Choosing Household Appliances

As our repatriation date draws closer we are deep in planning for our arrival. Australian electricity supply is a 240 volt system so we didn't ship most of our appliances to Australia and those we did ship require a power transformer. 

So when we arrive we urgently need a refrigerator, washing machine & microwave. Then in the first couple of weeks and months we'll need to buy:

Coffee machine

Toaster oven

Hand/soup blender

Panini press

Food processor

Men's shaver

Lamps x 4

Television and Firestick 

Heaters x 2

Iron

Printer

Monitor 

Bedside clock

Vacuum

Electric blanket

Hair trimming kit

Dog trimming kit

Pedestal and desk fans

So it's a lot of stuff to buy! Because we need so many things in a short timeframe we've done a lot of research the last few months and have already begun setting up online accounts with various retailers and saving items to 'Favorites' wish lists ready to purchase on arrival. 

I consider these 5 key points for each item: 

All of these come into each planned purchase, primarily I consider quality. Why? Because when we first emigrated to the USA we went through about 3 cheap electric kettles and toasters before we finally invested in high quality brands. Those high quality brand ones are still going. So the cheap ones barely lasted a year and the quality ones are still going 7 or 8 years later. Buying quality not only saves money in the long run it also ensures less junk goes into landfill eventually. 

The second but also very important consideration is functionality, for example we want the heater for our bedroom to have a programmable 24hr timer so it can automatically come on each winter morning an hour before we get up. So finding one with that functionality is vital. 

Then the final three considerations are all lumped together to help make the final choices; cost, reviews and aesthetics. 

It's a big process but we're getting there.