So my wife and I recently took the plunge, and we love the Vitamix, when it seems to work, that is. Before we got it she saw videos where it seemed that anything would just get pulled down and blended for smoothies.
She’s been using a Nutribullet which does a good job for the price, however it’s not as fine and smooth obviously, but it would never get stuck or blades seem to stop.
With the Vitamix she does the same drink but what’s happening is unless she puts a good bit more liquid it’s sort of like bogging down and not spinning. And she doesn’t understand why her Nutribullet never had this issue even tho it wasn’t as smooth, the blades never stopped.
She does the layers properly. But it’s almost like it’s trying to make some thick sorbet rather than a smoothie and that’s mainly our question.
The videos online seem to just spin anything and everything and a coconut water, some spinach, frozen fruit seems to just make so thick that it doesn’t seem to work well. What are we missing here? Thanks!
Ben
Hey Ben!
I think I understand what you’re saying…is it not so much that the blade stops spinning as that it’s spinning but not accomplishing anything?
This tends to happen if I have too much frozen fruit and not enough liquid.
Or I run into that problem if I don’t put the liquids/soft fruits in before I add the frozen fruit.
However, I’m usually able to get things blended up fine by using the tamper tool. I’m assuming your Vitamix has one of these, unless it’s the single-serve Vitamix:
The tamper fits in the lid and allows you to sort of push things around while the Vitamix is running, and that helps get things blended up if they’ve gotten stuck.
I usually add a banana, my greens, and a cup or two of yogurt (I never measure!) and liquefy that. Then I add in my frozen fruit and blend it up, using the tamper tool if necessary to push things down.
I don’t find that I have to add copious amounts of liquid to make my Vitamix work…often my smoothies are almost thick enough to eat with a spoon.
I’m not sure if that was helpful or not! Maybe some of my readers will have some thoughts for you.
(Here’s my full review of the Vitamix, which I bought with my own money and reviewed a year later.)
Hi Kristen,
I love reading your blog and you’ve given me so many ideas for living a more frugal and more sustainable life. I do have a question and wondered what your thoughts were.
I have three girls ages 7, 5 and 14 months. I feel like I’m ALWAYS doing laundry, and there drawers are still always full. It seems like a waste of time and money which doesn’t fall in line with frugality to me at all. My question is, how much do children really need in terms of their wardrobe? Any thoughts on this issue?
Thanks,
Sarah B.
Hi, Sarah! I answered a question similar to yours some years back, and you can read that here.
I wanted to add, though, that I completely agree that it’s a little pointless to have enough clothes that you could go for weeks without doing laundry.
My philosophy is that you have the right amount of a particular thing if you use it regularly and thoroughly.
This means that we usually need a whole lot fewer clothes than we think we do! If your kids are like mine, they’re not going to wear 3 drawer’s worth of clothes in a season. They’ll just keep wearing their favorites over and over and the other clothes will sit around unworn.
The longer I parent, the more I’ve seen this to be true, so I’d say that Zoe has a smaller wardrobe now than Lisey did at her age.
But it’s not that Zoe is wearing fewer clothes! It’s just that her drawer isn’t stuffed with clothes she’s never going to get around to wearing.
And the great thing about small wardrobes is that you can only get SO far behind on laundry. If you own 300 items of kids’ clothing, then you can build up a terrible laundry mountain.
But if you own half that, then your laundry mountain can only get that big.
It’s kind of great.
So. I’d say that you should think about how much clothing you can realistically use on a regular basis, and pare it down to that amount.
And generally speaking, I find that even when I’m applying that philosophy, my kids usually still need less than I think they will.
Because of that, I think it’s pretty safe to err on the side of keeping less than you think you’ll need.
(If you’re too chicken to get rid of the extra clothes (“What if we need them???”), bag them up and put them in the garage/attic. If you haven’t missed them in a month or two, you can give them away with confidence.)
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Siebrie
Thursday 23rd of February 2017
I have 1 laundry basket in the bathroom, and 4 in the garage, next to the washing machine. Whenever the one in the bathroom is full, I carry it to the garage and distribute it into the 4 that are there: light cold, dark cold, light and dark warm, hot. Whenever one of those is full, it's time to do a load of laundry. It means that some weeks I do 1 load, others I do 4. The front loading machine can take 7kg, and there are me, dh, and 2 dds.
Janknitz
Tuesday 21st of February 2017
We do our laundry only once a week. We sort it out into whites, dark colors, light colors, jeans and cleaning rags and towels (one load each) and whatever doesn't get washed then has to wait until the next week. We do big loads and they are all washed, dried, folded, and put away on one day (Sunday is our laundry day). This saves water, energy and time. So we have to have enough clothes and underwear to last at least a week, plus a little more in case something delays laundry day (like a trip out of town).
I love not having to think about laundry every day. This is a very doable "mountain". If we are busy on the weekend laundry might need to be continued into Monday but newly dirtied clothes go in the hamper for the next laundry day, so our laundry mountain never gets bigger. Everyone has a job--sorting, carrying baskets and loading the washer and dryer, folding and distributing the clean clothes to their rightful owner (our kids wear the same size and we never know whose is whose, so all their stuff goes into one basket for them to sort out).
I wish I could say that this makes my closet empty but it does not. I have three seasons of clothing (summer, winter, spring/fall), and some fancier clothing for my professional and social obligations. Since my kids stopped growing, they have multiple seasons in their closets too.
Maureen Pegg
Tuesday 21st of February 2017
Just a thought on how many clothes a child needs. Years ago, our neighbour who had five children told my mother she needed far less clothes for her kids once she got a dryer. Makes sense. If you are line drying children's clothes you will need a more because it takes time to dry clothes and you are dependent on the weather. When you have a dryer, you can't pop a load of laundry in it anytime. This issue reminds me of my mother's first few months working as a secretary in the late 1930s. She had one dress which she washed at night, dried it on the heat register and then wore it the next day. She had to wait until she'd worked long enough to save enough money to buy a couple of outfits. Can you imagine us doing that today?
Kristen
Tuesday 21st of February 2017
Oh wow, that would be pretty hard for us to get used to! We're so spoiled by having so many clothes.
monica
Tuesday 21st of February 2017
My boys (now ages 14 and 17) have been doing their own laundry since they were 8 or so - an easy thing for them to learn because we have a front loading washer. At some point I realized that it was useless (for me or for them) to put their clothes in drawers because even if folded when they went in, everything got all wrinkled in a day or so when they were rummaged through to find the wanted item. Because they are boys, all they wear are T-shirts and pull on nylon pants/shorts or jeans and the wrinkles really don't seam to matter, so I got them each two laundry baskets: One for Clean and one for Dirty. They no longer even put the clothes away-they just pick from the clean basket each day. This has made our lives much better! In any case, I just asked and they say they do laundry once or twice a week - they seem to rewear the same batch of clothes over an over. If they need pants because they have grown, they tell me (I also ask now and then) and I go buy a pair or two. I just asked the younger how many pairs of pants he has and he said 3. They do have dozens of T-shirts because they seem to get a T-shirt with every sport they do (1-2 sport teams each season x 4 seasons = 4-8 new T-shirts a year), so I never, ever buy shirts. I do go through all clothing once a year in the summer and remove tattered T-shirts, underwear or socks and pants that are too small. They get underwear and socks as needed as old ones wear out or become too small- again they will tell me when they need new - but it seems like they have about a weeks worth.
WilliamB
Tuesday 21st of February 2017
1. If I were to pay several hundred dollars for a blender, I would not want to have to mess with it! My $150-200 Breville blender works great for me and is easy to clean.
2. My minimum is enough for about 10 days but, in fact, I have far more than that. Frex, I buy several dozen identical pair of socks at once to last me for years. if one sock is too damaged to mend, I can toss it and the other one will match all the rest. OTOH I have three only pair of jeans: good, around the house, and paint. Everything else is determined by how full my drawer is - if I can't see it all, then I have too much.
Kristen
Tuesday 21st of February 2017
Or if I can't fit it all into the drawer.
Or if I run out of hangers, it's time to get rid of some things. No new hanger buying! ;)