Do you find yourself constantly doing laundry? Each load may be costing you between $2 and $3. I have been talking about ways to minimize doing laundry and therefore maximize savings. If you missed the first two posts in this series, catch up here: Minimizing Your Wash Will Maximize Your Savings and Minimizing Your Wash Will Maximize Your Savings 2.
Let’s continue with our daily scenario…
Now try this. Wake up in a t-shirt and shorts. Putter around the house, then change to a more presentable outfit to take the kids to the park. Return from the park and change back into the shorts and t-shirt. Hand the presentable clothes up, since you only wore them for an hour or two. Change into clean t-shirt and shorts for bed. Total number of outfits to be washed: one.
This is just one scenario. Other ways to extend wear of clothing might include wearing PJs for more than one night or clothes for more than one day (I still have a hard time with this), airing out clothing instead of washing it, using the same bath towel multiple times, and using an old adult t-shirt on kids to protect good clothing for messy meals and play and using that t-shirt a few times before washing it.
Another way to cut down on laundry is to be neat and organized. When laundry isn’t put away on time, it tends to drift to the tops of furniture, beds and on the floor. Then the laundry gets dusty or dirty and has to be laundered again. If I leave any laundry out over night, even if it is just in a basket, the cat will happily determine that the clean laundry is a comfy cat bed.
When my eldest son’s drawers were overstuffed with clothing, it would tend to go everywhere. He would pull out three or four t-shirts looking for the one he wanted, and the others would wind up on his bed or the floor, get mixed in with other clothes he changed out of and wind up needing to be rewashed. We solved the problem by de-cluttering the drawers to include only the clothing he loved and made it a point that special activities, such as time on the computer, playing board games or television couldn’t take place unless all dirty laundry was in the hamper.
Thanks for coming along with me as I discussed this topic. What are your thoughts about minimizing your wash?
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. Starting June 1st, don’t miss her articles in the Baby Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
Related Articles:
Frugal Laundry: Make Your Own “Detergent”
Dry Your Clothes Twice as Fast
Alternatives to Hanging Laundry Outside