If you're still going into the kitchen and finding a pile of dishes in the sink waiting patiently for you to fill the bowl with water and detergent and get down to washing them by hand, maybe it's time you did a rethink. There was a time when dishwashers were expensive to buy and expensive to run. They were seen as a luxury. Even if you could afford one, there was the question of space. Dishwashers were bulky, and if your kitchen was small, you were out of luck.

Thankfully, things with dishwashers, as with all things, change. The first thing to know is that dishwashers no longer take up huge amounts of space. You can buy a modern dishwasher which easily fits on the countertop. No need to use up valuable kitchen space. If you have a family of four, one of these small style dishwashers can be just the thing. It can wash a small dinnerware set to perfection in less than an hour. And, as with all dishwashers, the results are much better than you could get doing the dishes by hand.

As for the expense of buying and running a dishwasher, that's history too. The smaller models, big enough for a small family, can cost just a few hundred dollars. And with the new breed of energy-saving models making more of an appearance, there's no need to panic when you receive the electricity bill.

But of all the things that having a dishwasher does, the main thing is that it gives you something important. And that thing is time. Since I bought my first dishwasher, I realized how much time it takes to wash, dry and stack dishes. Never again. Once you buy a dishwasher and see how much it frees you from the hassle of dish washing. You'll never want to wash another dish again.