More Appliance Stories!

So yesterday we hemmed and hawwed and decided that we would not buy the $2000 fridge from Sears. We were stunned by its price and perhaps even a bit more than that, I was stunned by the fact that we couldn't find a fridge that really really was what we wanted as far as features went. We clearly don't eat the way most of America does. We have no need of nifty little molded can holders on the side door "just perfect for sodas." Uh huh. We don't need a deli tray feature; as vegetarians we need a lot of crisper space. Obviously the reason so many Americans suffer from illness is rooted in their lack of veggie and fruit consumption. The veggie bins were dinky to put it bluntly. Yes the freezer was neat and it might be fun to try an appliance with the freezer on the botton but not for 2k when it didn't really make us go "wow what a neat fridge." Instead we have a used fridge from Riverside. It is smaller than we had before. Much smaller, but it works and it gives us time to save, and to find a fridge that has features we will really use. And it is free. That's right. FREE! I can deal with smaller when something is free. When I am paying more than I paid for the previous fridge and not getting what I need, that is a tougher pill to swallow.

So we invested the money we were going to spend on the fridge in a new stack washer dryer combo. This was a samrter chocie. Yes we still paid a lot of money, but we really got something we wanted and more importantly needed. Presently we have no dryer. Haven't had a dryer since oh early spring I guess when our 7 year old dryer quit for good. It had had several pricey repairs all ready so trying to fix it again just wasn't viable. And with a family of 6 there is a lot of wash and there are too many cloudy and inclement days where we needed a dryer. We have been strewing wash around the house and on the clothesline and making this deficit work but it hasn't been easy. This is not to say we will dry everything. We will still use racks and the line till it is too cold to do otherwise. But we will at least have the option of drying when needed. The washer was a bit of a bonus and on the one hand a bit less mandatory. We have a working washer in our cellar. It is a very basic top loading model. It isn't an energy star or anything fancy but it has gotten the job done. However I know it uses a lot more water than a front loader which we had previously. So the purchase of the new washer has some economic practicality as well. We will use less water partly because it is a front loader. We will also use less water because it has a sterilization feature so our diapers may not have to be double washed. We will open our back door less often in cold weather because we won't need to go down cellar. This will help with our heating a bit as well. And I won't worry that Kirsty is going to fall going down cellar some day when she decides to do a load of wash late at night and i am allready upstairs with the kids. It comes sometime this week. Now for the installation to go smoothly!