Best buys for your first flat

To help ease the financial burden, we’ve trawled through our tests to find quality products that are perfect for flatting and won’t break the bank.

Tip: Organise it so you and your flatties put different appliances on your Christmas lists.

What to know

• Our prices are the average ongoing price, but most appliance stores have rolling sales – often with 50% off small appliances. Shop around and you should be able to bag a bargain.
• recommended
• worth considering

Kettles

Early morning coffee before you rush to your first lecture, late night study cuppa, weekend debrief – the jug in your flat will get a lot of use. So you don’t want one that’s too noisy, especially if your kitchen and living area is open plan.

Anko 1.7L Cordless Kettle WK8321

Price: $9
Overall score: 74% / test results
Availability: Kmart only.

For $9, this no-frills plastic kettle from Kmart offers great bang for buck. It’s fast to boil a litre of water and isn’t too noisy. However, it’s a bit fiddly to use – the lid requires a bit of effort to open and close and water comes out in an uneven stream.

Living & Co 1.7L Glass Kettle JK-108

Price: $49
Overall score: 77%
Availability: The Warehouse only.

This glass kettle gets to the boil very quickly – it takes about three minutes to boil a litre. It’s not too noisy and is very easy to fill with a push-button opening lid. While the glass might look more stylish than the budget Anko, it’ll need regular attention to keep looking sharp, so might not suit if your flatties run a mile from cleaning.

Slow cookers

Even the most novice cook can throw some ingredients into a slow cooker and flick a switch. Dinner done – a lifesaver during exam time. Slow cookers are also great at turning inexpensive ingredients, such as beans and cheaper cuts of meat, into culinary creations.

You don’t need to pay top dollar for a quality slow cooker. These three models were all excellent at slow-cooking, cost less than 40 bucks and are big enough to feed the flat and any hangers-on.

Anko 5L Slow Cooker 42662839

Price: $25
Overall score: 83%
Availability: Kmart only.

Living & Co 5.7L Slow Cooker Stainless Steel 240W

Price: $29
Overall score: 81% / test results
Availability: The Warehouse only.

Adesso 5.5L Slow Cooker XJ-13220C0

Price: $39
Overall score: 83%
Availability: Countdown only.

Microwaves

Great for defrosting, reheating meals and cooking ready meals, a microwave is an asset in any flat kitchen.

These three models, which all cost less than $130, are very good performers. Our tests put them through their paces cooking broccoli, defrosting mince and chicken and reheating quiche. But, with a bit of trial and error (and reading the instruction manual), they can let you do much more. For example, automatic cooking programmes or multi-stage cooking lets you set the microwave to do a sequence of functions, such as defrost then cook.

Anko 20L Microwave SKU 42681229

Price: $59
Overall score: 85% / test results
Availability: Kmart only.

Sharp R210DW

Price: $115
Overall score: 80% / test results

Living & Co 900W 30L Microwave LM900B

Price: $129
Overall score: 82% / test results
Availability: The Warehouse only.

Blenders

A blender is a kitchen essential, letting you crush everything from ice to nuts, or whip up soups and smoothies. We’ve found a recommended benchtop and hand-held model priced at $100 or less.

Anko 1.5L Digital Multi Blender XJ-12412 42273691

Price: $59
Overall score: 85% / test results
Availability: Kmart only.

This benchtop blender is excellent at ice-crushing and chopping. It's also easy to use but the jug is plastic so may stain.

Zip 3-in-1 421 hand-held blender

Price: $100
Overall score: 81% / test results
Availability: Briscoes only.

Excellent at chopping and processing, this hand-held blender also comes with grinding and whisk attachments.

Toasters

When the food budget is running low, you can always live on toast right? If you’re all on the same lecture schedule, a four-slice toaster will be your best bet.

Sunbeam Gallerie Collection TA2640

Price: $94
Overall score: 74% / test results

This four-slice toaster is excellent at consistently toasting bread from run-to-run – perfect for a weekend big brekkie with all the flatmates in tow. It’s very good at browning bread evenly and OK at toasting Burgen bread. It has four short slots with separate toasting levers and controls. Separate levers means you can toast in just one pair of slots, and separate browning controls means you can toast to different levels of “done-ness”.

We’ve also tested cheaper four-slice toasters but none were great performers. Although this model is a bit pricey, you can probably find it in a weekend sale.

Kambrook 2 Slice Wide Slot KTA120WHT

Price: $70
Overall score: 76% / test results
Availability: Farmers only.

If you want to save a few bucks, you can still get a quality toaster. But you’ll be limited to a two-slice. This model is a good performer – good at toasting consistently and evenly – but just OK at toasting Burgen bread.

Other useful appliances

Sandwich maker or press

The humble toastie can be a quick lunch on-the-go, lazy dinner or late night snack. Your options are two- or four-slice – the latter means you can make more toasties at once. A sandwich press is more versatile because its toasting plate can fit bread of various sizes and thicknesses.

Rice cooker

Don’t overlook the rice cooker. Instead of risking a gluggy mess, you can get perfect rice with the flick of a switch. Once finished cooking, it switches to warming mode for any latecomers. You can pick up a basic model for about 20 bucks. If there are a lot of mouths to feed, choose a model that can handle cooking up to 10 cups at once.

All the rice cookers we’ve previously tested do a decent job, so we don’t test them anymore.

Cleaners

If you’re a stranger to cleaning the bathroom and dunny, you’ll want products that get the job done. These cleaning products get our recommended tick and won’t break the bank.

Strike Bleach Toilet Gel

Price: $3.50
Overall score: 71% / test results
Availability: Countdown only.

Mr Muscle All Purpose Fresh

Price: $4.99
Overall score: 91% / test results

Earthwise Multi-Surface Cleaning Spray Citrus & Mint

Price: $4.99
Overall score: 87% / test results

Keeping warm and dry

Your landlord has to provide a heating source in your living area, but there are no guarantees about how effective it’ll be. If you’re lucky there might be a heat pump, but at the minimum there should be an electric heater. However, it’ll be cold comfort if your bedroom’s an ice-box, you’ll need to buy your own.

Your best bet is a convection or oil-column heater. Convection heaters warm the air near the element or body of the heater and it circulates warmth by natural convection throughout the room. Many have a fan to provide more even heating and faster warm-up.

Oil columns are quiet and provide background warmth – but are slow to heat a room and produce uneven heating.

Tip: To get the right size heater for your room, check out our calculator.

Living & Co LCH2000B Convection electric heater

Price: $39
Overall score: 74% / test results
Availability: The Warehouse only.

This budget heater is very quick to heat a room and very good at controlling the room temperature. It has a thermostat but no fan.

What about a dehumidifier?

If your flat is damp, you might want to consider a dehumidifier. They also warm the room as they dehumidify, bonus! Good ones don’t come cheap though, so before you buy one consider where the moisture is coming from and do everything possible to reduce the dampness. Check out our 20 dehumidifier test results.

Tip: Drying your clothes inside on a clotheshorse isn’t a healthy option – all the moisture from the washing ends up in the room. Here are our tips for the best way to dry laundry in winter.

Electric blankets

Living & Co Fitted Queen (SRO8223)

Price: $55
Overall score: 86% / buying guide
Availability: The Warehouse only.

If your flat is cold, at least you can sleep warm with a toasty electric blanket. This blanket was a very good performer and only costs $55 for a queen-size. It’s very fast at heating and has three heat settings (but no timer). It’s also easy to clean because it can be machine washed.

Staff picks

Scoopy Condensation Squeegee

Price: $22
Availability: Community Energy Action or Sustainability Trust for $29.90.

If you have crying windows every morning, Scoopy is a cheap fix. A bit like a window cleaner, you run the squeegee up the window and it funnels water into its hollow handle. Head of Testing Paul Smith said the Scoopy holds 150ml of water, and on a bad Wellington morning he filled it three times drying all the windows in his house. “While it doesn’t reach the bottom of the windows (the sills get in the way), a quick wipe with the supplied microfibre cloth finishes the job.”

Sunbeam Pizza Bake & Grill BT530

Overall score: 62% / buying guide
Price: $149

Maggie bought this benchtop oven for her son when he went flatting. In our test it was good at cooking a pizza and OK at roasting a chicken, but just OK at grilling toast. It wasn’t good enough to be recommended, but Maggie said it was really useful in the flat. “We’ve now inherited it back and with just two of us at home, we seldom use our large oven.”

Dirt Devil Bandit DDBBC

Price: $100
Overall score: 72%
Availability: Bunnings only. Get in quick – this vac is being discontinued.

The Dirt Devil is a good all-rounder – OK at cleaning carpet and very good at getting into the corners and edges. Erica bought the budget vac for her flat and said it was amazing. “I’m stoked with it – and the best bit is it only costs 100 bucks.”