Saturday is No Dirty Dishes Day, and I think it's the perfect time to show off my dishwashing knowledge by showing you five ways you could be using your dishwasher wrong. These will save you time, money, and give you cleaner dishes.

  • 1

    YOU'RE RINSING YOUR DISHES

    Stop with the dish rinsing. If you have an even slightly modern dishwasher, rinsing makes it harder for the dishwasher to do the job. When the soapy water is spraying around it needs something to connect or it won't work. HUGE chunks of food? FIne, scrape it into the bucket for the compost, but otherwise, save yourself the trouble.

  • 2

    YOU'RE BUYING DISHWASHER DETERGENT WITH "RINSE AIDS"

    I used to do this, and then I found out something that blew. My. Mind. The fancy additives they promise will leave my dishes sparkling? It's gone by the time you get to the rinse cycle. Gone. So, fill the rinse-aid container and be done with it.

  • 3

    YOU'RE LOADING IT ALL WHACK-A-DO

    To get the best cleanin', the plates and the bowls need to be in the right spot and facing the right direction. Bowls go on top, facing forward in the rear, and the facing rear in the front. When it comes to plates, they need to face the center of the bottom rack no matter which side they're on.

  • 4

    YOU SEPARATE SILVERWARE BY TYPE

    The biggest problem is spoons since they can nest and not get clean, but generally, mixing up spoons, knives, forks, etc, you're making sure there's plenty of surfaces for the water to bounce around on. Also, a good step is to put everything in facing down, that way, when you empty the dishwasher, you're not touching the part y'all eat with.

  • 5

    YOU NEVER CLEAN THE FILTER

    In the old days, dishwashers were noisy beasts, in part because there was a mini-garbage disposal in there, chopping up any food bits and rinsing 'em out of the machine. Now, tho, to keep 'em quieter, there's a filter that keeps chunks from going down the pipe. If you're smelling something stinky, there's a good chance you need to clean the filter. It's usually on the floor of the washer and looks exactly like it is. Check your manual.

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