Home Buying Guides

Our Methodology

Maintaining a well-functioning home has never been easier, especially with so many tools now available. With plenty of products to choose from for each room, it can be tough to choose the right one. Don’t Waste Your Money puts our expertise to work to narrow down the options so you don’t have to.

Finding the right product starts with looking at as many items as possible. This starts with reviewing a product’s benefits and features ourselves, but we go beyond our own research so that we can gain insight into what others are saying. We also look at what other professional reviewers and consumers have revealed about each product so that we can get a total overview. This allows us to gather as much information as we can to ensure our recommendations are solid.

When you visit Don’t Waste Your Money, you’ll know you’re getting recommendations you can trust. Whether you’re shopping for a new vacuum cleaner or a great fireproof safe, you’ll find the breakdown you need on our product review pages. We include information on a product’s durability and reliability, design, functionality and ease of use, among other features, to help you make the best decision.

Sometimes you prefer one product over another due to your own personal tastes. Although that type of judgment is subjective, we do try to provide as much information as we can so that you can make those judgments. Even if you like the look of one makeup mirror over another, for instance, you can go through all of our details on each of those products to make sure you aren’t sacrificing important features when you make that pick.

Whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer or you’re just trying to spruce up your favorite living space, our reviewers aim to make sure you can do so without having to invest hours of time into researching.

The home category includes products designed to keep you and your family safe, such as smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. That makes it extra important that our team pay close attention to all the information available when putting together our reviews. We take our role in protecting your home seriously, and you can trust us to look at all of the data, including our own assessments, and combine it with all the information we can find out there on each product.

If you’re looking at items like laundry detergent or toilet paper, you’ll want products that will be both comfortable and safe for your family. We consider everything from personal preference to skin sensitivities as we review products. This will ensure you enter each purchase armed with all the information you need to find the best item for your own family.

Our Trusted Process

You probably buy products for your home every time you shop for groceries, whether it’s a roll of paper towels or a photo frame for your mantle. At Don’t Waste Your Money, we know that stocking your home with useful and aesthetically pleasing products is important to consumers. For that reason, we staff a team of editors who can put their experience to use finding the best products in each subcategory.

Our research starts by up to 15 products for each subcategory to narrow it down to the top four in each area. We use not only our own product knowledge, but also information we find across the web. By combining expert reviewer opinions with what consumers have said, we can get a full view of a product to supplement our own judgment.

When it comes to home products, each subcategory has a wide range of websites devoted to testing and reviewing products. We don’t limit our information to sites with gigantic readerships. In fact, we know that some smaller, specialty sites may have far better information on a particular item. We consider all these reviews as we’re learning about a product to make sure to take comprehensive look.

Once we’ve gathered data from a variety of sources, we come up with a score that reflects the full gamut of the criteria we use when reviewing a product. This score is based on a range from 1 to 10 and allows us to compare products against each other. From there, we can choose four products that rank at the top of each category and present those to you through the product page.

We recognize in coming up with our rating that some publications and websites carry more weight than others, and we consider that as we’re researching. If a well-respected consumer publication mentions issues with a product, we scrutinize closely in those areas and make sure we deliver that information to our readers, if it holds water.

When you visit a product category page on Don’t Waste Your Money, you’ll get the top four products in each category. We also award to designations to products that qualify: Best Overall and Best Bang for Your Buck. Although some products may qualify for both designations, typically you’ll find it rewarded to two separate products in each category.