Living on Less Than $28,000 A Year: How our family of six survives (and even thrives) on an income that is less than half the national median income, and what the government calls “below the poverty line” (less than $29,990 annually) for our family size. [Read other posts in this series here.]
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Our recent move brought a few changes for us, one of which was the need for a microwave. I wanted a larger size oven because I like to defrost meat in my Pyrex baking dishes and those dishes don’t fit in the smaller models. I checked the prices in several stores and found that the price range was $89-$209 for the size I wanted.
Spending $100 or more just didn’t make sense with our budget. I could have purchased a smaller, cheaper model, but I decided to conduct a little experiment: How long could we go without a microwave?
You might think that I’m crazy, and at first my family did too. There were immediate complaints:
“How will we make popcorn?”
“How will we heat up food?”
“How can we live without a microwave?”
Well, we’ve been without a microwave for two months now and we’ve learned a few things:
You don’t always “need” what you think you need.
I was unsure how my experiment would work out and I was fairly confident that I would be buying a microwave by the end of the week. After all, we used it multiple times a day for melting cheese, cooking instant oatmeal, heating food, etc.. How could we do without it?
As it turns out, there are other ways to cook food. 
When we have nachos for lunch, now I place them on a cookie sheet and cook them in the oven. It actually takes less time than it did for each of us to individually microwave our plates and the cheese tastes better too!
Instead of buying instant oats, I cook whole oats on the stove. Sure it’s less convenient than letting my 11 year old cook her own oatmeal, but we end up eating breakfast together rather than her eating while I do something else.
We make our popcorn in an air popper (purchased for $3.00 at a yard sale) and add our own seasonings. It actually takes a shorter time to make more popcorn and we avoid consuming the chemicals in the microwave bags.
I cook frozen vegetables in a stainless steel colander set inside a cooking pot with an inch of water. Steaming the vegetables makes them taste better and they retain more nutrients.
A little planning can save a lot of money.
In addition to using the microwave for convenience foods, I also used it to defrost meat and other food. If I didn’t think about dinner until 5:00 p.m., it was no big deal.
Going without a microwave forces me to think ahead and put the meat for the next night’s dinner in the refrigerator to thaw over night. This planning ahead results in dinner actually getting cooked, rather than us buying “emergency” fast food because I didn’t have anything ready to eat. Eating at home saves a lot of money.
Life doesn’t have to be lived at the speed of light.
Sure it’s more convenient to cook a frozen meal in the microwave or have popcorn in 2 minutes and 30 seconds, but is it better? Does everything have to be done faster?
After the first few weeks of adjustment, we now enjoy our slower pace of life. We eat together more often because no one wants to reheat his food in the oven. We have learned to be more patient because we can’t just pop something in and push the 1 minute button, and I happen to think that’s a good thing.
Our culture demands everything NOW. If we have to wait 30 seconds for a video download, we feel frustrated. We no longer have time for a phone conversation, so we send a text. We want our food ready in five minutes or less, and the drive thru attendant better not make us pull over and wait. What if we slowed down and took the time to enjoy some things in life?
So how does this apply to saving money?
Am I telling you to get rid of your microwave? No, but I am suggesting that if you have financial problems, or you simply want to save more money, you should take a look at the areas in your life where you have “microwave mentality”. What are the things in your life that you think you must have and you must have now: a second car, a bigger house, cable television, a weekly shopping trip, dinner out on Friday, drinking coffee daily?
Try a little experiment of your own and see if you can manage without one or two of these things in order to achieve a more important financial goal. Keep an open mind and you may discover that your “needs” are really “wants” after all. If your “wants” are keeping you from fulfilling what is really important in life, it may be time to re-evaluate.
If you do decide to make a change, give yourself and your family some adjustment time. It took us several weeks to get the hang of life without a microwave. Change is not easy or comfortable at first, but eventually you adjust.
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So what do you think? Leave a comment and let us know.
next post: The Great Cash Debate
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Our old microwave died a few months back and I thought my husband was crazy for not wanting to buy another one. Turns out we have saved SO MUCH MONEY on our electricity bill by not having a microwave! We knew that it was an energy sucker and tried to keep it unplugged when we weren’t using it but I had no idea that our bill would be so drastically changed by getting rid of it altogether! We just use our stovetop or our toaster oven to heat our leftovers and it’s worked just as well!
PS. Love your blog!
Thanks Michelle. I don’t have any specific “data” on the effects on our electric bill because we moved at the time we ditched the microwave, so I have nothing to compare too, but I am sure we saved too.
As I was reading this post, I was wondering, hmmm….but wouldn’t using the stove and oven all the time eat up more energy and heat the house too much? Thanks for sharing your story Michelle!
I wondered the same thing Lauren
My dad hates using his oven because of the energy costs but perhaps it is different for a family of one vs. a family of 4, 5 or 6
We heat up things on the stove or turn the broiler on which heats up really quickly and we use it for about 2 minutes so I don’t think there is that much electricity being used. I haven’t noticed any increase in our bill since we got rid of the microwave.
We use a toaster oven in lieu of a microwave for reheating food without heating up the whole oven–works fine. We have a slightly larger model that can handle something as deep as a 12″ pizza. It was worth the extra $15 or so for the larger model. Since we don’t have AC, and summers here are brutal, not having to turn the oven on is a life saver!! (Incidently, we got rid of our microwave less for money reasons, and more for reasons of feeling like it wasn’t benefiting us as a couple/family–there seems to be something inherently unhealthy about standing in front of a microwave that is going for 30 seconds saying, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!) But I do like to use it when I visit my mom!
We had a toaster oven for a while, but sold it before we moved. It did come in handy.
I’ve gone without a microwave for three years now. Due to lack of counter space in our tiny apartment there just isn’t room for one. My roomate and I haven’t missed it at all. One trick we love is using the coffee pot. We use it to heat up water for our tea, instant hot chocolate, and even for soup.
My husband and I have been with out directv since October. it is nice because we have more time to do other things. We still have netflix and watch or dvd’s. but it is suck a big savings!
We too cut out cable a couple years ago and we can’t imagine every spending so much money on tv again!
We have netflix streaming and rent DVDs from the redbox machine for just over a buck
Four years ago we decided to give up television and I’m so glad we did. My husband had been wanting that for years, but I just didn’t think I’d be happy without it. It’s been exactly the opposite. Our lives are so much more peaceful and calm. When I’m around a television now, I’m very aware of the demanding nature of it and the negative influence it’s exerting over our culture. We watch our own collection of DVDs and VHS tapes and check them out from the library. Many places are selling VHS movies for .25 – a great bargain. It always puzzles me when I’m criticized for spending money on our movie collection by people who spend $600 a year on cable/satellite. My husband receives amazon gift cards from his job at Christmas and we’ve bought several sets of 1950s/60s television series. The production values and morals are generally much higher.
When my microwave stopped working a few years back I made the decision to not buy another based on research that food cooked in the microwave is “zapped” of its nutrients. My family went nuts! My mother-in-law bought us a new microwave which I kindly refused (and she didn’t appreciate, by the way). However, it only took a little getting used to and now my kids actually forget that it is an option when visiting grandma. My middle child, who was about 13 at the time, even lost 8 pounds because he was unable to just cook something in 2 minutes flat. Not to mention that most items we “nuke” are processed crap that’s loaded with empty calories and TONS of salt.
When I started the HCG diet I read a lot about getting rid of the microwave. The number one reason was microwavable food is usually unhealthy food. And thinking of the boxes of hot pockets in my freezer at the time I had to agree. So when a coworker was getting her first apartment I gave her our microwave. We bought a kettle for our instant coffee and teas and we had an air popcorn maker from Christmas… The only thing I miss about our microwave is being able to reheat certain leftovers… but I LOVE having my counter space back
We didn’t buy a microwave either in our latest move. We had read about a lot of health problems microwaves escalate and thought we could do without. Not having a microwave actually has helped us to eat healthier because I don’t buy processed food that can be zapped in the microwave like microwave popcorn etc.
We have been eating “real food” for a while now and I realized recently that I only use the microwave to thaw the homemade frozen baby food and occasionally melt butter. It is funny to think back to last year when our microwave started peeling away layers when my husband went to clean it and I scoffed when he suggested not buying another one. Two weeks ago I was blessed with being able to go from working an 80 hour+ week job to becoming a stay at home mom to my 10 month old so now I pretty much make everything we eat from scratch. I would totally be happy to be able to get back my almost $200 (for the big one we got) and the counter space!
Really enjoying this series!! I just wanted to offer also a way my mother taught me to defrost meat on those days that you forget to take the meat out the night before…. we stop up one side of our kitchen sink and stick the ziploc bag of meat in it, then we fill the sink with COLD water. (If you use hot water it cooks the meat). This is also healthier than using the microwave and is quicker than leaving it in the fridge. Sometimes I put my meat in cold water while I’m chopping up the vegetables for dinner just to make sure its unfrozen… just thought this might help you if your forget until a couple hours before dinner. Depending on what and how much I’m defrosting it can take anywhere from 30 min to 1 hour and 30 min (although I’m only defrosting meat for 2, so a portion for 6 may take longer)! Thanks for sharing all your wonderful ideas
Great tip–thanks Jessica.
You’ve just given me a reason to make more counter space. Out with the zapper!!!
I love this Microwave Mentality. I’ve lived for 5 years without a microwave and the only thing that has suffered is my laziness when cooking. Using the stove/ oven/ rice cooker/ eating raw has limited my food choices to the fresher and often healthier option. Although I still utilize the work microwave, I recognize it as the 2nd rate way to prepare food instead of the only way.
Ask me to give up a dishwasher however, and you might get hurt.
I know exactly what you mean about the dishwasher–haha!
Hey I just wanted to let you know that we have lived without a microwave for almost a year now. My husband done some research online and found out that when you heat your food in a microwave it obliterates all of the molecules in the food. So you might have something nutritional before but once it has been heated it has lost all its nutritional value. We bought a toaster oven and even though it might take an extra 5-10 minutes we heat up everything in it.
We don’t use paper towels or paper napkins at all. After the first spill we cleaned up with a dish towel, we realized that cloth washes easily. Now we save tons of money not buying these paper products, plus it’s good for the environment, too. (Actually, when we’re out and I need to clean up my two year old with a paper towel instead of a washcloth I get a bit frustrated that it’s not as effective!)
Similar idea to what Lori said, I use home-made (crocheted cotton) dish clothes instead of sponges, and when an old T-shirt gets too ratty, I cut it into rags for cleaning. They’re washable and reusable!
I completely agree with this one! When I was a kid, our ancient microwave from the 1970′s died and it was more than a year before my dad replaced it. Being 11 years old and having popcorn as a favorite food, I thought I would go insane without a microwave. Not only that, we lived twenty miles out into the country, so fast food was never even an option! But we made it without a microwave for over a year and even that young it was life changing. I learned how to cook more things on the stove and to bake more often. Food just tastes better when it’s oven baked or cooked over a flame. Now at 24 years, I remember this piece of childhood, and the most I use my microwave for is to act as a timer:)
A very big timer, right?
We have a family of 6 on a $25,000 income. We’ve NEVER had a microwave since we got married. (I grew up with one, so I had the initial panic: “how will we eat? I can’t cook on a stove.” Eventually I figured it out and we’re doing fine with it. I took my 5 year old to a convention, and there was a microwave in the room. I made popcorn and he was shocked!
I just discovered your blog today and I have been really enjoying reading through this series. I am blassed to be finacially comfortable but I am alwyas looking for ways to save money. I’m single and live alone so my grocery/ulitlty bills are not too high, however I’m a graduate student facing a fairly heafty studnet loan burden after I finish school so anything I can do to put money into savings is a big help.
I really appreciated this post because it is amazing how something you didn’t think you could live without can become forgotten in such little time. A few years back when my mom and I were living together our microwave died (I should mention both of us have an ongoing struggle with out weight)- we decided to forego buying a new microwaved because we figured the things that had to be cooked in the microwave were generally processed convenience foods, and left over could be cooked on the stove, if we were to impatient for something to heat up in the oven or on the stove we probably weren’t that hungry! Our no microwave experiment ended up lasting 5+ years and sure enough we no longer bought frozen meals and we were eating more fresh fruits as snacks instea dof reheated lasagna or a hot dog. Even after we decided to purchase a microwave I still find myself melting butter on the stove (for baking) or reheating in the oven. I’m not anti-microwave by any means, i have one and use it fairly frequently but that “experiement” has had a lasting impact on my eating habits!
I also wanted to thank you for your series generally, I appreciate the way you post without passing judgment on anyone elses decisions. And I very happy to see that the comments seem to be positive- i’m always shocked when I see super negative comments on what I would think to be “non-controversial” posts. Where do these people come from that get all bent out of shape over how someone else spends their money? Nobody is forcing them to follow the suggestions. Sorry, tangent. My point is: you are awesome, keep it up!
Thanks so much Whitney!
I managed to live without an oven for three months last summer! When my 40 year old oven finally died (the stove still worked), it took us a while to replace it because the one we ordered arrived damaged, then the company didn’t refund our money for several weeks, and when we finally got a replacement, we had to modify our cabinetry because apparently 30″ stoves in 2012 aren’t the same size as 30″ stoves were in the 1970s.
Since the stove still worked, and I have a nice toaster oven, I was able to make it without an oven pretty easily. First of all, it was summer, so we grilled a lot. Secondly, there are only two of us, so I’m able to cook smaller portions. It was challenging, though when I volunteered to make 100 cookies for VBS before I remembered that I didn’t have an oven (I used my mother-in-law’s oven that time), or when I mixed up a cake and remembered that I can’t bake it in a 9×13 pan (I used 2 round pans and cooked them separately).
Ha! Thank you so much for this post! My husband and I have not owned a microwave for a number of years and in no way, shape, or form have we missed it. When I tout the ease of life with out it, people look at me like I’m crazy! But seriously, between the savings on our electric bill and our inability to “nuke” crap food with out some serious consideration about the hassle, it has been a God send to both our financial well being and our physical waistlines. Keep up the good work!
While i understand and agree with the “microwave mentality ” concept that you discuss, microwaves are actually much more efficient in cooking and heating food than a stove or oven. If you are pinching pennies it makes more sense to use a microwave because the stove & oven use more energy thereby costing more.
We had a microwave in our old place because the landlord left it for us to use. Since living here for the last three years, we don’t have one and have never needed it.
we havent had a microwave in years and my teens friends think we are weird, lol.
Welcome to the Weird Club April!
I just discovered your blog today and have spent the last two hours reading it. Several months ago my microwave crapped out and as a natural thrify person I decided to wait until Black Friday sales to purchase a new one. Most of my kids are away at college so they did not notice much. I however quickly realized that not having a microwave made me buy/eat more nutritious things. Many times when I think I am “starving” and normally would have popped something into the microwave, I re-evaluate and decide I can either wait for dinner or grab a piece of fruit (a much healthier option) to tide me over. I honestly do not miss my microwave. One son lives at home to attend the local college and he misses it but even he has adapted. In fact the other day I made him a pot pie from the oven instead of the microwave and he was amazed by how much better it tasted. I doubt I will ever have a microwave again. The convenience is not worth the unhealthy behaviors it encourages.
Welcome Enilla! It’s funny that you found this today. I was just thinking about our “microwavelessness” as I was buying popcorn kernels. Truly the only thing we miss is the convenience of making popcorn in it, but making popcorn in the air popper isn’t really all that bad. I know that we are eating healthier as well.
We are a family of 4. I am disabled and my husband stays home to care for me, so we are living on 16,600 plus food stamps. It’s amazing to me what we can do with that, and the luxuries we have that wohm people are missing. The time we have together is especially nice, even though we get clothes at the local church most of the time and don’t have TV subscriptions. We don’t get any local channels in either – too rural. We do have netflix and internet, those are our financial luxuries. I use almost all cloth instead of paper products. I even use family cloth instead of toilet paper myself, but I don’t push anyone else in the house to use it. It really cuts down on paper, and therefore how often we have to service our septic tank which is expensive. I am inspired by how you are drying your clothes, I think I may try it that way, we don’t have a clothesline up but it never occurred to me to do it the way you have. We keep our thermostat low, don’t have air conditioning, water heater low etc. Actually a friend of mine turns hers off every other day, but there are only 2 adults in her house. There are programmable water heater timers available though! I want one, it’s on the list. I don’t buy prepackaged products much, but again I have time. I do buy mustard and Kale chips, tortilla chips, things like that, but mostly I stick to whole ingredients because they just taste better and once I got the hang of cooking, it’s no more difficult than following directions on a box and it costs a lot less. I’m actually able to buy about 50% organic with the way I carefully spend our money. Thanks for the blog!!!
Ha! I love this. We just moved and have found ourselves without a microwave for 4 weeks now with no spending money to buy one. It has been a completely different experience reheating leftovers
The idea of not getting one as soon as we can had not entered my thoughts until I just read your blog. My husband and I also love to live more simply and intentionally. Maybe this will just be part of our lifestyle now 
Great tip! I could definitely go without a microwave, but I doubt I could convince my fiance! lol. But I found this tip on pinterest that I wanted to share with you on defrosting meat quickly, in case you forget to take it out the night before, like I often do! This woman shows you how to defrost a portion of meat in a pot of water on the stove without cooking it.
Here is a link to the video: http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/super-quick-video-tips/2012/04/how-to-quickly-defrost-meat-video/
Thanks Tori. Great tip!
I came across your blog from a Pinterest post. I think out of all the posts I’ve read, this is my favorite. I grew up outside of the US and in a culture where people took the time to slow down and enjoy things. Living here in the US for the past 10 years have changed me from that to someone very very “I want it NOW”… This post reminded me that I need to take the time to slow down and enjoy, that its okay to wait. Thank you so much! You write such an inspiring blog!
I am so glad that you were encouraged Liz! Thank you for taking the time to let me know.
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