I have three kids, which means that the inside of my car gets really messy. There are spilled Goldfish crackers, mashed-up Cheerios, and sand from visits to the beach. To keep things a little cleaner, I looked around for the best portable car vacuums.

The one I ended up getting–and that I now use all the time–is the Black + Decker Flex.

It’s a great miniature, portable vacuum that you can use to clean out your car and also to clean up little spills and messes around the house.

My Review

Here’s my video review:

I’ve been using the vacuum for about 6 months now.

Pros and Cons Based on My Real-World Use

Here are some things that I like about it:

• It’s super light–even lighter and smaller than I expected when I shopped for it online. That makes it extremely easy to carry out to the car.
• Although I bought it for the car, it’s effective on small spills around the house. When a bunch of sugar got spilled inside a drawer in my kitchen, I used the vacuum to quickly clean it up without taking all the stuff out of the drawer.
• You can open a little door and dump the dust out, and even the filter is washable. Nothing to buy for ongoing maintenance.

The cons of the Black + Decker Flex are:

• It’s definitely for spot-cleaning only. Cleaning larger areas takes forever and it isn’t worth the effort. You’re not going to use this to clean a whole room.
• Bigger items can get stuck in the nozzle and clog the vacuum. I remove any items larger than a grape from the car before vacuuming.

Where to Buy

I got my Black + Decker Flex on Amazon.