On Fridays at 365 Less Things I share with you my favourite comments from my wonderful readers and my favourite web finds of the week. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.
Due to the fact that we missed last weeks favourites I have included a few extras this week.
Favourite Comments. Enjoy!
I had a good laugh reading this comment from Jean & Wendy. What fun ladies they would be to spend two years on Norfolk Island with.
I loved this comment from Sanna, where she has come to the realisation that once a home is decluttered properly there need never be any more Spring cleaning.
We have a new reader MelD who left this comment, among others, this week. She sure has learned to minimise  what she carries with her on a daily basis and when travelling.
I think Ideealistin gives some good advice about saving toys in this comment.
This comment from Deb J says it all about how we end up cluttered in the first place. I am so glad she has seen the error of her ways.
We got some great comments on the Pick Your Battles… post on Tuesday which deserve repeating in case they were missed. I love how the comments really bring home the point of a post especially when they are generated from genuine experience of the issue. Here are some of those great comments ~ From Katharine and Wendy B and Spendwisemom.
Here is some great advice from Wendy to Moni on what to do with rarely used small kitchen appliances. She said exactly what came to mind when I ready Moni’s comment. Doing a shift at the thrift shop once a week gives me the confidence to declutter items like this because they are very easily replace secondhand and cheaply like Wendy suggests.
Favourite Web Finds. Happy reading!
Both Clare and Laura sent this link to share with her fellow 365ers. I loved the connection made between the amount of general clutter in one’s home to the number of magnets on one’s fridge.
This post from The Change Blog has a few helpful suggestion on how to make small incremental improvements to your lifestyle.
This post has nothing to do with clutter but it holds some interesting tips about clothes washing that may save you a dollar or two.
I have bought this web site to your attention before but it is worth mentioning again and again. I have linked directly to the about page but please explore other areas of the site. People are even branching out to implement dog sitting collaboratives where pet owners can reach each other through a web site to take care of each other’s pets when they are away, saving them the cost of boarding them in expensive kennels.
Here is a great web article Cindy sent me the link to about textile recycling. Thanks Cindy.
Here is a short but straight to the point article about consumption from The Minimalists.
Today’s Mini Mission
Declutter something that you are keeping “just in case†the person who gave it to you notices it missing.
Today’s Declutter Item
Here is another craft bargain that was too good to resist at the time. I bought these for next to nothing on clearance thinking that I would use the beads for a future project. I am sure I could find a use for them eventually but the object of my craft room declutter was to fit all I was keeping into a certain space. These were just one of those things that didn’t make to cut while attempting to achieve that goal. They were donated to the thrift store.
“Bargain” Beads
Something I Am Grateful For Today
 A little alone time.
Wow! This was a great Friday post with some great comments and links. I found the pictures that were in “The Way We Live: Drowning in Stuff” article scary. Not only can I not imagine living with all those toys, etc. but having to clean them would drive me crazy. The “Change Blog” had some good points and the Choice site is great. Oh how we wish we had never bought a front loader washer. “Collaborative Consumption” is now bookmarked so I can remember some of these places when it comes time to list things. The article from Goodlifer was really informative. I dind’t realize that the stores dumped the hangers. I thought they sent them back to be reused. Argh!! That is irritating. And of course, I usually think whatever the Minimalists write about it good. I’m glad others have time to search for things like this and then share them.
Hi Deb J,
what is it that you don’t like about your front loading washing machine. I love mine but it has performed well and I can, if need be, open it during a cycle. My mother is in need of a new machine and is debating between a front or top loader I would love your opinion. In fact I might garner peoples opinion on this topic for my Saturday post tomorrow. That ought to give me some useful advice to send her.
I have a front loader that works well for me. The main issue I have with it is that it is mounted on a small stand which makes it unstable for the high spin cycles. I have found that using the lower spin cycle (delicate) makes it more stable to run, it also means that the clothes don’t come out quite so dry BUT the big advantage for me is that I can do a load in about an hour and twenty minutes or less instead of the 2 hours or more that the normal cycle takes to complete. I also use a liquid detergent as I was having problems with the powder staying in the detergent drawer and not dissolving.
I would also agree about not overloading the machine.
Love my front loader (save for the child lock, which always takes FOREVER to disable (or I’m impatient) when I need to throw something else in – it’s never ‘started’ as I always have it run over night, it’s just stopping it’s countdown!?), but your mum might consider if she’s ok with the squatting/bending to put stuff in. Seems Wendy has fixed that with mounting it higher, but then it comes with complications! I think you can get ‘top loading’ machines that are truly a ‘front loader’ (ie, they spin like a front loader, so you have to ‘open’ a barrel’ to put stuff into the top.) I’ve used these in Europe a little bit. So there’s the water saving of a front loader, with the access like a traditional top loader.
Hi Snosie,
my machine also has a lock that takes two minutes to disengage if I want to add anything to the load. Like you I am impatient and wander off to do something else and then forget to come back causing the machine to shut down altogether with the water already in. I then have to spin in out and start all over again. I have solved this problem by either making sure I put everything in in the first place, learning from my mistake if I don’t or sitting patiently while I wait for the lock to disengage.
I think you are thinking of water efficient top loading machines that don’t have a big agitator like the old style ones. They use a lot less water.
That is interesting Wendy. Obviously the type of machine one buys makes a huge difference. I have not problem with powder not dissolving in my machine but I have a friend who has this problem with her water efficient top loader. My machine also has a Quick 30 cycle for items that are only lightly soiled, I up the spin speed but even then it only takes and extra ten minutes. I mentioned to my mother about being able to mount front loaders on a base but your experience of this doesn’t sound good. Her issue is she isn’t getting any younger (73) and is concerned about bending down to load and unload a front loader.
Anyway thank you for sharing your experience.
Our front loader has this rubber section in it that holds water and can also capture small things so they don’t get spun. It means that every time we use it we have to dry off this whole rubber thing inside and out so that it doesn’t get mold. The other thing is that it really bothers us to have to bend down and put things in or take them out. When we moved into this house we found that we had to have a front loader or cut out part of the pantry shelving. We also couldn’t put it on a pedestal. Our problem was in not looking at various models/makes of front loaders. After talking to many people who have them we learned that ours is the only one that has this weird rubber thing.
Hi Deb J,
thanks for adding your experience. My front loader has a special little filter below to catch small items. The rubber seal also does this but mine doesn’t go mouldy. My machine also has a self cleaning cycle that I use every now and again to keep it fresh and it also has a steam cycle for freshening up pillow and the like which I dare say also helps keep mould from being an issue ~ not that I use it all that often. When my mother first decided to get an automatic machine ~ I will add here that she still uses a twin tub ~ we went to a well know big name electrical store where the sales person was clearly focused on selling us one brand only. Not only that he was telling complete porkies (lies) about the machine I own (I didn’t bother to tell him I owned the other machine and that he was full of it until later in the encounter) but it turned out they were the sole importer of the other brand of machine which probably netted them the best profit. I went home and looked up customer reviews on this product and it scored very low. Because the machine was imported from Italy it took forever to get parts when something went wrong and like yours it had a mould problem. I know now not to take the word of the sales person in the shop. Hence why I asked you.
I read someone else’s rubber seal went mouldy, so now I leave the door open til the seal is dry. It’s annoying seeing it open, but it’s better than mould!
I find if you wipe out the rubber seal it prevents mould building up. I also like to leave the door open to let the machine dry out, but as my machine is in the walkway I have attached a small piece of binding tape to the machine with velcro that leaves the door open enough to not be in the way.
I’m far more used to front loading machines (they seem to be more common here) and neither my grandmothers, mother nor me personally ever had a real problem with them.
I think with modern machines the biggest issue is the computer inside – that’s why I’d still choose one without too many technical knick-knacks I’d never use anyway.
I also have used toploaders, the ones snosie mentioned (spinning around a horizontal axis, so to say) have the plus that they can be smaller than a front loader and work essentially the same. I only had one spinning around a vertical axis for 3 months in Japan. It was easy to handle, but I wasn’t quite happy with how well it cleaned. I think this was due to both it not having a hot program ( I like to wash hot at least every couple of times – this also prevents moldiness to a certain degree btw) and it spinning like it did. (in the other machines the laundry will be lifted and fall down again, really “tumbling” – wheras in this machine it was pressed to the outside when spinning, but didn’t really change position as much as in the other machines. Thus I think it didn’t get as clean.
Thanks for the links, some great material there. I really like the NYTimes article, although I wished it was much much longer!
Thank you very much for the good read!
I just got rid of the contents of another 6(!) file binders the other day. A big part of it was resources for learning a language which I’m glad to say I meanwhile speak well enough to not need them as constant reference anymore. Plus, as much as those papers had been hard to come by for me at the time (which made me cling in the first place), I meanwhile own a very good book on grammar and am fluent enough in the language to be able to easily search for new online or print resources if I need some. So out they went. Though there is still paper clutter around I need to sort and deal with, I reduced the sheer masses by about 4/5th this year. That alone makes the rest seem easier to handle.
I loved my front loaders, which used far less water and spun the clothes so well they dried really quickly. I had a small wooden chair that I sat on to load the machine, I called it my “birthing stool”. There is something therapeutic about watching washing in a front loader.
When the last one needed repairing, I priced the new Whirlpool front loader, but the top loading Fisher Paykel was more affordable, so that is what I am using now. The spin cycle is as good as a front loader, but the lint or fluff catcher is non existant. Cheers