Great points everyone.

A/c is a need here, as I live in the desert, where it’s 118º during the day in summer and 107º at night; it will get 100º in the house if your a/c is off or broken (ours broke and we learned how hot it gets). At 100º inside for months, cabinets, door frames, and window frames come unglued and warp. Since we have 5-6 months of temperatures over 90º. a/c is how people live here.

Cable–not a need for us. Second car–not a need. Cell phones–NOT a need. Eating out–NOT a need.

We were always frugal; the difference now (on a third of our precious income) is that grocery shopping is a luxury that we rarely indugle in. Our garden and pantry are what keep us going. Hand me down clothing from friends is a huge blessing. Christmas and birthday gifts for my children and made from what we have on hand. We only have ice cream on children’s birthdays if one of the grandparents bring it (we used to buy it ourselves). We have family only parties; that hasn’t changed, but we invite grandparents for brownies instead of dinner now.

I would suspect people don’t see microwaves as a need anymore because the faltering economy means they are less likely to be able afford the frozen meals and snacks that are the only foods actually requiring a microwave. Additionally, there has definitely been a renewed interest in cooking real, natural, whole foods over the last few years with books like the Omnivore’s Dilemma and movies like Food, Inc. hitting the national scene.

We no longer have a microwave and I don’t anticipate purchasing one in the future. I haven’t missed it for a second. (Not because I have fewer leftovers, but because I haven’t found it to be any more challenging to heat them up on the stove or in the toaster oven.)

Great points everyone.

– i ditched the full size blender (i only used my personal anyway)

– the over sized multi tray veggie steamer was replaced with one half it’s size..takes up 1/2 the space and uses 1/2 the electricity

– we gave away the fancy bunn coffee pot that allowed you to pour one cup at a time by just inserting the cup under the little window
(now we use a coffee pot ‘thermos’ to keep the coffee hot for hours)…no electricity wasted

the bread machine…heck that was a want at one time….i never used it and never bothered to learn how…10 yrs it sat in the cabinet and made 2 moves with us

all those misc kitchen gadgets that i got caught up in…i wanted a pizza slicer, i used a knife…i wanted a ice screen scoop, i used a spoon… and the list goes on and on….

so i rid our lives of all these so-called needs….and so far i haven’t missed a single one….

now my cable tv…. that’s a need…(only because it keeps hubby home at night and out of trouble)…if ya know what i mean….

We don’t even watch TV! We are probably going to get an old one with a VCR built in so my daughter can watch some Spanish videos we have (my husband and I are bilingual, but we haven’t done a very good job of helping her along).

A/C. Yeah, I think that depends on where you live. When I lived in Texas, I mean, south Texas, border-of-Mexico-so-I-got-my-braces-in-Mexico part of Texas, it was so humid (hot is one thing–humid is another) that I not only could not live without A/C, I couldn’t drive without it. I made it to May the first year before hunting up someone who could recharge the A/C in my car. It lasted through the summer, or until the car broke down (I think it broke down sometime during the summer). I kept the house about 80 degrees, though, not 72 like one of my friends. It helped the bill a LOT! Now I live near Portland, OR, and I can’t imagine why I would need A/C. It’s not humid and the night air is cool. Just open the windows at night and shut them in the morning!

I haven’t owned a microwave ever. I just cook from scratch and reheat on the stovetop. I really don’t miss it.

Gardening… Ah! We are moving end of this month, too late to prepare soil and put in a garden in our new place, BUT I want to grow tomatoes and herbs on the porch, and can tomato sauce and maybe spaghetti sauce. And a friend of mine who lives nearby says she always grows too much and is very willing to share, so I’m looking forward to saving a bit from the food budget to stock up on bulk items like 50 pounds of wheat to grind in our grinder for bread, oatmeal for granola, soy beans for making soy milk and tofu…

Sure is a good thing I don’t work! I keep pretty busy right here at home!

Really? If anything, I would think a microwave would ENCOURAGE the bad eating habits that contribute to the “fattening of our society.”

Maybe it had to do with people actually cooking their own food instead of buying in in a box from the freezer section. Maybe it had to do with people realizing their stoves and ovens are perfectly acceptable ways to heat up their food, including those leftovers (the ones we’re not eating because we’re all so gluttonous). Maybe it had to do with people realizing that if you shouldn’t use it to heat up formula or breast milk, maybe you shouldn’t use it for adult food either.

Or MAYBE, like the rest of the items on the list, it had to do with people realizing that things they thought were necessary really aren’t.

I’d be willing to bet that the people who DON’T have microwaves are, on average, slimmer than those who do. What a horribly unfounded argument in what would otherwise be a good post.