Mustachianism and appliances

[Sjalabais]

Just wondered how the Mustachian approach and appliances work out. I have a background in gender studies and dishwashers and washing machines are the holy grail of feminist liberation. My expectation is they are a sort of must-have: Very little cost per run, excellent timesavers. Even though one could say not having them would increase the mileage of cups, plates and socks with near-apocalyptic smell - thus saving costs. But a dryer for instance is a mindless thing: Clothes tend to dry on their own. What about a baking machine? A mixer? Vacuum-cleaner vs a broom? Would the correct Mustachian approach be to consider the cost of purchase and use vs time saved, or mind cluttered (I have seen woefully crowded kitchens)?

[lbmustache]

I personally think of it as a use vs cost thing. I won't buy a mixer because I would use it like 2x a year, and it doesn't make sense even though yes, it would be more "convenient." I also find myself getting anxious when I have too many things.

For the vacuum example, I never had one in my old apartment. I would jokingly tell people that it was too "adult," for me (aka something older people with families have) but I also didn't have any rugs or anything that warranted a vacuum. Now I have several rugs including one very large one, so I bought a $20 Dirt Devil. Does what I need it to do and I can't complain. Do I need a $500 Dyson? No. Same with the washing machine. Do I need the latest and greatest $1000+ one? No, I'm okay with the $200 dented floor model. Gets the job done.

What is a baking machine? An oven? That came with my stove lol.

As always: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/09/18/is-it-convenient-would-i-enjoy-it-wrong-question/
:)

[MrFrugalChicago]

But a dryer for instance is a mindless thing: Clothes tend to dry on their own

Eh, only if your time is free. Cost me 10 cents to run my dryer. Saves me having to walk all the way outside, or hang crap all over my basement. If it even saves me 1 minute, it is 10 cents I will gladly pay.

[ketchup]

Certain appliances make all the sense in the world, and some are dumb.

My washing machine washes a load of laundry way faster than I could do by hand, way better than I could do by hand, using way less water than I could do by hand.  The dryer is also useful but far less necessary 90% of the time.

A broom does a better job than a vacuum cleaner if carpet isn't in the picture.  I have both, and use the vacuum cleaner solely on the carpet, and the broom on tile/wood.

I don't know what a baking machine is (I have an oven with stove).  We have a crappy cheapo Black and Decker hand mixer that gets used about once a year (usually for making yummy whipped cream).  We do have a blender and a food processor that both get used at least once or twice a week and save a lot of time (both were also given to us for free).  Also have a slow cooker and stove-top pressure cooker.

A dishwasher is a tossup.  It probably would save water, but with only two of us at home (and both of us willing to clean up after ourselves), doing dishes by hand doesn't really take that long and I know extends the life of certain more-fragile items.

My refrigerator allows us to keep perishable food from perishing too quickly, therefore it is quite important, doubly-so for the freezer.

Microwave is probably debatable depending on your eating/cooking preferences.  It's the best way to reheat/cook certain things, but a very bad way to reheat other things even if the fastest or most energy efficient.  Ours gets used multiple times a day, mostly for leftovers or "baked" potatoes.

[Nudelkopf]

Being single & in a share house is amazing for appliances.

Things I don't own but come with the house as part of the rental agreement:
1. Washing machine
2. Fridge
3. Dishwasher

Things my housemate contributes, which I get to use:
1. Vacuum cleaner (Dyson, vroom vroom)
2. Microwave

Things I contribute, that my housemate uses:
1. Mixer
* I did have a vacuum cleaner but my housemate's was better quality & we only have room for one, so I sold mine. Vacuum cleaners are a necessity where I live - we don't have proper walls - they're made of louvers, and we live in the desert, so dust is EVERYWHERE. Yet, we did have one nutty housemate who refused to vacuum or sweep - she'd just mop and insist that was enough (it wasn't).


Ummmm, I think that's all we own/use.

[GreenSheep]

I'm not sure there's really a right answer here. I think it's a very personal decision, but it's definitely worth considering when mapping out one's Mustachian life.

Having said that, I think a washing machine is kind of a no-brainer. I've done laundry in sinks while traveling, and those clothes never seem truly clean to me. And a vacuum is an obvious choice if you have rugs that can't be taken outside and beaten.

But I'm in the no-dryer camp (FWIW, I live in Arizona, where things dry in the sun in about 30 minutes, and even jeans dry inside overnight), whereas other people in other climates might feel like a dryer is a must-have.

I also have no dishwasher, which I think works well when each individual in the house is willing and able to wash their own dishes. It helps me minimize my dishes because they're always clean, so I don't need a set of 12 for the two of us. If you have a large family with a lot of kids who aren't of dish-washing age yet, then a dishwasher might be a huge time saver.

On the other hand, I'd be lost without my Vitamix, which many people would say is a huge waste of money (even at $300 for a refurbished one with free shipping). But I use it at least once a day, and it keeps me eating healthy food and enjoying eating at home so I don't care much about eating out, so it could be Mustachian if you spin it that way.

[deborah]

We use our dishwasher as a cupboard for storage of big items. I have a thing that can be used as an urn and ooks like an urn) that lives in the dishwasher, but it is used to water bath all my vegetables etc. and is wonderful because produce is often ripe on the hottest days of the year, when you won't heat up the house with a water bath, so this gets plugged in outside in the shade.

We gave away our clothes dryer, after not using it for the first year we lived here (the place where everyone thinks you would need a dryer the most in Australia).

We don't have big kitchen appliances, like a Vitamix, food processor etc., and instead use a hand held mixer and a stick mixer.

We do use our washing machine and our microwave. The microwave is great for heating vegetables to squish point, when they can be deskined and deseeded (think tomatoes) and pureed before being water bathed. This really reduces the heat in the house at harvest time. But it gets used every day anyway.

I think Mustashianism would cause people to think about how they actually use appliances, and get an appropriate one for their situation. For instance, we use a sandwich press every day, because it can be used to fry eggs, make pancakes, cook sausages... as well as to make toasted sandwiches. It is much more suitable for us than an electric frypan. Other people might make the reverse decision.

[Sjalabais]

Thanks for a lot of good replies! Needing more of everything is certainly a drawback associated with dishwashers. But if I think about us as a family, we put almost everything in that machine and run it probably once a day. When we have lots of people over, it's even more convenient to just shove all the stuff into the dishwasher and lock the door... :)

About the dryer: We have had almost 3100mm of precipitation this year, and 270+ days of rain. Nevertheless, all our stuff dries hanging on lines under the balcony. Energy is not expensive in hydropower-Norway (about 0.057 US-ct per kWh with all costs included), but a dryer is still a massively energyintensive item.

"Backing machine": Maybe a bad translation. It's a little appliance that does the kneading of ingredients and baking of your morning bread overnight. Very popular the further off the grid people live, and even among city dwellers for the money saved making bread themselves (a good bred in Norway will set you back 4.50$ or more). We use the kitchen stove and consider it clutter, but it is slowly becoming a "standard" item around us.

[MMMaybe]

I consider the washing machine, vacuum cleaner and dishwasher to be non-negotiable. They make life easier, so why not? Obviously our fridge and freezer fit in that category too..

Other stuff like our rice cooker, toaster, bread maker and food processor are useful but I think we could do without them if we needed to.

[steviesterno]

i think most of the appliances you mention are great time savers and stress reducers, but not if you go crazy. I certainly don't need $3000 worth of washer/dryer, but the set we got for christmas 3 years ago keeps chugging along fine. frees me up to do what I want, rather than run around dealing with clothes.

dishwasher is a no brainer, too. it makes clean up much easier, which makes cooking more of an incentive, which means it gets done more often than going out or ordering in. ever look at a pile of crap in the sink and say fuck it, ordering a pizza and eating it right out of the box? we all have.
Same territory in the price arena. now we did just get a brand new $700 dishwasher, but we got it from someone upgrading (right color, wrong brand to match their other appliances, but who gives a shit) so we paid $50 for it. moved and installed myself. Saves water and electricity is pretty minimal.

[RetiredAt63]

My tendency is to have the appliances I actually use, and not get too fancy with the controls.  My last house had a combined oven/microwave oven built-in, and when the control board went for the microwave, we ended up replacing the whole thing - expensive and such a nuisance.  Here when my microwave died, I tried to fix it, that didn't work (more broken than originally apparent) and Kijiji provided me with an even nicer one for not much money.

Side rant - the guy I bought the microwave from was moving, and it didn't match the appliances in the new place - so he sold a very nice microwave, well over $100 new, for $30. Well it doesn't match my appliances either (black microwave, white stove and fridge) but it almost disappears on the kitchen counter under the cabinet, so less visual clutter than my old white one.  His loss, my gain.

[GreenSheep]

ever look at a pile of crap in the sink and say fuck it, ordering a pizza and eating it right out of the box? we all have.

No, never have. Grew up in a place there was no pizza delivery. Then, when I was a teenager, it was a big day when Domino's declared their delivery guy would go far enough to MEET a customer a mile from where I lived. So I just never got in the habit of ordering pizza and still have never ordered one despite the fact that I live in a big city now. I'd rather wash the pile of dishes than deal with ordering, waiting, tipping, and then eating the greasy mess.

But I do know you're not alone! I used to cringe every time my friend threw away a plastic (or even glass!) container with moldy leftovers in it because she didn't want to clean it. That makes just ordering a pizza and delaying the dishes look pretty benign. :-)

[HenryDavid]

Some appliances have more than one use. Here in Canada our favourite appliance is our gas furnace!
Keeps the house so comfortable. Also, when you hang your jeans fresh from the washing machine over the heating grates, presto, they are dry overnight. So we don't feel the need to use a dryer very often, except for large bedding stuff.

You can always get appliances 2nd hand in good shape. Habitat for Humanity sells them near us. That said, we got our stove/fridge/dishwasher on one of those "interest-free for one year" deals for a good price. Paid in full before the interest kicked in.

Finally, re: dishwashers. They are convenient. But why on earth do they have a "heated dry" option? Those dishes were just rinsed in steaming hot water. Open the dishwasher and they air-dry in two minutes.

[RetiredAt63]

Love my furnace.  Especially today, in the middle of a snowstorm (-10C and windy).

You are making yourself work too much re the dishwasher.  Mine has the heated dry option turned off, and I don't bother opening the door.  They dry just fine.  Save yourself the effort of remembering to open the door  ;-)  Especially if you are on time of use billing and the dishwasher runs late in the evening.

Some appliances have more than one use. Here in Canada our favourite appliance is our gas furnace!

Finally, re: dishwashers. They are convenient. But why on earth do they have a "heated dry" option? Those dishes were just rinsed in steaming hot water. Open the dishwasher and they air-dry in two minutes.

[redbird]

Technically my apartment has a dishwasher in it, but it's really old and is gross. It's kinda permanently yellow inside. I don't know what's going on there. I don't know if it works or not since I've never bothered to use it. My apartment place won't replace anything unless it's actually broken (and then they'll try to repair it first) so I'd be stuck with it if it works. And seriously. It's too gross. I'd rather wash by hand.

My apartment also did not have a washing machine or dryer, though it does have hookups. This is common for apartments in this area, from what I noticed when apartment hunting. The choices were to 1) use the coin washers in their laundry room (I tried this at first and it ate money plus didn't work well plus was inconvenient since it's not even in my building), 2) to pay $30 a month to rent a washer/dryer from a company, or 3) to buy. I elected to buy, since I found a good priced washer and it was cheaper than 1 year's worth of rent to rent from the rental company.

I did NOT buy a dryer. I hang dry my clothes. This is not a fast process and 1 load of laundry takes most of 1 whole day to dry. Fortunately, I only wash about 1 load a week so it's not a big deal. I had to buy a drying rack from IKEA, but it was only like $15. That's way cheaper than a dryer + the electricity to run it. I do run an electric fan pointed at the clothes to help them dry better, but again, it doesn't use much power. I dry them indoors because I have to - I don't live on a ground floor apartment and we're not allowed to put clothes lines on our balconies.

I don't drink coffee so I don't have a coffee maker, but I do drink tea. I have this electric kettle that only takes a few minutes to heat water to boiling - less time and less electricity than boiling water on the stove. I bought it several years ago, but even new it only cost $20.

The microwave and rice cooker are non-negotiables to me. I use them a lot. I can get away without using an oven (I proved it in Japan for 3 years, where I literally had no oven) if I have a microwave, a rice cooker, and a stovetop. I know I can cook rice on the stovetop, but honestly rice cookers make rice so much better and easier, and it's not an electric hog.

I think that's really it. My big electricity savers are not owning/using a dryer, and the fact that I installed LED light bulbs. This apartment had a lot of the terrible, power hogging, heat generating incandescents. Incandescents use approximately 75% more power than LED bulbs. LED bulbs are cheap enough now that you only need about 1 year to pay off their cost, and every year beyond that is just savings. LED bulbs can last up to 20 years too. They're more Mustachian IMO than some of these should you use appliance x or not arguments.

[forumname123]

But a dryer for instance is a mindless thing: Clothes tend to dry on their own

Eh, only if your time is free. Cost me 10 cents to run my dryer. Saves me having to walk all the way outside, or hang crap all over my basement. If it even saves me 1 minute, it is 10 cents I will gladly pay.

Come on now, that's only true if you only consider the power costs. There's also the upfront cost of purchasing the thing, and the fact that your clothes wont last as long.

Dryer, no dryer, I don't really care. But be honest with yourself about the numbers if you're going to use them as an argument one way or the other.

[redbird]

But a dryer for instance is a mindless thing: Clothes tend to dry on their own

Eh, only if your time is free. Cost me 10 cents to run my dryer. Saves me having to walk all the way outside, or hang crap all over my basement. If it even saves me 1 minute, it is 10 cents I will gladly pay.

Come on now, that's only true if you only consider the power costs. There's also the upfront cost of purchasing the thing, and the fact that your clothes wont last as long.

Dryer, no dryer, I don't really care. But be honest with yourself about the numbers if you're going to use them as an argument one way or the other.

I agree with MrFrugalChicago though. If I still worked, I would have bought a dryer for my apartment. I had far less free time when I worked.

Maybe things are easier if you are able to hang clothes outside, but indoors I have to flip the clothes over every few hours so it'll completely dry and not stay wet too long and get mildewy smells (I had this happen with towels at first!). It's not trivial because you have to have the time AND to remember to do it. The only reason I decided not to buy a dryer is I am FIRE'd, I have more free time now, and so saving a bit more actual $$ was more important to me. If I was working, my free time would've been more important to me than the cost. When I worked, I would not have had the time to wait for a whole day for clothes to dry and to keep flipping them over during that time.

[pbkmaine]

Thanks for a lot of good replies! Needing more of everything is certainly a drawback associated with dishwashers. But if I think about us as a family, we put almost everything in that machine and run it probably once a day. When we have lots of people over, it's even more convenient to just shove all the stuff into the dishwasher and lock the door... :)

About the dryer: We have had almost 3100mm of precipitation this year, and 270+ days of rain. Nevertheless, all our stuff dries hanging on lines under the balcony. Energy is not expensive in hydropower-Norway (about 0.057 US-ct per kWh with all costs included), but a dryer is still a massively energyintensive item.

"Backing machine": Maybe a bad translation. It's a little appliance that does the kneading of ingredients and baking of your morning bread overnight. Very popular the further off the grid people live, and even among city dwellers for the money saved making bread themselves (a good bred in Norway will set you back 4.50$ or more). We use the kitchen stove and consider it clutter, but it is slowly becoming a "standard" item around us.

We call it a bread machine or a breadmaker.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Astatine]

I'm intrigued by the essential must have differences in this thread.

For me, our essentials are:

- refrigerator
- washing machine
- kettle (yes, you can boil water on the stove but the kettle gets used many times per day)

The not essential but life would be annoying without are:

- microwave
- stick blender
- slow cooker

Could probably live without:

- toaster (don't eat bread much these days, and there is always the griller)


I've never had a dryer or functioning dishwasher. Humidity is low in my city so things dry quickly on the line or indoors on racks. If you have several small children and use cloth nappies, then I could see it's worthwhile having one but otherwise, nope. UV is a good disinfectant too.

[Liggy]

We've just bought a dishwasher (I'm fitting it this evening) as we found after a long days work and cooking that the dishes were mounting up. This meant we were eating out more than we should because we didn't fancy dirtying any more plates! Should reduce some stress in our household so I'd consider it an essential!

[Sjalabais]

Agreeing with Astatine here, people across different climates do cope differently, and I guess the degree one is involved in the kitchen might have some say, too.

We heat our house with the floor heating in the bathroom - apart from that it's only firewood. This is cheap, incredibly efficient (at least with a modern fireplace) and it's a lot of good exercise getting there. That enables us not to have electric or oil heaters all across the house, which is something visitors tend to react to.

We've just bought a dishwasher (I'm fitting it this evening) as we found after a long days work and cooking that the dishes were mounting up. This meant we were eating out more than we should because we didn't fancy dirtying any more plates! Should reduce some stress in our household so I'd consider it an essential!

Ha! That's actually worthwhile mustachian motivation.

[Rural]

We've just bought a dishwasher (I'm fitting it this evening) as we found after a long days work and cooking that the dishes were mounting up. This meant we were eating out more than we should because we didn't fancy dirtying any more plates! Should reduce some stress in our household so I'd consider it an essential!

On a number of occasions I've chosen to go to bed hungry rather than do dishes, so even if it didn't save water and power, a dishwasher would be on my "won't do without" list. Mine was a gift, but I'd much rather work the extra time to buy one (and replace/ maintain indefinitely) than retire without one.

[steviesterno]

I'd like to add an appliance I think it worth while. Toaster oven. we got a really expensive convection version for something silly like $5 used, and it's perfect. we only have to heat a small area when we're making something small, and some stuff re-heated is way better baked or broiled than microwaved. we've used it probably ever other day since we got it.

oh another one that's not mandatory but amazing is an electric smoker. You don't have to tend them all day, just set and forget. plus you can make a ton of food for a bunch of people. Fat drips off and stuff tastes fried, but isn't. just good and crispy on the outside and moist in it. we did our wedding rehearsal dinner for 12 people for like $40 with it, including 10 pounds of left overs. then I did a big thank you dinner for my students and support staff where we cooked something like 40 pounds of meat. for 40 people. whole thing was $60, everybody was happy, and a pile of left overs got to feed a coworker's family who had just lost his mom (tons of people in town and not interested in cooking).
a smoker lets you get crappier cuts of meat and make them amazing.

[MrFrugalChicago]

But a dryer for instance is a mindless thing: Clothes tend to dry on their own

Eh, only if your time is free. Cost me 10 cents to run my dryer. Saves me having to walk all the way outside, or hang crap all over my basement. If it even saves me 1 minute, it is 10 cents I will gladly pay.

Come on now, that's only true if you only consider the power costs. There's also the upfront cost of purchasing the thing, and the fact that your clothes wont last as long.

Dryer, no dryer, I don't really care. But be honest with yourself about the numbers if you're going to use them as an argument one way or the other.

My house came with current dryer. If it died, would be $500 to replace, which is at most 5 hours work. 5 hours spread over 10 years? Sign me up!

[Kitsunegari]

We have everything a family needs, and then some.
We have fridge and stove of course, then washer and drier and i wouldn't want to livello here without. I lived a single year in QC without drier and it was an absolute PITA. No thanx, never again.
Then we have a dishwasher, for which i insisted and i'd buy it again when this one dies, but i could live without.
Then we have plenty of cooking paraphernalia - bread machine, yogurt maker, coffee maker, toaster, coffee grinder, band mixer, slow cooker, blender, magic bullet, ice-cream machine and sorbet machine.
...wow, i never realized we have this much stuff. I find mostra stuff is useful, none is necessary.

[Sjalabais]

Did you just say "magic bullet"? No witch broom? :)

[GreenSheep]

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=magic+bullet