Scott I agree just turn off the heater on the DW, you have never had much dishes in a day so you can wait how many days to run it? Soon as its done open it pull racks out and everything will flash dry in a few minutes except plastics. Keep running the sanitize cycle also since you let the babies lick the plates lol. You can't hand wash dog licked dishes, as you would need to wash them twice or the dishwater is just going to be full of dog Silva. And I KNOW your not going to take their favorate treat away Haha.

Another consideration, as mama pointed out........how much are you willing to save if it means jeopardizing your health?

Wow. I've never owned a dishwasher, or a clothes dryer...! :-)

i could do without the dishwasher since I so not have one, but the clothes dryer is a must in my house. I could string a clothes line in my backyard, but its useless most of our winter days. I could do what my Mama did in winter: Hang them outdoors to drip as much as possible and when frozen, bring the clothes indoors to finish drying. She'd have lines strung from door frame to door frame crisscrossing the kitchen with thawing clothes dripping on the linoleum floor. Hopefully, most of the water would evaporate as it thawed. (Mama's winters were not as severe as mine.)

Nope. I fear that I am a "city" boy now. For one week, I'd go to a laundromat.

I've never used a dishwasher. Our clothes dry on the line outside or in the basement on lines suspended from the ceiling. We do at least half out laundry by hand, too. Am thinking about getting one of those roller-squeezer things such as in your photo (is that really your grandma). What are those called?

I imagine your efforts can really get your energy use down, as our power company tells us that we are at the 10th percentile for electric as compared to other small homes. The company came to check our meter apart from the regular schedule for meter maintenance. We reckon they suspected it wasn't working right.

Oh, a good sprinkle of baking soda and a tiny bit of water on dog licked dishes will break up the weird, tenacious (ick) dog saliva like magic. Then just wash as normal.

Good luck on that energy and money saving!

That roller-squeezer thing is called a mangle! My mother used to use one - only hers was the enormous cast-iron floor-standing type with a big wooden handle. (Why does the Dylan line 'the pump don't work cos the vandals took the handle' come to mind here? - oh yes, rhymes with mangle...)

Anyway, this monster stood in a dark, dank, freezing cold scullery at the back of the house, on the cold, dark flagstoned floor - now, no doubt, a treasured 'character feature' - where she had to do all the washing by hand in the big old porcelain sink in the corner under the one small window. After being fed through the mangle everything went outside on the clothesline to dry as much as possible in the damp English weather, then back indoors and onto the clothes-horse or draped somewhere relatively warm and airy to get the last of the dampness out - probably in the kitchen near the Raeburn, which as far as I remember was on all the time in winter. Then everything got ironed, folded and neatly piled in the big airing cupboard, which was at one end of an enormous linen cupboard. This was (part of) what impoverished 1950s clergymen's wives had to cope with alone in enormous old country rectories built long ago for much richer people with servants. (There was still the row of old bells and clangers, along with a newer version with lights and the names of all the rooms, for summoning the servants, high up on the kitchen wall.) Not surprisingly perhaps, my dear mother suffered from depression for most of the time we were growing up.

In smaller houses and flats in England people often had a wooden rack over the bath (tub) for drip drying and airing. They were on pulleys so you could wind them up and down as needed. (In some of the poorest houses the bathtub would double as the kitchen table, too - you just had to pop the lid off or on!)

Anyway, my poor mother absolutely hated that mangle, though I can't remember quite why, and it's too late to ask her.. It was an object of great fascination for me, but as young children, we were always being warned to keep back from it and not put our fingers in the rollers. I think she'd jammed a finger in there at some point, and got a pretty nasty crushed/bruised hand. Blessings on you, dear Nancy, wherever you are... (sheds a little tear...) :-)

Colleenoz - I did not intend to imply hand washing is not okay. My reference was to the dogs using the same dishes.

You can't hand wash dog licked dishes, as you would need to wash them
twice or the dishwater is just going to be full of dog Silva.

Proper washing in the sink with hot water, etc is effective and so is the dishwasher. My preference is separate dishes for pets and people.

My vet did tell me diseases can be transferred from pets to people via dishes.

Also, since the church's kitchen doesn't have a dishwasher, bleach is used on the dishes to disinfect them.

Yah. I don't find hand washing dishes as unsanitary. Maybe it is under today's standards that water must be 155 - 160 degrees.

But dishes were washed by hand for thousands of years before the dishwasher was invented & people survived.

Scott - I agree. I have a dishwasher, but rarely use it. Hand washing seems quicker and works for me. I have to run the tap to get the water hot enough, so I fill my watering containers. Otherwise, I boil a few kettles to pour in.

I could manage without the dryer, but I would really miss not having a dishwasher as that's a chore I really don't like. As has been posted above, I don't use the drying cycle; I open the dishwasher at the end of the cycle and let the dishes air dry. The only thing that might need a swipe with the dish towel are pots and pans or plastic food storage containers. The glassware, mugs, plates and silverware always comes out dry. Plus, I like to stick my face in there when I open the door. That steam is like getting a quick facial!

The roller squeezer thing is a wringer. A mangle has heated rollers for ironing large things like sheets. Which they did back in the days.

Oh, yeah, of course-- a wringer. That's pretty simple.

Comtess, I think the 'mangle' was responsible for a lot of people losing fingers, hands and arms. That's why it was not liked. I knew some people who still didn't have running water back in the 70's. One of these people had the outdoor washing setup. I never saw her use it. She always told us kids to stay away from it so we didn't get hurt. We had local washaterias/laundromats. I think they went there to wash clothes instead.

Luckily I don't need a mangle. I'm accident prone enough. But my front load spins clothes where they're almost dry anyway.

Although a full load of heavy towels & jeans do take awhile in the dryer even after coming out of the front loader.

Honestly I LOVE my dishwasher. I hate doing dishes. But even while not using they dry cycle it's "always" heating water. It brings every wash & rinse up to a factory specified temp & I can't stop it - unless I turn my hot water heater all the way up. Which will scald me. (With my luck).

Also, that's not my Grandma in the picture. It's off google. But I know how she feels.

Scott, somewhere in this world there is a photo of my mate's grandmother hanging clothes on her farm's clothesline from a boat during a huge flood. We hope the photo resurfaces some day.

Check with your power companies if rates are lower after 10 pm. I run both washer, dishwasher and sometimes the dryer late at night. For daytime, I wash, then tumble for about 3 minutes and then hang to dry. Towels and sheets are dried in the machine. Always a full load for all machines.

Some people just never learned how to wash dishes. My sil is one. Her dishes are caked in who knows what I will not eat there. When I visit I always bring take out coffee and pastry.

I think it's great your saving "resources". I used to scoop bath water for the flowers in the deck pots. I quit my gym membership. Didn't have time to go. I also put in LED lights. Aren't they the BEST!

To: mathias_lang

That roller-squeezy thing is called a "wringer". The one pictured above is a hand cranked one, and as such, one rarely got injuried with one of these as long as one had the sense to stop cranking. Injuries did happen when a second party did the cranking, for example, little brother was cranking and little sister was feeding clothes to the wringer.

Though, one mishap could occur for someone with long hair. If you weren't watching and the tip of your long hair entered between the rollers, the hair could become wound around a roller making it difficult to extract yourself by reversing the rollers. You were trapped until someone else cut you loose with a pair of scissors. The resultant 'hair cut' usually was awful and hated.

The potential for injury increased dramatically with the advent of motor powered machines, either by gasoline or electric motor. Inventors went to work to make a 'safety wringer'. One popular version has a trip bar across the front of the wringer. Pressing the bar tripped the wringer allowing the upper part of the frame to pop open and at the same time, disengage the drive gears at the ends of the rollers. This was a good advance, but yet another improvement was added to some models. Pressure between the rollers was supplied by springs thus allowing the rollers to move apart a bit to accommodate varying thicknesses of clothing. If something too thick got between the rollers, it also tripped open the upper part of the frame. This could create a nuisance trip when Dad's big, thick, tough overalls were fed into the wringers. Those has to be oriented just so to make it through the rollers. It was an adjustment dance to eliminate the nuisance tripping and yet provide enough sensitivity for safety. This problem caused hatred.

Then someone got the idea to spin the tub and fling the water out of the laundry - Wringers disappeared. A lid was required to prevent access to a spinning tub. Another safety feature was needed and that was to stop a spinning tub if the lid was raised. The spinning mass of the tub with laundry is a big hazard.

Hand cranked wringers are yet useful in remote locations without power.

Definition of Mangle: To injure or disfigure by cutting, tearing, crushing, etc.

The descriptor, mangle, certainly could have been used to unloving refer to a powered wringer.

Then LED lights are SO different. They are a beauty bright white. Unlike the yellow light that the CFL's were. I like it! Don't miss the yellow.

Unfortunately the power company doesn't offer night rates. We had that option when I lived in Phoenix. But not in Ohio. Probably because we don't have the extremely hot temps in the daytime.

Scott, did you use the brands suggested by AEP? AEP offers an instant store rebate on some brands. I prefer CREE, but use TCP for some applications, like the Elite 3 way lamp bulbs.

I got these. I don't need 3ways I'm happy with 100 watts.

Congratulations on your economizing efforts. Keep us posted on how it goes.

I used to track the kWh and therms used. It was interesting to see. I would know approximately how many of each would be used in a particular month and if it was out of line I could see if I needed to adjust something. Obviously unusually hot or cold months would increase energy use but I knew that for instance, my water heater at the time used about 16 therms/mo. I also tracked the cost per kWh and therm and I found it interesting and even motivating at times.

I did run the dishwasher today. I figure I should run at least once a week to keep it from drying up or rotting.

Why would you need to run it more than once a week, if you live alone? I just hand wash my pots and pans, rinse the rest and run it when it's full.

There is no way I'm hanging all my laundry on lines in my basement. If I'm that poor, I should just sell my house and move to someplace cheaper.

I'm not an extravagant person, but I do want lights on in my house - I have no intention of staggering around in the dark, I want to wash and dry my clothes using machines, and use my dishwasher and disposal. I'm far too old to "go off the grid". I think I was ALWAYS too old!

Line drying in the basement allows thousands of dust mites to burrow in, waiting for you to wear the clothes or sleep in the bed.

I have a relative in Canada who removed the dishwasher breaker to keep his wife from using it. He hates the dishwasher. He's 77.

"I have a relative in Canada who removed the dishwasher breaker to keep his wife from using it. He hates the dishwasher. He's 77." I hope he always washes the dishes! If he doesn't, if I was his wife, I would certainly have a "word" (or maybe more) with him.

Well I know there's a couple cups of water down in the belly of the dishwasher that never get sucked out until it's ran again. Don't want that to mold or mildew.

I'm not sure how long it would take to get dustmites on my clothes from hanging in the basement. They only hang for about 6 hours & I take them all down. Dustmites are everywhere anyway. Can't worry about them. I'm sure they're in everyone's mattress, pillows & furniture unless you vacuum those items daily.

SIL had one of those collapsible drying racks in her "laundry room" She would hang/drape the majority of stuff right out of washer and just let it air dry. Then she'd toss stuff in dryer with a damp wash cloth with fabric softener on it and just let it go for 5-10 minutes. Most stuff was ready to be hung or folded after just a short spin.

Anglophilia, I don't think this thread was meant to present recommendations for you personally. If you ever do find yourself poor, though, the sale of the house you speak of probably would help. (And maybe you'd still have appliances.) In the last decade a lot of people had to swallow their pride and do just that.

Let me encourage you that you would find all kinds of ways to cope and make do if needed. You would learn to substitute elbow grease, time, raw or recycled materials, and good cheer for some of the things that money once provided. You'd learn to flatly do without other things you once could have.

If you are faced with poverty you will get the chance to find out what you are really made of, how resilient of mind and body you are. Doing what needs to be done is what most everyone would do unless they pretty much curl up in a ball of hopelessness or flame out in anger.

I really miss my washer and dryer . Living in a travel trailer does have some drawbacks. Most of the laundrymats we use are nice and clean. I never had had a dishwasher, so I don't miss one.

Matthias..Huh??

Can't even imagine a dishwasher without a way to turn off sanitize cycle, be it a cycle setting or dedicated button. My first one had no way to turn off the dry cycle so I would listen for it to stop and open it to air dry, as others have mentioned.

My cleaning lady would quit if no dish washer or dryer .

Matthias, I've never been so poor that I didn't know how I would eat or where I would live, but I've also never been rich. Most of my life was spent paycheck to paycheck, and doing for myself and making do - it's how I was raised and lived until recently. I would happily do for myself now if I could. And yes, I am VERY blessed that I now have the means to pay someone to clean and do yard work and paint for me. I am not unaware that this IS a blessing for which I am very grateful!

You made an assumption that I was born into a life of privilege and had never had to do anything for myself. You are VERY wrong about that! I'm glad that I've never been so poor that I had to worry that if I ran the clothes dryer (if I had one!), that I could not pay my electric bill. But I doubt there are very many people on GW in that category - unless they are reading it on free computers at the public library. If they can afford a computer, they most likely are not so poor that they can't afford to run the clothes dryer once a week.

I chose not to have/use a clothes dryer, cause I know, it bumps up my cost of electricity. It has nothing to do with poor, it has to do with priorities. I also don't have a dishwasher... again, just me, why? I just wash dishes once a day, and get it done. Helps me get my nails clean, after spending time working in the yard. :) Moni

WOW! Got my electric
bill today!! What a huge savings. And that’s not even a full 30 days since I
started cutting down my electric usage.
Oh I hope next month is even less!

Current bill: Metered
Usage: 799 KWH

Last month bill: Metered
Usage: 1,452 KWH

Scott...Way to go!!! Thats a huge drop, Now what are you buying yourself special? LOL.

Scott that's great! You've made a big dent in that electricity use! You are inspiring. By the way, I'm with you in preferring bluish light to the yellow light that we were trained to prefer by living with incandescent bulbs ever since Edison. The bluer light is more like outdoors under the blue sky. I have not tried any LED bulbs yet. Very curious to try. I do notice they will fit in some of our ceiling fixtures better than compact fluorescents do.

By the way, I'm trying to decide which kitchen clock to disable. I guy I know (only from internet) uses solar-voltaic only and he said he metered the clock on his microwave oven, finding that he could run the oven on high for 13.6 hours for the energy it takes to run the clock for one year. He has to be really careful with electric use. Seeing that I have a clock like that on my microwave, one like it on the gas range, and an 1960s analog clock on the kitchen wall, I'm thinking I'm going to stop using one of the three clocks.

My circuit breaker is off for the stove/oven, microwave & dishwasher so no clocks. I have a battery clock in the kitchen I now use.

Took some adjusting but it's all good.

Really the only vampire electric sucking thing I have, and will not disable is my garage door opener. Too much trouble. So it stays on 24/7.

Oh, and the refrigerator, can't turn that baby off.

At night EVERYTHING is unplugged & power strips off, unless I'm recording TV programs (the DVR stays on), charging phone & running fan in bedroom.

All lighting is turned off at 8am (as I wake up at 1am) and blinds are open. Laptop no longer stays plugged in all day. Both washers are unplugged unless in use because they have electric digital displays that draw electric.

I have a new drying method that works great. Just for towels cause I like them soft. I put them in the dryer on high. Run for 15 minutes then shut circuit breaker off. Let towels sit in hot dryer for 20 minutes without it running. Then use fluff cycle for 10 minutes. If anything is damp I put it on the clothsline.

I still use the clothsline for everything else.

Summer will be a challenge. Especially if it's another hot one. With my emphysema I have to have AC. I have a window unit downstairs & window unit in bedroom. They didn't cost too much to run last year because I don't cool the whole house. I only run the unit for which room I'm in.

The tough part is that since I'm on 100% disability I do all my own cooking. And that sure heats up the kitchen. But I do most everything in the pressure cooker so it's done fast & doesn't release "too" much heat.

I've started turning the stove off early & letting the pressure cooker still finish the meal. It takes longer but saves electric.

I also keep my robot vacuum unplugged once it's fully charged instead of leaving it charge 24/7.

Honestly doing these things are a bit inconvenient, but I'm learning.

YA- A-A-A-A-A-Y Scott! ! ! ! You have really gone to extremes, but it looks the time, effort and inconvenience is worth it. You've inspired me to try a bit harder, too. Do you have, or can you get a small fan to use in the kitchen when you are cooking? Seems like that would help quite a bit. Is there a window in there that you could put a fan in to pull the hot air out?

Rusty

I have a ceiling fan in the kitchen & French doors. But no screen. Too many flies & bugs if I leave the doors open.

Wow! That's a big savings! I don't have a dishwasher (very small kitchen) but there are only two of us. I wash all the dishes once a day. We do run the dryer, but it has some type of sensor that turns it off when the clothes are dry. Our biggest expense is AC. It gets really hot in the summer. I planted some trees for the shade, so in about 20 years that should really pay off!

Hey, thanks for the idea to unplug the garage door opener. We never use the remote and the plug is right next to the switch, so it is no problem to plug it in and then push the switch to operate.

We made insulating curtains for most of the windows and that really helps in winter and summer. We also use the pressure cooker to save energy and to not contribute as much humidity and heat to the house in summer.

Matthias, my garage door opener is plugged into the ceiling in the garage & I can't reach it. So I leave it on all the time.

Plus as per my "would you be missed post" I have a back up plan incase I died at night. So 2 of my friends have the remote garage door openers & if it was unplugged they'd never get in.

I was curious how your "frugalizing" was going. Interesting. At my electric rates your savings would be around $110 in that time frame. That's significant.

FWIW, I basically figure about $1-$1.25 per day to run a window a/c unit. I consider that a worthwhile "splurge" to me to use it. One mistake a lot of people make is when there's one nice day they open up then when the heat returns they have to work the a/c harder to make up for the loss when they would have been better off leaving the place closed up and run the a/c at a lower (power consumption) setting.

With the savings, I would suggest you reinvest part of it in "energy upgrades". First is a screen for your door. You can get something as simple as the big sheets of screening with magnetic attachments to allow you to go in and out. Not sure if there's an issue with the dogs but you might have gates across the lower part to enable air flow and possibly discourage the dogs from going out, unless they're jumpers.

Another suggestion is for your cooking. A tabletop convection oven can be had for about $30. They're wonderful units. And an electric roaster is another option. Don't get suckered into an obsolete slow cooker. The roaster is an oven and you can set it in the garage, patio, deck, or outside on a compatible day and still do your cooking and baking without the heat issues. The convection oven is surprisingly fast for a lot of things. I use mine a lot.

One thing I put in with the first garage door opener is a keypad. I first had a key switch that required a key which worked fine but you had to have a key to use it. I replaced it with a digital keypad and have been very glad to have it. When I have guests I can program a temporary code for them so they can get into the garage, I then hide a key for the back door and they can get in. For a while, I even used a keypad door lock that was great... until it died.

Another item to consider is a Kill-A-Watt meter. You can use it to find out how much it actually costs you to run something. It could be very helpful to find out if it's really saving you a significant amount to unplug something that you use regularly and it can tell you what the vampire loads really total.

I'm curious about something. Was the prior month an unusual month in any way? That really seems like a lot of electricity although I'm so used to my frugalness that a lot of bills seem high to me. I'm just curious what is consuming 800 kWh with the changes you've made. That seems like it's still a lot of electricity for a single person household. Not minimizing what you've done so far though. It's surprising what a few things can do isn't it?

I believe the main issue in the prior month was that I was smoking in my garage. Being in Ohio and it was end of December / beginning of January I ran a space heater in the garage a lot so I didn't freeze while smoking. And it wasn't a quick cigarette either. It was "my" time to relax. Smoke. Play on the phone.

But I quit smoking. No need for space heater. The lady at the electric company said running even 1 space heater can cost as much as a regular furnace does to heat the house.

Next would have to be the dryer. I do many small loads & did laundry everyday & dried everything. Now I'm aiming for bigger loads. Line drying everything except my towels. But I'm not over drying them.

Lastly must have been the vampire things that use electricity all the time. It's amazing how many things I had plugged in 24/7. Things I didn't even use on a daily basis.

I also turn lights off now. I know that's just pennies. But I usually had lights on all day. They were all CFL bulbs so I was never to concerned about it.

Also my laundry decreased after Max passed away. He was my elderly German Shepherd Dog & everyday I had numerous potty accidents that needed washed. And I wash dog laundry separate, so that's more washing. Plus sheets every 3 days.

Also had my cable, security, home phone & internet disconnected. So there went 1 big modem, 3 routers, designated security tablet & 2 DVRS. Those all ran 24/7.

Cooking wise, I use my pressure cooker, rice cooker & microwave. Not sure how expensive those are to operate.

Scott was here posting yesterday morning. Where are you Scott?