So Long My Friend

I have been flipping away through books and typing like crazy the past couple of days. The test is going pretty well right now. I am overjoyed. I did get get a break yesterday because as predicted, the washing machine is kuput and we had to buy a new one.

I had never really paid much attention to washers until now. My husband brought the machine into our marriage and prior to that I had always used a laundry mat or my parents. Holy heck at all of the options on washing machines and some of them are SO expensive! If I am going to pay $1,000 for a washing machine it better sort the clothes for me and then put them in the dryer itself.

Some of the decisions were easy ones. Price for instance, I was not willing to pay more than $600 and my budget really liked the look of the ones for $300. When it came to features, that was where I had to use some brain cells. There were so many dials and buttons and so much writing on some machines, it was difficult to compare. So, I started with the easy stuff.

It seems as if front load washers are all the rage these days because they are stackable. Thankfully, I used one of these bad boys for the four years in Germany. I could cross them off the list right away. I know from experience that if you forget that 'important' item that is hanging on the back of the door, there is no capability to toss it in once the load has been started. And as far as the stacking is concerned, most houses are already set up with laundry areas that accommodate the side-by-side version. It is side-by-side all the way for me.

We were in a bit of a time crunch so we only looked at two stores after taking a look at Consumer Reports before leaving home. Best Buy . . . not helpful at all. A couple of guys stood around and yapped about their weekend instead of offering to help us. So, we tried to find the models that CR recommended, but had no luck. We wrote down information on the models that we decided we liked and headed to Sears.

Sears sales guy was great. We had already narrowed our selection down to two because after looking at all of the gizmos and gadgets we knew what we wanted and what didn't really matter. The $300 models were far too limited on their options, but we didn't have to bump the high end of our range either. We were discussing Sears v. Best Buy because at this point in time all of the salespeople were busy. Delivery cost v. price v. what we recalled about the machines at Best Buy when here came the sales guy. I asked one simple question . . . what is the difference that makes one machine worth $50 more than the other? Man, did we get an earfull! In summary, most of the price was in the motor and we went with the more expensive one due to the fact that I have lots of delicates, hate hand washing and it alledgedly provides a more delicate, delicate cycle. Plus, they had a rebate so delivery will be free, they set the new one up, and haul the old one away. I couldn't be happier with the experience and it will be delivered on Friday.

Here's what I want to pass on from this experience. Do a little research before making a purchase. Know what you want so that you aren't sold on a bunch of features that you really don't need. It makes the process a whole lot easier. Yes, we could have taken more time and compared prices elsewhere, and maybe saved a few more dollars. But, when my husband has one day off of work in a two week time period, I have better things to do than run all over town looking at washing machines simply to save 20 bucks.