Death of the monthly clothes budget
Posted in Just Clean Enough, Products I Swear By, This Month's Clothes Budget on 02/05/2010 02:32 pm by admin
Rainbow Vacuum Cleaner - clothes budget killer
There you have it, plain and simple, the reason I no longer get to buy new clothes every month. I’m now spending my $50/month paying for R2-D2 up there. It goes to show you what a raving clean freak I’ve become, but seriously, the thing traps over 99% of everything it sucks up, rather that spewing it back into the air. To me, that’s more important than shopping. At least, that’s what I tell myself whenever I get the urge to shop. Then I go vacuum something, and I feel much better.
Now, in my defense, it wasn’t a totally irresponsible act. We didn’t buy it new, and the guy threw in the shampooer and stair attachments just to be nice. So we got about $3,000 dollars’ worth of paraphernalia for under $2000. I know, I know, still extremely irresponsible. But exactly how much is a clean, healthy home worth? Especially after you’ve gone through three lesser vacuums in three years?
Not all of them were Wal-mart specials either, one was an Airider that Chad got for free…
Airider hovering vacuum cleaner
… which I shouldn’t complain about at all, because it originally retails for about $450 and really was a good vacuum for a while. The thing hovered (for about the first year of its life) and the handset was self-propelled, so all I had to do was steer. But then it stopped hovering, and we moved into the new house and all the pet hair just about killed the poor thing.
Now, to make it a fair product review, I should let you know the pros and cons of the rainbow.
Rainbow Cons:
- Friggin HEAVY! And not self-propelled.
- Vacuum head doesn’t swivel on the main carpet attachment. The hardwood floor attachment does swivel. This makes it tricky to maneuver.
- Friggin expensive.
- MLM – have to buy it from a sales guy that may or may not assume you have a brain. Luckily, ours was cool.
Rainbow Pros:
- Seriously, the cleanest your carpet will ever ever get.
- Smells pretty. No “burning dust” smell that usually comes with vacuuming. Literally, it smells like taking a shower, all those negative ions in the air.
- Vacuuming can be a workout! I got the shorter hose, mostly because I don’t mind the physical labor. If you don’t want the workout, you can opt for up to a 30-foot hose.
- No banging out filters or changing bags. I used to HATE that! Because dust goes right back into the air and onto the floor. With Rainbow, you just dump the water tank into the toilet and flush.
- 20 year warrantee. Good luck finding a Dyson with THAT.
- Never loses suction. No filter to clog means consistent suction from beginning to end.
- Purifies the air. With or without the vacuum attachments in use, it’s purifying the air in your home. A couple of weeks ago we turned it on because there was cigarette smoke coming into our vents, and another time because we burned dinner. I’m asthmatic, so that’s a big deal in our house.
So… yes, I get little pangs of regret every time I go to Forever21.com, but honestly, anything I buy now will just be out of style in a year. R2-D2 will still be sucking powdered cheerios out of my carpet when the Cheerio Muncher is in college.
