We live in an older house that we are slowly fixing up and redoing. Last winter, we replaced the kitchen appliances, including the dishwasher. After much research on dishwashers, we chose a Bosch because it seemed to be the best value. Of course it was listed as an ‘energy saver’ as are most new appliances these days.

It was a bit defective some place and it leaked. It ruined by newly redone hardwood floors, but at least the Bosch warranty pays for fixing that. The dishwasher actually broke twice as when the warranty guy came out to fix it he messed up. Anyway, long story short, for the better part of six or seven months, I was without a dishwasher.

Our water bill and our electric bill both decreased by about 20-25%. Yikes. That’s pretty significant.

So now I’m trying to keep up that trend. If it’s just a glass that we drank out of or something pretty simple to wash, I just quickly hand wash it if I have time. I now run the dishwasher about twice a week instead of every day, and I run it on the short cycle. So much for that myth of it’s actually cheaper to use a dishwasher, in my case I found that not to be true at all.