5 Essential Dorm Room Appliances

I really can’t believe that it’s August, and time to start thinking about going back to school again. I’m sure we’re all asking the same question: where did summer go?! While it’s really sad to be entering the last full month of summer, the back-to-school excitement has began. It’s strange how I’m looking forward to school this year rather than dreading it, but the truth is, I love college. Now that I have a year of college under my belt, I feel like I know what to expect for this next one, and I can’t wait to see all of my friends. College truly is like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and it’s so much better than high school.

Since I’m so excited for my sophomore year, I want to help incoming freshman be just as excited! I remember how terrified I was this time last year, so if I can at least help sooth one person’s fears, than I’m glad! I’m going to be doing a back to school series (mainly focused more towards back to campus) on my blog and channel as well, so this will be the first post and it’s going to be all about 5 essential appliances! That might seem strange and not super-duper exciting, but trust me, good appliances will make your life so much easier.

This is actually the exact mini-fridge that I have, and you can buy it from many different stores (Costco, Target, Walmart, etc.). Having a separate freezer will change your life! Okay, maybe that’s a little overdramatic, but it seriously comes in handy. Mini-fridges have horrible freezers that don’t even really work, but ones like these have really great freezers. You can have ice in these, ice cream that stays frozen, or my personal favorite, frozen gluten-free waffles that you can heat up in a couple of minutes on busy mornings. When you go out to get a fridge, make sure to get one with a separate freezer!

Why do you need a panini grill, if you don’t even like panini’s? Well, let me tell you that these things come in extremely handy. You are not allowed to have toasters in most dorms, but you are allowed a panini grill, or any other appliance with no exposed coils (the things inside toasters). I was able to “toast” my waffles with this bad boy, make grilled cheeses, cook my vegetarian meat (oxymoron anyone?), grill veggies…basically anything you can imagine! You can even cook eggs on them.

Even if you don’t eat rice, rice cookers come in really handy. Especially this particular one, or models similar to it. This definitely isn’t a “traditional” rice cooker, which is what is really nice about it. You can cook spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, soup, and anything else that you usually cook on a stove-top. This is basically a pot that warms up without needing a stove; therefore, you can use it to cook most anything! I used this almost everyday last year, and was able to eat “home-cooked” meals because of it!

Okay, I say a water purifier of some sort because there are so many options out there. Most people have the Brita filter pitchers, but personally, I got this one from Drop. Instead of having to fill up a giant pitcher every couple of days, I just have to put this thing between the faucet and my cup (or in most cases, water bottle). My sink was actually too shallow to do what the picture is demonstrating, but I just put my fingers at the bottom, set the Drop in the bottle, and let it do it’s thing. This takes all of thirty seconds, and I’m good to go! I never had to worry about walking down to the dorm kitchen where there were bigger sinks to fill up my pitcher, and my water was just as clean!

This choice really depends on whether you are a tea person, or coffee. Personally, I’m more of a coffee drinker, so I took my Keurig with me last year; however, next year I think I might just bring an electronic tea kettle. They boil water very quickly, and I’m actually trying to not drink as much coffee because I’m trying to avoid caffeine. Honestly, I’ll probably use the kettle mainly for making instant oatmeal, but you never know when heated water will come in handy! It only takes a couple of minutes for the water to heat up, and bam your tea or oatmeal is steeping.

Alright, those are my 5 essential appliances for your dorm room! I mainly touched on the ones that will most likely be forgotten, but you’ll definitely need things like a microwave. I figured that was pretty obvious, though, so I wanted to focus on things that people were more likely to forget about. I’m so excited to start planning out my dorm for next year, and to get moved in! It’s so much fun living in a dorm and being so close to all of your friends, and I can’t wait to get back. 

Thank you so much for reading, and have a great day! 🙂