Upgrade Your Small Kitchen Appliances for Freeby Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 03 Jan 2008 12:27 PM Here is a sneaky way to upgrade your appliances, such as slow cookers, rice cookers, bread machines and more. Have you been coveting the latest model? It is hard not to do, with all of the specials that are out there after the holidays. But don't be fooled. A $100 appliance that has been marked down to $60 is still costing you $60. Not spending $27 a day every day will yield you an extra $10,000 a year! And it is hard to justify spending the money when you already have a perfectly good appliance at home. Ready for this idea? It is going to be a favorite one of mine. Just look around your home for a spare timer. Chances are that you have one that you normally use around the home for your holiday lights. If not, you can purchase a timer very inexpensively. You don't need anything fancy, although you could upgrade to a digital timer, if you feel you must. Plus the appliance into the timer and then plug the timer into the wall. Now you can time your slow cooker to shut off when dinner is done, your old bread maker can now have a delay start feature, your rice cooker will cook to perfection without you monitoring it, etc. If you don't have any of these appliance and were contemplating purchasing one, downgrade on the extra features and save money. Do you really need to be able to make three kinds of dough and four kinds of jam with your bread maker? Sometimes a timer or delay start only come with all of those extra features that you may not use. Or better yet, purchase an older appliance at the thrift store or a garage sale to really save. I've seen bread makers and slow cookers by the hundreds, and they are very inexpensive to purchase second hand. Imagine paying $5 instead of $60-$200! Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here. Related Articles: Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments AuntJamelle (125) 03 Jul 2008 08:51 AMIt may be my imagination, but I feel that older "small" appliances last way longer than those bought at stores in more recent years. I still have the iron I bought 12 years ago and it works great. The "fancy" iron we were given for our wedding 3 years ago is long gone - it wore out very quickly. I think that manufacturers have something called "planned obselecence" - in other words, these things are designed to break after a certain period of time, forcing you to buy a new one. I would rather buy a small appliance at a garage sale - if I can plug it in and make sure it works before purchasing - than buy a new item at the store!  Mary Ann Romans |
Frugal categories |
