Find yourself washing too many cups every day? Looking for a solution? DrinkBands might be the ticket.
Last month, this is what I kept waking up to. Cups. Lots of them. On the counter. Used after the kitchen had been cleaned the night before.
If my math is right, there are 19 cups and glasses there. I did not stage this photo. My kids looked at me funny as I took a photo one morning, gearing myself up for a blog rant.
There are only 8 people in our family, yet 19 dirty cups were generated in the hours between dinnertime and bedtime. Consider what was happening the rest of the day! Clearly we had a drinking problem.
What a waste of resources to wash that many cups. To put away that many cups. To hassle children whose jobs were to load and unload the dishwasher.
My first response was to take away all the cups. They are currently stored on top of the fridge. Not as pretty as stashed in the cupboard, but it makes it harder to take out more cups, particularly if you’re under three feet tall. My second step was to figure out a way to identify my people’s cups.
In the past we had color coded cups. But, as the kids have grown, some no longer use plastic cups, others fight over who gets pink or blue or green on any given day.
Drinkbands enter the picture.
In the midst of all this plotting, I got an email from DrinkBands. Lo and behold, thick, durable rubber bands in EIGHT different colors to help us identify cups, regardless of style, size, or shape. Yeah! They sent us a set to review.
Mine’s white. Don’t touch it.
We’ve found these to be a quick and easy way to mark our family’s drinkware. With eight different colors, everyone has his own special color. If you have a smaller household, your set would allow you to mark guests’ glasses as well.
You can purchase a set of DrinkBands for $12.50 or get two sets for $22.50. Used regularly, you’ll easily recoup that cost in the time and money that it takes to wash way too many cups! At least at our house, you would.
Use the coupon code: LAM2012 to get 10% off your order.
Win a set of drinkbands!
This week DrinkBands is giving away 5 band sets to Life as MOM readers.
To enter, fill in the form below (or go here for the live form).
Please note this information is being gathered solely for administrative purposes to send the winners their drinkbands. This information will not be given out, sold, or otherwise shared with any other sources.
This promotion is open until Sunday, February 26th, at 8 pm PST and is limited to US residents, 18 years or older. Friends and family of Jessica Fisher and Life as Mom are ineligible for entry. The winners will be chosen randomly and notified via email. Please respond within 48 hours to claim your prize. This post will be updated with the beginning of the winner’s email addresses. The prize for this promotion is provided by and shipped by DrinkBands and/or its representatives. Jessica Fisher and Life as MOM will not be held responsible for unclaimed or undelivered prizes.
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. CONGRATS TO THE WINNERS: A.birch@, lrs78@, mmhaville@, taclark10@, woodruffboys@
Disclosure: I received a review set of the bands. However, all opinions are my own. I would tell you about this resource, anyway.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
This is awesome! We don’t have as many people in our family as you do (me, hubs, boy #1 and boy #2 due at end of March), but we could still utilize these bands! Especially since I’ll probably have a fair few guests visit me when baby comes. Oh who am I kidding….the guests won’t be coming to see me! Ha ha.
We had a similar product for Boy #1′s bottles but those are who knows where. Hope I win a set!!
Just wanted to make sure you filled out the form. That’s the only means on entry. Thanks!
Your counter looks like mine !! and I only have 2 boys-what in the world do they do? Take a drink, get a clean cup, take a drink, get a clean cup…oh, wait, add in “give the dog a drink”, get a clean cup LOL Thanks for a great giveaway and reminding me that it’s not just our home that has this stuff going on!!
Thank you!!! We have some of these for our son. However, it was evident this weekend (and every time we have guests) that we need to invest in some of these for ourselves as 4 adults use around 12 cups and the question “is this my glass or yours?” continues to come up.
This is fantastic. I filled out the form for the giveaway but will buy them if I don’t win! I have a huge extended family wit a lot of kids under the age of 20. The adults have a huge pet peeve of kids taking a drink having a sip or two them walking away from the beverage. Ugh. This is especially annoying when we all go away together to our lake house for a week. We haven’t come up with a great solution until now. These look like they’d fit on water bottles and drink cans too.
Thanks so much for the idea.
I’m not alone!
My kitchen counter looks the same way!
I have in home day care and have this problem during the summer months! My friend suggested using the rubber bracelets like the Lance Armstrong Live Strong ones. They also work like a charm.
Are you sure you weren’t in my house taking that picture?? I sometimes wonder if we have a lot more company overnight and even during the day, than I thought!
Brilliant!
I’ve often loaded 40 glasses/cups into our dishwasher! It’s crazy we even have that many!
We’ve got a big family (9 kids), and the whole cup thing has always been a challenge.
This is a brilliant solution!
O.M.G. I SO have to have these. With 5 kids in the house, I get so frustrated by never being able to find clean cups. And I am so over asking who’s full cup of warm milk is sitting on the counter from the day before and getting the dreaded “not me” by everyone. IT HAS TO BE SOMEONES!! Now I will know…
I was just asking on Facebook if anyone had success with color coded the cups! We obviously have the same problem lol…. I was wondering if I would be able to find that many boy-colored matching cups
What a great idea! Especially for those of us that don’t have dishwashers. It can be such a pain! Thanks for the giveaway!
I got two boys, and for some reason they feel the same way about cups. So when they run out of their’s they go for my coffee mugs.
Am I glad we aren’t the only ones?!?! Eight people here too and the cup business is crazy. These would be perfect!!
Wonderful! We have been using different color rubberbands for years (bought a huge roll at Target for 50 cents clearance). One breaks/is lost, get a new one. Even works on water bottles, etc. I imagine these are prettier tho, and wide enough to add a name with a sharpie.
I have to laugh. I washed cups and bowls all day yesterday. I only have 2 boys (and my husband)! And Heaven forbid there is ever a clean spoon in the drawer. My 9yo will eat two bowls of cereal for breakfast and, if you don’t catch him in time, will use a new bowl and spoon for the second serving!
This is a great idea! We have been buying paper cups, as I don’t have time on a two acre ranch full of animals to wash dishes. We use a marker to write names on the cups and then throw them away. So much easier than washing! Then, since we have a marshmallow roast every Friday night, we save the burnables in a separate trash bin and use them as fire starters. It cuts down on the need for trash services. But we are fortunate to not be subject to burn laws. I know that not everyone is able to burn in their areas. So, this is a wonderful solution.
These would be awesome for my family of 5 (with more to come). My husband was just complaining the other day about how many cups we go through and he was trying to come up with a way to cut back!