Can you live without a dishwasher, microwave, stove or garbage disposal ?

I don’t have a garbage disposal so I definitely could live without that.

I also don’t have a microwave, so I definitely could live without that. Someone gave me one for Christmas, I didn’t use it in 7 months and so I returned it to the giver.

I probably could live without a dishwasher if I didn’t have one, but it’s a nice luxury.

I can live without a dishwasher, as I have never owned one. I can also live without a garbage disposal as we don’t have such things here!! (How am I doing so far?). My stove has been broken since I moved in and I never bothered to repair it. (15 years!). OK so that leaves the microwave, yep I would definitely battle without that. I wish we had garbage disposals? Here we leg it two flights of stairs to dump the “rubbish?”.

Have the microwave, don’t use it much. Have the cooktop which is nice. No dishwasher or disposal it sucks.

I need the stove pretty much only to make tea in the morning!

I do use the oven sometimes, to bake or sometimes to make toast or a waffle.

The dishwasher that came with the house when I bought it in 2002 was a portable on its last legs. The few times I used it I found a lot of leakage, so I stopped using it. It contains a nice butcher block counter top, however, and it does have all that room inside… so I use it as cabinet space and counter top.

I don’t like under-sink disposal systems. I compost my garbage instead, so that’s one that I simply don’t have any use for.

The microwave and stove I use more or less every day, sometimes both together, but more often one or the other.

When the SO bought our house, the first thing he did was have the garbage disposal removed and not replaced. (We compost.) He also had the dishwasher removed and gave it to his sister. Washing and drying the dishes is not an issue for me. In fact, there is something nice about us doing it together. We use the microwave a fair amount, but could get by without one if need be. The oven and hob is a necessity.

We also don’t have a clothes dryer. That has taken some getting used to, since it rains in our little part of England almost every day.

@shippy, Even if you had a garbage disposal you would still need to carry out your garbage. You can only throw food down them and it can’t have bones in it. I use mine all the time but I still throw out garbage every two days. I have recycle and non recycle items that still have to go out. But I will say, I have lived without a garbage disposal and spoil food attracts bugs to quickly. I have a sensitive nose so many times I had to throw the garbage out before it got full or keep it in a fridge longer till I was ready to throw it out.
@jca So you are just down to your stove. Well I actually count your stove and oven as one item but I do forget that some places have them separate.

@Pied_Pfeffer Oh, I did forget about washers and dryers. I grew up with only a washing machine. Actually that didn’t come about till I was about 8 years old. My mom washed everything by hand and hung things to dry.

I could live without any of those except the stove and a sink and have. Most labor saving devices do jobs that can still be done with labor. It just takes more time.

Of course, one gets very creative in these circumstances.
22 years ago when I first moved to the mountains I lived in a dutch barn with only a woodstove for heat and no cooking facilities. A small kitchen but no stove, dishwasher or garbage disposal.
I cooked for 4 years on an electric buffet range, crockpot, BBQ and Microwave.
Other than not being able to bake cookies it wasn’t that much of a hardship.

I miss my little barn house to this day. It was the stepping stone to moving to the mountains and I loved my little house in the woods. :-)

@Pandora My grandmother had four daughters. The last one was born in 1925. Imagine having to do the laundry for five menstruating females before sanitary products and washing machines were invented. It’s where the old phrase, “I’m on the rag” came from.

@Coloma I know what you mean. I miss our first little home. It was 1 bedroom and two storage rooms. One had the washer and dryer but all we had at the time was the washer. It was small and comfortable. No dishwasher. Just a fridge and stove/oven. It was very comfortable. Now I feel like a hoarder. We have so much crap. Computers, laptops, printer/copier, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, TV, surround sound system, cable boxes, vacuum, coffee machine, toaster, mixer.

@Pandora Yes, simple living is a good thing. :-)

@Coloma Remember when all you needed was rabbit ears for your tv and color tv was a huge luxury. LOL I feel old. But it was nicer. Now I’ve got tons of channels and can go hours without finding anything to watch. Sometimes days. :(

Garbage disposal, dishwasher, no problem. I don’t really use the former much anyway (thank you compost) and the latter I lived with out for many years with no problems I don’t see why that’d be any different now. I could also give up the microwave if needed much for the same reason as the dishwasher. The stove, well that’s a different story, but then I’m pretty handy with a grill and fire pit so if push came to shove (which it does whenever our electricity is out for extended periods) we’d get by.

@Pandora I remember watching The Wizard of Oz for the first time on a color television. I also recall having to get up and adjust the rabbit ears in order to get a channel to stop being fuzzy and to change the channel. The invention of cable and the remote control was wonderful. I gave up television four months ago, and it feels liberating. Just don’t ask me to give up the computer and internet…yet.

I’ve lived without all of those at different times.
I could definitely live permanently without a garbage disposal (holy CRAP talk about waste of water and power) and a dishwasher.
It would be harder to contemplate permanently living without a microwave and a stove. I cook almost all of my own meals, and a microwave is very useful for both prep and for reheating leftovers. I think in a pinch, I could live with one or the other, but I don’t know how I’d live without SOME way to heat food…
Wait… “So many people don’t use their stoves”...? How is that? O_o

Yes of course I can, but take away my HD telly & i’ll kick your fucking head in…..be more than a little upset.

It is possible to live without all of these things (& I have at different times in my life), the most difficult to do without would be a stove (since I cook most of my own meals). I have all of these things now, but I use the microwave sparingly, the dish washer rarely, & the garbage disposal not at all (I have a compost heap & everything goes into it).

I could definitely give up garbage disposal and dishwasher. The house I lived in last year didn’t have a dishwasher or a garbage disposal, though we eventually purchased a portable dishwasher off Craigslist. Microwave and stove would be hard…

I don’t have a dishwasher or garbage disposal. I would find it hard to live without a microwave and impossible to live without a stove.

I still hand water all of my plants and huge yard.
It takes me about 90 minutes a day in the hot weather to water my little micro-farm scene over here. I have to move a giant rainbird sprinkler at least 4 times to cover the entire yard on a hill and have 20+ huge potted bamboos and exotic grasses and various other trees and plants around my patio. Trees in a corral where my geese live and various potted plants around their little haven.

I also have 3 swimming pools and two large water containers to be refreshed 2x daily for my geese and my hot tub which I flush daily and keep cold all summer.
I am drowning in watering chores. lol
Oh what I wouldn’t give for an automatic sprinkler system and drip lines right now..
I swear, I don’t know how our ancestors ever carved out a garden in the land of no garden hoses and sprinklers. Carrying bucket fulls of water around. Gah! haha

@Pandora: Yes, but I do like the dishwasher, and prefer to have one, if possible.

“We have all grown used”—not so.

I’ve never had a garbage disposal or a dishwasher. The microwave is handy but hardly a necessity. In the kitchen I need a stove, a refrigerator, and a sink, but if I didn’t have them I would find a way to get by.

Don’t need a TV, a computer, or a music-playing device either. Life would be hard without a washing machine, but I’d manage without a dryer. Most of the time I don’t use a phone, but it’s a lifeline in an emergency.

Really must have the dishwasher. Life sucked before we had one.
No garbage disposal, that is what wildlife is for
Got to have microwave and stove.

Definitely a garbage disposal. Totally unnecessary.

I like having indoor, flush toilets and faucets with hot and cold water, but other than that, I can and have done with out them all.

My house is loaded now, but I like my refrigerator and clothes washer and dryer best.

We don’t need a dish washer or even have a garbage disposal. I compost most of the garbage.

We have a pristine looking dishwasher that we have never turned on since we mover into this house 17 years ago. My wife just uses it to store pots and pans. We usually don’t generate many dirty dishes and washing them by hand is quick enough.

Life would be hard without washers, dryers and a stove, but I wouldn’t miss a microwave much.

A week before the Olympics my wife got rid of the T.V. and I’m still trying t adjust. I should survive however.

Stove would be the only tough one. I’ve never had to go without a stove. But there have been times in my adult life I didn’t have an oven for a year, didn’t have a dryer for 3 years, didn’t have a garbage disposal for 8 years, didn’t have a refrigerator for a month, and just got my first dish washer two years ago. I also went without heat in my Aerostar van through two freezing winters in Kansas. I kept telling myself, and the kids, we STILL had it all over covered wagons, and we made it through. My only concession was to spend a little more money to buy everyone leather tennis shoes instead of the cheaper, fake leather ones. BIG difference in warmth. They just tucked themselves into the seat with a blanket. :) It wasn’t all bad…except at 7 a.m. when I was driving out in the country to some podunk little town to substitute teach. >_<

My dogs and the compost heap take care of all biodegradables, the rubbish man picks up the rest and most of it is recyclable. I use the microwave for defrosting, reheating and softening veg if I am in a hurry. We have a dishwasher but I never use it, I would have to run it too often unfilled, in order to not run out of dishes. And what would you do without a stove and oven??? How do you cook? We do use the barbque outside now and again but I could not live without the stove and oven.

No need for stove if microwave is there. The other three no you can’t lie without them.

@abundantlife What is you logic behind not being able to live without a dishwasher or a garbage disposal? Actually, only two apply, according to your answer. It indicates that the microwave and the stove mutually cancel each other out (which I disagree with strongly, btw. A microwave can’t do everything that a stove can do, but a stove can do everything a microwave can do, just slower.)

When my daughter was away at college, all she used with the microwave in her apartment. Her stove had cobwebs. At her home, she says her gas is almost nothing because she barely cooks for herself. She would rather grab a bowl of cereal or buy food out than have to cook.
Not everyone cares to cook. They just buy out and heat up, as evidenced by my shopping for a home these days. I’m finding tiny kitchens with beaten up microwaves and almost new stoves. Some of them you can see they use there stove but the oven is unused.

Whatever would they do without a microwave?! When I was in college we had to smuggle in pop corn poppers so we could at least heat up some soup. We had no microwaves (this was the 70’s) and certainly no stoves! Two beds and two dressers and that was about it. We were so happy!

@Dutchess_III, we cooked full meals in the popcorn poppers. Our dorm rooms were tiny, with built-in bunk beds, the dresser inside the closet, one multipurpose counter, and one fold-down surface that served as a desk, but they did have sinks, so we thought they were great. I don’t understand how anyone can “need” a microwave or a dishwasher.

That perfectly describes my room too!
How did you cook full meals? I think we were breaking the law just by HAVING them in there, so cooking soup was felonious enough for me!

Half a dozen popcorn poppers and a friendly dorm proctor.

I never broke the rules in that way, of course.

I just hid a bottle of vodka in my closet.

got a friendly knock at our dorm door one evening saying, “It smells like alfalfa out here…” Guess that wet, rolled up towel didn’t really work, did it….

You can cook a meal in a popcorn popper?

WE used electric frypans, you really can make anything in them, even bake bread.

@jca, I bet they don’t make them like that any more. There used to be a plug-in kind that had a round-bottomed metal container on top, with a lid, and it fit into a metal hemisphere that sat on a base with a heater coil in the bottom. Imagine something like a double boiler, with a heating unit in the lower half, and the top like a globe that sat inside a half globe. They could get pretty hot. I almost never saw them used for popcorn in the dorm; they served us as saucepans, except that they couldn’t be heated anywhere but in their matching fitted bottom section. Look, here’s one. Click the link to the version with a metal lid if you want to see the parts.

Their virtue in the college dorms of the 1960s and 1970s was that they were an exception to the “no cooking” rule. Hot plates weren’t allowed, but an innocent popcorn popper—sure! And once you had one—well, then, you had one.

My husband and I lived with a friend for two weeks who didn’t have a working stove or oven in his trailer. He didn’t care because his landlord let him have the wreck for cheap and he was single and ate all his meals out. This was also before microwaves were a hit. Luckily for him my husband and I owned an electric table top double burner. He fell in love with it and we let him keep it after we left. Those things are great when you are in a pinch.

It’s surprising that no one has mentioned a toaster/oven. Mine sees a lot more use than the oven, which is only used when cooking for more than one person.

@Pied_Pfeffer: I had a toaster oven for a short time and I couldn’t stop burning things in it, so I gave it back to the person who gave it to me. Toast, bagels, whatever, burnt, smoking, scary.

@jca… Re pop corn popper…..Think wok.

@jca My toaster oven has settings for toasting and for baking. It works wonderfully. I’m sorry that you had such a bad experience with yours.

The ones I’ve used have seemed so flimsy and cheap…and unpredictable. Pretty much the same experience as @jca.

I could definitely live without either one of those things. People used stoves or portable burners to heat things before microwaves. Nowadays they also have electric fry pans. Dishwashers are convenient, but if you don’t use a lot of dishes, they’re not a big deal. Least necessary to me on this list is the garbage disposal (Just put it in the trash, or better yet, compost it – very popular these days.)

But living without a clothes washer (surprisingly not mentioned in the question)? Who would actually be able to live without that appliance these days? That and the refrigerator are probably two of the most under-appreciated appliances ever.

How long?

@jca toaster ovens heat much more quickly than a regular oven, and many have a convection option, so you may have always turned the thermostat to the same setting as a regular oven when you should have turned it down a notch. Also, with toaster ovens, many people make the mistake of leaving it on broil all the time.

@everyone. A lot of people seem to think dishwashers are kind of silly, but if you have a large family (3 or more people) and can afford a good one ($700.00 and up) and do a lot of cooking at home, they are a dream come true. I can honestly say I’d find it diffult to live without my Bosch dishwasher. I live with 4 people, 3 of whom all cook their own meals and make huge messes. If it wasn’t for the dishwasher, the kitchen would always be a mess.

Dishwashers hide the dirty dish mess and keep people from putting them in the sink or in the counter. They deter bugs—No food on plates exposed to eat

They also save 45 min to an hour of clean up time in the kitchen and make keeping the kitchen clean easier

@AskZilla Nah, dishwashers aren’t silly. They are ideal when one out of a family of three or more is tasked with washing and drying dishes alone, then has to bathe children, check their homework, and put them to bed, plus all of the other tasks that come along with being a parent to young children.

Personally, I would rather go without a dishwasher. There is something soothing about doing them by hand. My partner feels the same way. Even our nieces and nephews take the time to help out without being asked. It’s quality time together. The time flies. The kids learn about responsibility and helping out. The bonus? No one wakes up to the clatter of the dishwasher being emptied at 6am in the morning. :)

@Pied Pfeffer. Doing the dishes by hand might be soothing for some, however most do not find this task pleasant. simply because there are so many dishes to do constantly.

Because, not everything washes well in the dishwasher or can be put in the dishwasher due to damage risk, there are always some dishes to wash by hand, regardless.

As for the clatter of the dishes at 6am, I don’t find the dish clatter unpleasant. This is heard in many dinner-by-candlelight restaurants.

@Pied Pfeffer, strangely enough, there are a lot of appliances that the person who asked this question didn’t mention. I know plenty of people who could not live without their breeze creating fans, mixmaster, blender, coffee grinder, clothes washer and dryer, freezer, vacuum cleaner – none of which are mentioned in the question. And who could live without or would want to live without a refrigerator

These machines are important tools, just like you see in the auto mechanic’s garage. I don’t know why they are taken for granted so much.

Dishwashers are nice, if for no other reason you get your dirty plates and stuff out of sight.

I didn’t put a refrigerator because people need some way to cool fresh produce and milk. I didn’t put vacuum cleaner because some people have all tiles, coffee machine because you can still boil it in a kettle, grinder because you can purchase is grounded, clothes washer or dryer because you can make due by going to a laundry mat. Ceiling fans because you can still fan yourself and if you live in a really cold climate, you may not have one. Lots of people still live without one and it really isn’t necessary if you have central a/c.
I was basically going with kitchen appliances that most homes today have.
As for a blender, I grew up without one as a kid and I remember helping my mom mix the batter with a fork.It takes longer but it’s doable.
But mostly I was pointing out large appliances in the kitchen that aren’t as necessary or easily substituted. If you rented a cabin in the wood, the only thing that most people would expect is a fridge. You can grill or have a small burner for cooking or build a bon fire but you really don’t need a whole stove. Same is an apartment except for the grilling and bon fire.

I can live without a dishwasher okay, but I simply must have a housekeeper and gardener.