Q&A | Vitamix Issues + How many clothes do kids need?
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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I feel so much better knowing that I was/am NOT alone with this Vitamix smoothie issue. I too, experienced this issue with my Vitamix when I mad smoothies, soups (occasionally) and baby food purees. Using the tamper properly solved that problem!
It was a huge adjustment for me. Growing up, I was firmly taught that you don't stick anything in a blender. Once I got over my fear of sticking something into a spinning blender, the tamper has solved my Vitamix issue!
My children are adults now. but I just purged my own small wardrobe. Like most people I tend to have favorites among my clothing. So I kept just what I love and fits well. The rest I have put away to donate to Safe Place. Having just enough, but not too many clothing choices seems to suit me the best. That way laundry is kept to a minimum and I am happy with my minimal wardrobe.
I got the shorter, wider vitamix jar during costco sale. It needs more smoothie or whatever to keep spinning. Everything gets stuck on the sides if the volume is too small and tampering is not a good solution.
I will buy the taller caraf when I buy a replacement. Its $100 though snd that makes me not buy one now. The wide one is just too wide for single serve. Also its no good for nut butters.
If you make a full caraf (pre blended) its fine and does great smoothies. You need to tamp the ice creams. I don't like to sit extras in the fridge so its kind of a bugger to me.
Yes! The longer I parent too the more I pare down the kids' clothes and my own. I discovered this when I was pregnant with our oldest. By the end I was down to a total of three outfits for everywhere. The same three outfits worked for church, work, and the grocery store. For simplicity I packed up and stored anything that didn't fit me. It was glorious. No putting outfits together. No digging through drawers and closets.
With each kid now we have an unofficial five-piece rule: five pairs of pants, five short sleeve shirts, five long sleeve shirts. Anything more feels like a mess.
How does having 5 outfits work for traveling? You wear one and pack 4. Then you have nothing clean at home to wear the next day to school or work. Do you do laundry on vacation or late at night when you get home to prepare for the next day? I'm just curious. I find 7 or 8 outfits work out better. It relieves my laundry dilemma/anxiety. Having 5 outfits would save me some money though...
As a part of my "minimal wardrobe" method I have taught my boys that laundry is dirty when it smells or has stuff on it. Consequently, we usually return from a trip with something that is presentable, even if I haven't done laundry while traveling. Regardless, 7 outfits is significantly less than most people have and achieves the same result of a manageable life.
We do 10 shirts and 7 pants or shirts, one jacket, one hoodie, two winter coats (the younger two, because they leave them behind so often), one pair of tennis shoes, one pair of boots and a whole box of gloves and hats. Lol! None of them really like sandals any longer. Everything they own gets worn out, which I like. It is frustrating to buy things and barely use them.
It's funny because Mr. Picky Pincher and I were *just* talking about buying a Vitamix over the weekend. Our Ninja blender almost died after we used it to make gyros--we could smell the motor burning! Ugh.
I love the idea of "less is more" when it comes to kiddos in general. Adults don't need a lot of stuff to be happy and clothed and neither do kids.
What great tips! I'm beginning to think that my daughter has way too many clothes. I do laundry every day as it is, so it wouldn't be a hardship to reduce the amount of clothes she has and cycle through them more often.
~Jenny
http://www.introvertsguidetosobriety.com/
I'm currently saving my pennies for a new blender. I'm trying to decide between a Blendtec and a Vitamix. Any opinions between the two? It's a ways off before I buy anything.
Up until recently, we have always been blessed to be given hand me downs. We moved out of state so we no longer have this for our daughter (who will be 8). It truly was a blessing!!! *But* there were times where I wished we weren't *quite* so blessed. 😉 We would receive 20-30 t-shirts in each size, multiple pairs of pants, etc. And then my MIL would gift us new shirts and outfits on top of that. When my daughter was about 3 I realized that I didn't *have* to keep all that! The more my daughter had in her drawer, the more outfits she wore in a day! So I would pare it down to about 15 shirts (which was still too much, but at least it wasn't 30). The older she got, the harder it got, because she thought *all* the shirts were her favorites!
This summer will be the first season in which we have no hand me downs at all for my daughter. I will be looking at thrift stores for some basic staples. If we can keep her play clothes to about 10 shirts and 5 bottoms, with about 3 play dresses, I think it will be good. For church, I don't like to have more than 4 dresses (we usually get those at a thrift store or from a Facebook sale group), that way she gets to change up what she wears each week but doesn't have so many outfits that she only wears each thing twice.
I have a Blendtec, and I'm really happy with it. It was a wedding gift - I had registered for a VitaMix, but one of our family members did some research and bought a Blendtec for us instead. It doesn't have a tamper, and I haven't felt like I needed one. I like my smoothies to be thick enough to eat with a spoon, and it doesn't have a problem with that. I do sometimes need to stop it, stir it, and restart again, but that's it.
Blendtec also has really good customer service - the seal on the bottom of the jar broke after we'd had it a year or two, and they immediately sent us a new jar for free.
Thank you!
I've had both now, (blendtec and Vitamix) and I liked the blendtec at first, but just like you I had to replace my jar every year. On the third one, black stuff shot up into my smoothie and that was enough for me to be done. The Vitamix does the same job now, but I don't have to stop it and stir it like I did with the blendtec because I can use the stick. I also like that it is quieter. Both are good, but if you use it all the time it can be a hassle having to replace the jar all the time with the blendtec and worry about that liquid shooting up into your kids drinks.
I don't buy many clothes for my kid (grandma and great-grandma takes care of that), but I like to have enough pants and shirts (and underwear and socks) to last a week. Mid-week laundry just doesn't work for me, so if I do laundry and we all have enough for the week, I think that is perfect. I have way more shoes than I need, but I also have problem feet and change my shoes every other day, sometimes mid-day, so, as long as they are used, it is ok to keep them. Just purged a bunch (hard to be honest that those clothes will never fit again), and I am much happier with my closet.
Agree! Doing laundry once a week is what I like to do, so I make sure my son has enough for that.
Call the Vitamix 800 number. They are so helpful! And if it's an issue they will fix it. They did mine.
Sarah- maybe reconsider what is your trigger for doing laundry? If you do it when the hamper is full, maybe you need another hamper in the bathroom or other place. Then, wait until they are both/all full.
Are your kids putting clean clothes in the hamper because they decided not to wear them and didn't consider folding them up and putting them away?
Also, consider is there a certain item of clothing that the kids are running out of? Just get more of that! For example, if they run out of socks and underwear but not clothes, buy one more pack of each for everyone and stretch your laundry time.
Finally, decide what is your "laundry style." I have a friend who does a load every day because she prefers not to get bogged down. I prefer to wait and do it all once a week. Both are OK!
By the way, now that my kids are 12 and 14 they do their own laundry, about once a week. It's awesome!
I usually do laundry once a week, and did so when my kids were still at home. When they started washing their own, they did it once a week, normally. Because we've always lived in small spaces, and money was tight with the kids, we never had large wardrobes, but we always had enough to get us through two weeks, with about 4 or 5 other outfits for church and dressy occasions. It helped that the kids didn't do a lot of growth spurts -- they could wear the same clothes for more that a year in most cases. They also switched some clothes with each other (they ended up 1" apart in height) and sometimes, with their friends, which enlarged their wardrobes without adding pieces. I will find myself allowing my closet and dresser to fill up, though, because I keep clothes so long, as in decades, and just did a purge this past fall. I'm planning on another one this spring. No one needs to have a ton of clothes, but what works for each of us is flexible.
I've always heard great things about Vitamix, but I have to say, having to tamp the food in it just doesn't sound so great to me. I have a Cuisinart blender/food processor combo that uses the same motor base for both appliances, and it does smoothies, shakes, pesto, mayonnaise, food purees, and so far, anything else I've tried in it, with no trouble. I think I'll stick with it.
Two cents about the Vitamix: for some reason my blades don't always connect with the "gear" below (sorry for the non-specific terms) but if I turn the whole container about a 1/8 of a turn to the right or left (while it's on low speed/power!) the blades will engage and start blending again. Just something to try! The tamper also works really well, provided that as Kristen said, you have enough liquid in your container.
I would contact Vitamix. Excellent customer service! They helped me with an issue as well as a friend who turned hers on with a spoon in it (oops).
My kids are grown but if I still had young ones in the house I'd probably have 5 to 6 school outfits, 7 to 8 play outfits and a couple of nice outfits. My reasoning? Enough clothes for one week. Stuff happens. I wouldn't want to up late running a load of clothes for the following day because "unexpected thing" occured! I'm also a big advocate of hand-me-downs and thrift store shopping for kids with the exception of shoes, socks and underwear. I buy things for my granddaughter at a Goodwill $1.49 a pound store. Many items still have the tags on them! Most look like they've never been worn. Kids outgrow things so fast and most people buy way more clothes for a child than they'll ever wear. Then they end up at a thrift store. Other people's overspending saves other people lots of money, lol!
I live my Vitamix! For thick smoothies, I always have to use the tamper. I find it also works better if you let the frozen fruit sit out for a few minutes before begining to make the smoothie. If you have the Vitamix with all the presets, make sure you are using the correct one. If you have the Vitamix without the presets make sure you are starting low and slowly going up. (check book for proper method).
Before I bought my Vitamix, I loved Whole Food Smoothies(but not the $$$). I wanted mine to be the same thickness as theirs was. I will admit after buying mine I went there and bought one and watched how they did it. It helped me get the proportions right for what I wanted.
We have two distinct sets of clothing for our daughter...1.)Work/outside clothes 2.) Good clothes. Weather permitting, we are always outside gardening, fishing or working the farm so our 3 year old has a drawer of clothes that are stained, ripped, and dirty...perfect for outside clothes. Then we have the clothes she's allowed to wear in public 🙂 Although, it still feels like we have A LOT! I feel like I'm pulling clothes out each week that she's grown out of!
I really don't mind doing laundry and I don't even do the boys' stuff anymore. But I like that the pressure for them to do it every few days is not great - they both have quite a few things to wear, and being boys, they aren't super picky about brands. It's mostly a basic wardrobe for them. I also like that Hubby has lots of dress shirts, since I iron them. He can go three weeks without washing them, tho that rarely happens. I iron every two weeks and he rotates through the shirts so he isn't wearing the same shirts every week. As for me, I basically live in scrubs and my off days wardrobe is also very basic. For a working mom with younger kids, the more clothes = doing laundry less often which was a Godsend to me!
I've realized that so much of my kids' wardrobe is stuff that *I* like and think is cute, rather than stuff they wear very much or like very much.
I usually do a load of laundry every day, and all three of my older kids just pick the top items out of their drawer, so they can end up wearing the same two outfits all week! (They wear one, I wash it the next day and they go to the next items on top, then the first outfit is back in the drawer and they wear that while the second one gets washed, etc.) Sometimes my older daughter spends some time picking out something specific she wants to wear, but even she only wears about a third of the clothes in her drawer and closet on a regular basis.
I'll need to do spring clothing shopping for them soon, and realistically I think all the boys need are a pair of jeans, a pair of khakis, and two pairs of shorts; 5 t-shirts, a couple of button-down shirts or polos, and one zip-up sweatshirt; and two pairs of PJs. (Plus things like shoes and socks and underwear.) My girls do not like jeans, so they could probably use 2 dresses, 3-5 tops, 2 or 3 skirts, a light sweater or two to wear over t-shirts or dresses if it's cold, and then bike shorts or leggings to go under their skirts.
Ha, I'm actually glad I wrote that out, because if I stick to that, I think I will not overdo spring shopping! (I also need to go through the clothes in our attic, because I'm pretty sure I might have most of that stuff for my younger son and daughter already stored from their older siblings.)
My son will also just grab whatever is on top of the pile to wear, so I place the clean clothes on the bottom so his clothes get even wear.
I've had the same thing happen with my vitamix from time to time if there's too much "dry" stuff on the bottom and the wetter stuff is at the top. (I'm sure I don't add things in the right order.) Since I like thinner smoothies, I just add lots of almond milk and it mixes right up.
I always feel like my children have more clothes than they actually wear. Since we are given hand-me-downs regularly, even though a lot of it is useful, I often feel like they have random stuff they don't need (like weird character-themed or location-themed items), and are more lacking in everyday items that are really useful, like basic pants that go with lots of shirts. I have to force myself to get rid of the gifted items that don't work for them..... since they're free it's hard to part with them sometimes. But they just take up space in drawers, and after a while I realize that even though I have good intentions for making use of all of it, there are inevitably many things that my daughters have never worn.
I suppose I do keep more clothes for my kids than they wear regularly.... even though I don't like lots of extras taking up space, I also like somewhat of a variety to pick from. I would say they each have about 20 shirts that we rotate, 10 pairs of pants, a few cardigans each, a handful of dresses for church, plus about 6-8 pairs of shoes/boots each (for the whole year, not for each season). It works for us, doesn't take up too much space in our little old bungalow, and feels like they have enough but not too much. It also works with my laundry habits.
We have a Blendtec (it works great 🙂 ), but something mentioned to us was to add the heaviest things last. That might help with the Vitamix problem.
For my kiddos I try to have about 2 weeks worth of clothes. That gives us plenty for my laundry schedule of doing 2 loads of kids clothes once a week. Of the 2 weeks of outfits, some are a little nicer for church or outings so they don't get worn every rotation, The other outfits gets worn hard during a season. This amount might not be very minimal compared to some, but it works for us.
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.
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! 😉
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.
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?
Oh wow, that would be pretty hard for us to get used to! We're so spoiled by having so many clothes.
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.
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.