To ask what household items were a complete waste of money?

[Ladymayormaynot]

Have just read expensive items worth every penny thread & interested to see what others have regretted buying. I'll start off with steam mops, I've had 3 all useless & binned. Garden strimmers again I've had 3 makes and none of them any good. The last was a Gtech which promised so much including free blades for life. Hidden in the small print was the £2.99 delivery cost per packet of 20. By the 2nd use I had used 10 blades as the kept splitting. It was returned for a refund.

Should I mention the raclette? I love it too.

Bread maker and NutriBullet, both purchased by DH. I think they may take a trip to the cellar soon.

He's been looking at omelette makers this week. I may clank him on the head with the omelette pan. It could be called multi tasking (or assault) damn you Amazon!

My DP wanted an omelette maker, I said we have a pan.

We use the bread maker loads, I found a recipe that said to activate the yeast in water and sugar and then add the flour, oil as usual. Absolutely fab, fluffy bread.

I have a yogurt maker I plan on using more but I should've just returned it really.

I do have a sewing machine that I've yet to use as I never seem to manage to find the time to do anything as it would wake DS up if I used it after he went to bed.

mop steamer was such a waste of money. didn't overspend on it tho.
my massive magimix has never seen the light of day but i will keep it

l use toastabags instead of a toastie maker .
dont miss my microwave but last one was 25 quid from Sainsbury's and lasted 12 years.
bought a tabletop oven and rarely use it. wasn't expensive tho.
love my rice cooker and my henry Hoover. could not live without them.

Agree with everyone else about the steam cleaner. Pure bollocks. Bought it, steam cleaned everything, was disappointed at lackluster performance, never got it out again. Kid 1 stood on most useful attachment and broke it a while ago. I expect I'll get rid of it soon.

Slow cooker - we use it once in a blue moon. I love the idea of it as well as the smell that greets you when you come in through the door...but sadly no one other than dh really likes the food it produces.

Expensive Magimix food processor - too much faff, I just do all that stuff by hand.

We are about to purchase a carpet shampooer/cleaner. I might be back to this thread soon.

CheshireChat Would you be kind enough to link the bread maker recipe you found? I'm having some trouble with the bread maker right now, seems to have not produced bread as good since we changed the layout downstairs and moved the kitchen.

I'd say the steam mop. I liked it to begin with but I noticed it left a line of dirt down the edge of the floors and then I dropped it by accident and something broke off managed to fix it but steam just stopped coming out of the right place. I now use a good ld mop and bucket and it still does the job better!

Here's the bread recipe:
www.food.com/recipe/extremely-soft-white-bread-bread-machine-380988

I also just use pretty much any recipe but leave the yeast to activate. Wholemeal works just as well.

Oh, and with my bread maker it's easier and gives better results if I bung it on the 1h loaf rather than 3h basic cycle.

Enjoy your bread .

Kitchenaid stand mixer. It looks beautiful on the worktop but it rarely gets used. It might get used for kneading dough or whipping up egg whites but in reality that's a once a month max activity. I have some terrific recipes I have used for years and know how long to hand beat or mix for but have no idea how that translates to the kitchen aid so I don't dare use it.

CheshireChat Thanks for the recipe, I'll give it a go.

Another Dyson hater - got rid very quickly! Bought a £30 bag Hoover from argus - and loads of bags - still going strong after 8 years (and more bags) - brilliant!

I love my thermomix - use every day - chuck it all in and only two bits to clean - feeds 4 adults every day - couldn't live without it!

Lakeland plastic popcorn machine. Very loud and dangerous hot popcorn kernels flying everywhere just use a pan and some olive oil.

I LOVE my slow cooker! I work late shifts and it's wonderful to get home to a hot meal that's already cooked (see also: microwave, although the meals take a fraction longer).

But I did just junk a food processor which was probably older than me and had so many attachments and blades that I could never work out which one I was supposed to use and just used the blender bit instead. It was just too big!

Talk to me more of steam mops though. I've just moved in to a house with tiled flooring downstairs and a fully tiled bathroom, and the mopping is KILLING ME!

People who say smoothie maker/nutribullet... who bought one for 'healthy' smoothies like I did, can also be used for blending up soups, sauces and have different blades for liquidising or blending ingrediants for a base of a meal, use mine all the time for that now!.. For me any kind of gimmiky mop. Spray mop, stick on wipe mop, money down the toilet. Also slow cookers, food has less taste, more time involved and the effort is very similar (for me)

I use my steam map all the time and my ninja bullet once a day so don't regret either of those. My window vac is never used. I don't regret my carpet cleaner but I do wish it wasn't so heavy.

On the subject of slow cookers:

I'm currently out in Spain ( still not back from lockdown...) and it's as hot as hell. I've been batch cooking in the slow cooker because I can plug it in outdoors and keep the heat and steam out the house.

I've been looking longingly at a mini oven and an electric pan, but am seeing what else I can do before I invest in those. I did potatoes for mashing and veg in it the other day to go with a stew I'd done earlier. Worked a treat!

Every toaster I have ever owned . Even the Dulit. All crap.

Sous Vide machine - present from my mother when I did the kitchen up - takes too long to heat up

Bread maker - I make far better bread using the Kenwood dough hook

At least half of my dining set - I'm a "got to have the full set person" so when we bought Villeroy and boch tableware - I had to have a set of six of everything - and I mean everything

I want to buy a thermomix - but I'm not because I suspect I'd never use it

Juicer
Steam mop
Smoothie maker
Soup maker - I just use a hand blender
George Foreman grill
Potato river
Garlic press - loads gets wasted so I just chop it by hand.

Oh and slow cooker. Used it once to make a chilli and as you still have to brown the meat, may as well just carry on and make it in the pan

Hold on, this is a zombie thread from 2016. Resurrected by someone whose post was then removed....

@reallyanotherone

Those new cordless dysons.

Ok for hoovering up odd bits, but not enough battery charge and needs emptying too often to do a whole house. Plus isn't as effective as it thinks it is.

So I still use my big plug in thing for most of the hoovering. And the little thing, which at nearly £400 actually cost more, sits in the cupboard taking up space.

I’ve gone back and bought a plug in hoover, and you should have seen what came up off the carpets after using the battery Dyson for a few months !!! The Dyson is ok for the kitchen floor, cleaning out the car and sucking up spiders, but it definitely doesn’t do as good a job on carpet as a proper hoover.

An expensive, built in Combination Oven. No proper instructions with it. Works well as a microwave, but when using as a grill you have to have the door closed, but the glass door has a microwave screen in it so you can't see through it, when you open the door to check progress, you have to remember to press the on button or it just cooks down.
Have given up on fancy coffee makers, have a £12 filter machine that makes coffee just as I like it, easy to use and clean.I
Garden strimmers, never got on with them.
Sandwich toasters, prefer to use toaster bags.
Good gadget
A Vileda string mop and bucket, that has a spinny pedal thing to dry the mop off. The Mop head comes off and goes on the washing machine, or some disinfectant rinse in the bucket stops the mop drinking between washes.

OMG juicer. My husband INSISTED on putting it on our wedding list. I TOLD him as he hovered the mouse over the “order” button on the John Lewis web site that we would never use it.

He’s used it once, just to make a point, I think. It’s just a big, heavy waste-of-space dust gatherer.