Did you know that my some expert calculations, the cost of doing laundry for a family of 4 is about $70 a month? As a family of five, my average cost would be higher. Fortunately, there are some money saving secrets that can be applied to doing laundry.
Use Good Detergent and Use Less
My go to detergent is Tide powder because I can get the most value out of it. It cleans well, so I don’t need to use any pre-treaters or laundry additives, making the cost per load less even over cheaper brands. Plus I can use less detergent per load, saving even more. Cut back your detergent little by little until you are no longer satisfied with the cleaning job. Then you’ll have a benchmark of how much detergent to use per load.
Use Full Loads but Don’t Overfill
To make the most of the electricity that you use to do your laundry, make sure that you run the bulk, if not all, of your laundry loads as full loads. This way you can get more clothes washed with less energy and save money in the long run. Just make sure that you don’t overfill your loads. Too many clothes stuffed into a washer just won’t get as clean.
Damp Dry
If you can, hang as much of your laundry as possible. This will reduce your costs to dry it, as much as 50 cents per load. If you can’t hang everything, you could always damp dry some things and then hang them in your closet where they will dry the rest of the way overnight. Just be sure to leave space in between damp items. Some dryers have a less dry feature on them. If yours doesn’t, just reduce the amount of time in the dryer by about 10 percent.