I hate to wash dishes. I could live without a stove in my house, but not without a dishwasher. But I always thought I was wasting money by using the dishwasher rather than washing by hand. Now, along comes Mary to ease my home-maker guilt! Here's an exerpt from her newsletter:

Dear Mary,
Is it more expensive to use a dishwasher to wash dishes or to wash them by hand? Ila T., email

Dear Ila,
It may surprise you that running your dishwasher actually costs less than doing a load of dishes by hand in the sink, according to the Department of Energy. You might also find it surprising that when you wash your dishes in the dishwasher, 80 percent of your energy costs are associated with heating the water, while only 20 percent are from actual machine energy usage. And because hand-washing your dishes can consume 9 to 24 gallons of water each time you wash whereas your dishwasher only uses 6 to 10 gallons, you can actually save energy, money and time by using the dishwasher. Just make sure you only run the dishwasher when it's fully loaded and you'll use even less water.

So tonight, after dinner, I plan to load up the dishwasher, stick a movie in the DVD player and congratulate myself on my ability to save money!