Tag Archives: laundry

Finding A Wringer Washer

Okay, so now you know all about using a wringer washer, including the great deal of savings you will get from it. Wringer washers are very popular with homesteaders, as well as with my Amish neighbors. Finding a wringer washer isn’t as easy as heading over to your local department or home improvement store. You can still find wringer washers, but they are starting to become more scarce. This is because of two reasons. First of all, the last new wringer washer was manufactured sometime in 1990, which is 18 years ago. That still mens that there are plenty of … Continue reading →

Using a Wringer Washer

In the previous article, we discussed how an old-fashioned wringer washer can save quite a bit of money, up to $80 a month! If you missed that article, click here: Wringer Washers Save Money. Now, we will talk about exactly how wringer washers work to get the clothes clean. A wringer washer looks like a round tub. It also has a wringer attachment on the top that looks like two rolling pins nestled together in a open frame, sometimes with a crank handle attached. To wash the clothes, you must manually fill the washer with water. You can do this … Continue reading →

Wringer Washers Save Money

Wringer Washing machines are a favorite choice of homesteaders who want to be “off the grid” and save a bundle on laundry. One reader told me that she started saving $80 a month once she started using a wringer washing machine. But what is a wringer washing machine? How does it work? Where can you get one? Keep reading to find out all about this frugal trend to see if it might be right for you and your family. I learned about wringer washers from some Amish friends. They don’t use electricity, but they can do their wash in a … Continue reading →

Do Your Pets Help With Chores?

Murphy, Mr. Meow, and Tabby do. Or at least they like to think they do. Mostly they just keep me company, but to a great extent that helps. It makes my chores go faster! Wayne’s always been amazed how consistent they are with helping me. Each of them picked the tasks they like helping me with best and every time I do them there they are, my little helpers. Murphy Helps With… Almost everything. He helps me: 1) bring in the mail 2) mail stuff out 3) bring in groceries 4) load up recyclables for dropping off (Which sometimes he … Continue reading →

Laundry Turning you Inside Out?

It’s not difficult to get overwhelmed with laundry. It can pile up quickly, but that’s a different article. This one is actually about turning your clothing inside out when washing, drying, ironing, putting away, and storing it. Washing from the Inside Out Some clothing will last longer if washed inside out because printed designs or embroidery will be better protected. Printed items will have more protection in the dryer too, because color won’t touch hot surfaces directly. Turning shirts wrong side out while washing and drying helps keep them from collecting too much lint on the good side. Pants with … Continue reading →

Emergency Laundry Detergent

There it is, at least three days until the next paycheck, and you find yourself with ten loads of laundry and no laundry detergent. What can you do besides going around naked? Here is how to get by, frugally, until you can stock up again. First, prioritize the clothes that need to get washed or else. Sure, you’d love to wear your favorite pair of jeans, but perhaps getting your husband’s underwear washed is more important, unless he can do without it. In an emergency, it usually perfectly fine to do one load of wash that combines different colors. Just … Continue reading →

Dry Your Clothes Twice as Fast

I recently heard about this trick from a frugal reader and I am anxious to try it. She claims that making this easy improvement will make your dryer more efficient to the point where it can dry your laundry twice as fast as it would normally. Dryers are one of those energy hogs in the home. A dryer needs to generate a lot of heat and air to dry the laundry, and all of that heat requires a large amount of energy. A normal load of clothes to be dried can cost you somewhere between $.50 and $.76, depending on … Continue reading →

A Quick Guide to Frugal Laundry Pre-treaters

If you read my earlier article, The Frugal Washing Machine, you’ll notice that it got a lot of comments from wonderful frugal folks with great ideas about laundry. One of the topics that stood out was the one about using pre-treatments for laundry stains. It was a really interesting discussion, and I thought I might explore different ways of saving money when pretreating laundry. The first choice, in my opinion (shared by so many of you) is that if you use a good laundry detergent, you won’t need to pretreat your clothing. My biggest vote for a laundry detergent that … Continue reading →

Are You Wasting Laundry Detergent?

I am always surprised by how much laundry detergent the average person uses for a wash load. Watching a friend throw some laundry in her machine the other day, I observed her method of just filling the cap up to the top with liquid detergent and tossing it in. She didn’t even look to see if the detergent went past the fill line. Not only was she using more detergent than she needed, but she was also ruining the life of her clothing, by leaving all of that extra detergent to absorb into her items. Using less of something is … Continue reading →

Introducing Frugal Laundry!

Laundry is one of those things that we just have to do in life. There is something about laundry that inspires me. Not, I’m not completely nuts, but I do actually enjoy doing the laundry. I just love clean clothes. There is also something about the feel of fresh clean clothes and linens, and the mindless organization of folding and ironing, that gives me time to think creatively. Some of that creative thinking, of course, tends to focus on how we can save money while doing the laundry. So, I was really excited when we added a new category called … Continue reading →