Dishwasher vs. Hand Washing Dishes - How to save money and time at home.

I had a thought today as I was hand washing dishes at my mothers house. I was home alone and was starting to do the dishes that I had dirtied through out the day. Then an old argument that my mom and I always have popped into my head, the need for a dishwasher in her home.

You see, my mother is really old school. She grew up without a dishwasher and believes that dishwashers take up too much electricity and hot water. She thinks that hand-washing dishes is better on the wallet. Now, I have argued for years that she is simply incorrect, and although I might have been wrong myself a few years ago, it now seems that with today's energy efficient dishwashers, using a dishwasher is actually easier on the wallet and allows you more free time in your day.

Just take a look at the image below, taken from Energy Star:

So you see, having a dishwasher allows you to to the following things:

Save money.

Washing dishes in a new washing machine rather than hand washing can cut your utility bills by more than $40 per year.

Save time.

Instead of scrubbing, rinsing, and drying each dish, just load them all in an new dishwasher and press start. Using a new dishwasher can save you over 230 hours of personal time over the course of a year. That’s almost 10 days!

Get better cleaning.

Many features in a new dishwasher result in better cleaning. For example,dishwashers boost water temperatures to 140 degrees, which allows for improved disinfection compared to hand washing.

Save energy and water.

Thought you were efficient? A new dishwasher uses less than half as much energy as washing dishes by hand and saves nearly 5,000 gallons of water a year!

Along with all that, consider the following as well: 

Dishwashers protect your back and neck

With a Dishwashers you don't have to spend of hours of standing in front of the sink; a household labor directly linked to chronic back and neck problems.

Dishwashers are better for your hands

You no longer need to soak your hands for hours weekly in soapy water, causing your skin to dry and harden. This helps you also avoid detergent related allergies and skin-diseases, such as eczema.

Dishwashers are ‘less dangerous’

Dishwashers are linked to less household accidents than hand washing. There is less water spillage that could cause one to slip and fall, less broken dishes that could result in cuts and bleeding and less burns from the boiling water and hot pipes.

So a dishwasher can save you time and money. You can now use the free time you have available to invest in yourself and others. Instead of spending time hand-washing dishes, you can look for new investment ideas. Work on business plans and talk to potential clients. Or the the best thing of all, you can now spend more time with your family, the greatest investment of all!