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Home > Better Living through Gadgets?

Better Living through Gadgets?

January 27th, 2006 at 02:45 am

Since we've moved into our new house and have unpacked the kitchen, I've noticed several gadgets we own that have saved us money.

One is a thermos. This way I can heat the water for me tea, put it in there and then have hot water all day without having to keep running the stove. I don't know how much this saves because I don't know how much electricity the stove uses, but it is saving electricity.

Another one is the cheese grater we got from pampered chef. This is one of those "barrel graters" where you load the top with cheese, put the handle down over that and squeeze while turing the barrel. This way, we can buy the huge blocks of cheese instead of the bags of grated cheese (we tried grating the full blocks into a bag, but it didn't store well and when we tried to freeze it, it all stuck together). I have 2 graters, one I picked up at a thrift store for a dollar. It only came with the fine grater barrel, but that's great for dh's parmesan cheese. We put the graters preloaded with cheese into gallon size plastic bags and store in the fridge.

I'd love to hear about gadgets other people use to save money.

2 Responses to “Better Living through Gadgets?”

  1. baselle Says:
    1138423357

    I love my:

    microplaner - a file that has extremely sharp but very inset blades. Makes short work of parmesian cheese, citrus zest, nuts. It is amazing with the citrus zest.
    silicone pot holders - the usual - grabbing hot dishes, and a spare trivet. I discovered that this is your best friend if you have to open a jar. Plunk it on the countertop, put the bad boy jar on top of it and twist the lid. It really grabs the bottom of the jar giving you a lot of leverage.
    And the crock pot. Think about it - hot food, but also hot water. Mulled cider. Even if you hate cooking, you can always use it for potpourri, or barring that, a humidifier.

  2. LittleGopher Says:
    1138484442

    I second the use of the crockpot. It is our fast food alternative - no prep at dinner time and ready for those who need to eat early or later.

    I second the use of the thermos too. I like tea often throughout the day, and I'm sure there has to some savings in not heating the water over and over.

    I'm not sure if this would qualify as a gadget, but we carry a cooler around constantly in the van from spring into fall. I always put water bottles (refillable ones - gadgets too?) and a snack in there. We don't always end up needing them, but when we do, we definitely save money.

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