I must confess that I am not the best dishwasher in the world. I try to wash them at least once a day, but I have been known to let them sit in the sink a day or two. The problem is that I am horrible about emptying the dishwasher after it has gone through the clean cycle and so I have no where to put the dirty dishes but in the sink. Hey, I guess that is what kids are for.
I usually wash my dishes as I use them. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll wash them as soon as I’m done eating, so it’s at least 3-4 times a day. It was kind of funny when I was staying with certain friends quite frequently and/or living with them temporarily; their dishwashing habits were the complete opposite of mine, so every time I’d turn around, the sink would be full of dirty dishes again. So I naturally fell into the role of washing the dishes.
For the most part, I try to clean as I go, even right in the middle of cooking - so if I scrambled some eggs in a bowl, I'm rinsing that bowl off and putting it in the dish washer while they cook, or if I chopped some veggies on my cutting board, same thing while they're sauteing. With things like baking sheets, I will throw some foil on them if I'm just using them to broil or melt something, so I don't have to wash the whole thing. With breakfast especially, I try to make it a point to not leave a mess in my sink that I have to come home to later in the day - which really sucks. There have been some times though that I let my dishes pile up for days. I went through a pretty bad period of depression a few years ago, and just stopped doing pretty much anything for months. I was either drinking or sleeping most of the day, and everything just started piling up. Then my folks would call out of the blue and mention they were on their way to pay a surprise visit - they lived about an hour and a half away, and I would have to scramble and do some marathon cleaning session in about an hour, which was absolute insanity, lol.
I do them probably 4 times a day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and then before bed as well as one member of the household seems to make an extortionate amount of mess before bed and then just leave it there and I really don't feel like cleaning it up in the morning. We don't have a dishwasher either so it's all done by hand here. I do most of the washing but I must admit I tend to leave it on the draining board. Whats the point of putting it away only for someone else to get it out again in a few minutes time?
I am the one that does the dishes and the cooking. I don't like to see the dishes piled up in the sink so I just give in and do the dishes. Right now we are using paper plates to relieve the need to do so many dishes.
Over here we wash our own plates, so I only wash mine while the rest wash their own plates. If they eat and the plates and utensils that I used are still in the sink then they are left in the sink until I get to wash them while they wash their own plates.
I wash our plates immediately after eating. Cockroaches and mice are very fast here if you do not put away the dishes immediately. And I hate imagining them crawling in our plates, so even if I am very tired, I have to put away the plates and store them in cabinets.
I wash the dishes once a day. Most of the time I eat out during lunch time. I just drink coffee in the morning. Then the only time that I eat in the house is dinner. I don't like washing dishes, I rather cook than wash the dishes but I don't think it's practical to use a dishwasher for few plates.
I will wait until I have enough to fill the draining board, because I feel that it is a waste of the soap and hot water if I fill the sink for every single little thing that needs to be done. So I always leave it for a little while, but the dishes will actually sit in my sink, so they don't look untidy or anything like that. I just think that it is another way to be able to save money, and it means that you're not always washing dishes, which has to be a good thing!
My husband and I both hate washing dishes LOL He's at a disadvantage though, because he can't cook to save his life! So I always say, it's only fair that you do the dishes as I cooked We don't have a dishwasher either, and he vows that as soon as we move into a bigger place, that's the first thing he's getting. As it stands, we do the washing up as and when we use the dishes and pans. I never want anything to stay overnight, as I don't want any pests.
We do not have a dishwasher and our family consists of two adults and a teenage girl so keep that in mind. We went super minimalist on dishes as of about four months ago. Each of us has a set of plate, bowl, glass, coffee cup, and silverware. We wash our own as we use them. It was a hard habit to get used to at first but it helps us a lot. Whoever cooks dinner washes the dishes used to cook and we have a schedule for that - three days for me, three for my husband, one for my daughter. We tend to fend for ourselves individually for other meals and we're responsible for washing those immediately after we eat as well. For treat foods or special requests there's usually a negotiation. "Mom, if you make fudge, I'll wash the pans" or "If you make enough pancakes for everyone, I'll wash the griddle and mixing stuff." (My daughter will often make herself pancakes in a pan so she doesn't have to wash the griddle. She doesn't mind making breakfast for everyone if she doesn't have to clean up.) The whole process has eliminated a HUGE source of mess and conflict from our household. All of us hate washing dishes but doing a few immediately is less painful than doing a huge load. Plus, it has helped make my daughter more aware of what she uses when it's her turn to cook dinner. And we can no longer complain that "I can't believe X used all of that stuff to cook ONE meal"
Theoretically, I try to wash the dishes as soon as they get dirt, or in other words, after every meal or when they are being used whether when preparing foods or baking. However it's common to me being busy with so many other things that I say, "well, I will wash these with the dishes coming in the next meal..." Lie, just now have dishes waiting for me to wash, piled throughout the whole week! And I will have to start washing them before going to sleep (time here is 10:16 pm) because if I don't wash some, think I have use all of those that were clean, LOL Thankfully I'm single and living alone, nobody can punish me or complain for it
I have to admit that I have been running behind recently. When I am awake and functional I am trying to make a few cents online. I am retired and on a very small social-security check. I had a stroke a few years ago, and currently am on medication that makes it hard for me to get up and do things. My older son lives with me and he is in the process of trying to get a disability account approved (he has nerve damage and PTSD from two auto accidents, both of which he was not to blame for. One was when he was rear-ended by someone who just wasn't paying attention, and the other (he was a passenger) and a drunk was fleeing police in a high-speed chase (the police did not have their light on). He is not good at hellping with the dishes.
We don't use a dishwasher, we'd rather wash by hand. And we make sure we do the dishes everyday to prevent smells coming from the kitchen. Because we stack all the plates next to the sink before we wash them so if we leave them out for too long, the food residue on it will begin to emit odors. To prevent that, we have to wash them everyday. It's a hassle, which is why sometimes I'd rather use disposable plates for convenience .
@thomas pendrake there are far more important things in this world than clean dishes. Personally, I'll do them once a day, in the evening. I don't see the point in doing several smaller lots, it is a waste of hot water and dish detergent.
Dish washing is one of my least favorite chores so I probably don't so it as often as I should. I try to do them at least once a day but sometimes I will skip a day depending how tired I am after work. There is only the two of us though so we don't dirty a whole lot of dishes in the run of a day.
When my son is out of school I find that I wash dishes way more.Sometimes I wash two or three times a day depending on how many dishes there are. I switch sometimes between washing the dishes and using the dishwasher especially when I'm tired.
Every night. I don't like stacking dishes because where I grew up, we always had to wash our dishes after eating. Plus, I do not like the smell of stale food. It just bothers me a lot.
