It so happens that both the coffee maker and the microwave are new and really very nice. So I have what's called, I guess, a First World Problem.

(I use my microwave as a Faraday Cage for the phones, by the way.)

Anyway, it's a good thought experiment. I expect that I'll be using the coffee maker and the microwave until they wear out, or else I have someone to give them to when I move to another house.

PS My dishwasher broke down recently and until I could get it repaired it was a total headache to wash all those dishes by hand. I'm definitely keeping the dishwasher, LOL.

Depends how you use the dishwasher, everyone I see rinses off the dishes so thoroughly BEFORE putting them in the dishwasher, they may as well just set them in the dish drainer to dry, or it would only be the teenest more effort to have them all the way clean. What a waste of water (yes, I live in California)
and time. I used to have a very nice dishwasher, an Asko, very quiet, I bought it when I had medical problems, I couldnt put my arm in water for a long time. Anyway, when I had a full house it worked out fine, no dishes were pre-rinsed, either just scraped off into the compost bin or on occasion, given to the dog to clean off, then set in the dishwasher. And it was run every day, every day after dinner.

What I see at other houses is dishes rinsed off, rubbed down, very thoroughly, as they are only running the dishwasher twice a week " when it is full". That should be obvious then that they are cleaned off, set in the dishwsher to dry until it is run to "sterilize" them.

If it takes you forever to hand wash dishes, you are out of practice as it is barely longer than rinsing them for thedishwasher. Unless something needs to besoaked and scrubbed, but then dishwashers dont do that and that always has to be done by hand.

Atmospheric RIver

That should be obvious then that they are cleaned off, set in the dishwasher to dry until it is run to "sterilize" them.

In most of the professional kitchens I worked in, sanitizing was the only purpose for such a machine. Human dishwashers took care of the cleaning. The larger kitchens would often have a machine that was specifically designed just for sanitizing. They might have gotten hot enough to sterilize but I couldn't say for sure.

Caldathras

Frugal Friday

Re: Getting rid of the dishwasher

Re: Getting rid of the dishwasher

Re: Getting rid of the dishwasher