3 1/2 years ago, Sarah and I switched our diets dramatically.

One of the first things we learned was the importance and benefit of including green smoothies into your diet on a regular basis.

The intention of this post is to help you avoid the trouble we went through in acquiring the right blender, as well as hook you up with a better deal than we got when we purchased ours!

Just Get Started

Like I was saying, almost 4 years ago we started getting into blending, particularly green smoothies (although we’ve since realized there are far more things you can make with a blender, more on that later!)

At the time, Sarah and I were living separately, but we both had the same blender.

She had a white Kitchen Aid, and I had a gray one.

These are your typical, middle of the road blender.

Not super cheap, not really expensive.

Within 6 months of making green smoothies every day, Sarah’s finally gave out.

The motor died.

But long before that point, the gasket where the blade attaches at the bottom kept coming loose.

Every time she would make a smoothie the blender would leak all over the base of it and onto the counter. It was getting ridiculous, so she retired it.

Luckily we were living together again, and we were able to pull mine out from the cupboard and use that for a while longer.

But not much longer, about 6 more months in the problem was back.

I had purchased a special set of pliers that I would use to re-tighten the blade at the bottom of the blender, but enough was enough!

We aren’t ones to go and get all the essentials before starting something new. That has always been a mantra of ours, and we definitely encourage you to do the same.

If you’ve just recently started getting into health and making smoothies, keep using what you’ve got! Why not? right.

But when it dies you need to upgrade…

It Was Time To Upgrade

We can be pretty stubborn sometimes, and upgrading to a high-speed blender was one of those times.

We’d kept hearing the rave about these high-speed blenders.

Better consistency, longer lasting, more versatile (not to mention less cleanup!).

But we still weren’t sure because the only ones we’d ever seen were $400+.

YIKES!

We were pretty tight on money at the time.

We had just sold everything in our apartment and were living with a couple friends of ours before leaving town for our big health tour with our non-profit at the time.

We were about to embark on a 36-Day adventure down the west coast, from Seattle to San Diego teaching dozen’s of kids cooking classes.

While money was an issue, we weren’t about to do this health tour with a leaky blender!

We made the leap, after finding the best deal on a high-speed blender – we decided to go with the Blendtec Total Blender, purchased at Costco (with my sisters membership!) for $330 +tax.

Blendtec Vs. Vitamix

Money wasn’t the only thing we had considered though. Most of the time, when it comes to our health, we’re very willing to spend a few more bucks on it ;)

We had already used each of them. There was a Vitamix in the Whole Foods Market kitchen that we taught a lot of classes in, and there was a Blendtec at one of the girls parents houses who we taught a summer cooking camp for.

We liked the Vitamix because it had a small base that made it easy to make small quantities of sauces and dressings.

And we liked the Blendtec because it had pre-programmed settings for all kinds of things like smoothies, soups, sauces, whole juice, etc., but also had a level adjustment so you could blend things manually too, like the Vitamix.

What sealed the deal for the Blendtec, however, was the wide base at the bottom and friendly blades. While the Blendtec struggles to blend super small quantities, the wide bottom makes it so much easier to clean – not to mention we wouldn’t cut our fingers on the blade while doing so either (both of which, unfortunately, happened to us while testing the Vitamix at Whole Foods). And to be completely honest, we had trouble getting the Vitamix to fully blend up the kale in our smoothies; this could have been an older model, but no one likes kale chunks in their smoothie:/

Which Blender Will You Choose?

We really don’t mind which one you go with. But we do know that they are essentially the same thing (Blendtec actually came out with the first ever high-speed blender, and Vitamix might have actually copied their design)

But if you want the best deal, we recommend getting a Blendtec Total Blender online & refurbished on their website through this link (this is our affiliate link).

Here is everything included for $231 (+ free shipping)

*Price as of Feb 13, 2018

• Total Blender Classic motor base
• WildSide jar
• Vented Gripper™ lid
• Owner’s manual

Please note this is for a refurbished model. This means they replace all the parts inside of models returned back, with new ones. But, they still offer a complete 7 warranty, so you’re not getting anything less than a premium blender.

Also, their recipe booklet included is actually pretty good. We still find ourselves referring back to it every once in while;)

What Are The Options?

Vitamix is currently selling refurbished models too for $279. However, the blender isn’t as great (it only has 2 speeds), it only has a 5 Year Warranty and there isn’t free shipping.

Costco still has the same deal that we got almost 2 years ago, for $330. Which is $50 more, plus tax, and you need to have a membership.

Or you can get the Blendtec Total Blender which includes free shipping.
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Final Thoughts On The High-Speed Blender

To those who have traditional blenders, like we did, you need to upgrade when it dies! You will save so much money in the process. Look how many times we’ve run our blender in just 18 months! That’s an average of 4 times per day:)

Aside from saving money, the consistency of the smoothies these fancy blenders create is amazing! Believe it or not, but our first experience after upgrading was thinking it was too smooth and creamy! As if we preferred that chunky texture you get when blending kale in a regular blender.

No matter which you choose, please know we are happy either way. Cheers!

Already have a high-speed blender?

Here are 6 Recipes & Resources to help keep you blending strong!

Strawberry & Blackberry Hemp Milk

Vegan Hot Chocolate

The New Smoothie Bowl

How to Get Your Greens In Every Day

The Green Smoothie Evolution

Vegan Banana Cream Pudding