Consumer Reports: Saving money in the kitchen
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (CONSUMER REPORTS) - The kitchen is often the busiest room in the house — and one of the most expensive. From energy use to food prices, it all adds up. Consumer Reports experts share some easy fixes that will help you save big with just a few small changes.
Start your savings spree by following Mom’s advice: Don’t spend too much time staring into the fridge with the doors wide open. Get in and get out, keeping the cold air inside. And overstuffing your refrigerator it with food can actually cause it to work harder and use more energy, and therefore cost more money because it has to pump more cold air around the food to keep it cold. And that also can put more wear and tear on the appliance. Remember the refrigerator’s condenser coils!
Carefully brush or vacuum the coils every six months to remove dust. At the sink …give the dirty pots and pans a sudsy soak—instead of scrubbing them with running water, pouring money down the drain. OR even better—put them in the dishwasher! More modern or newer dishwashers are incredibly energy- efficient. They will always save you more water compared to hand-washing your dishes. You just have to make sure that when you’re using your dishwasher, you’re loading it correctly. And to do that, you can check your owner’s manual beforehand.
CR says even rinsing your dishes isn’t necessary. Instead, scrape dirty dishes before loading them into the dishwasher and make sure you’re running a full load.
Nearly all dishwashers these days have soil sensors. So what that does is they’ll assess how dirty the dishes are, and then adjust the wash cycle accordingly. And regularly cleaning your dishwasher’s filter and the inside of the door--can get rid of any funky smells and keep it running longer.
To shrink your energy bill while cooking, consider using an air fryer, microwave, or toaster oven instead of your full-sized oven. They use a lot less power and won’t heat up your kitchen on a hot day.
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