5 Ways I Save on Laundry
This post was written by me as a paid partner of Purex® Laundry Detergent. However, all opinions are 100% my own.
Laundry is one of those chores that is never done; as soon as you catch up on the laundry, there’s more in the hamper!
But laundry’s repetitive nature makes it a great area to apply frugal hacks; you’ll use them over and over, and that means you’ll reap savings over and over.
Purex® Laundry Detergent, an affordable laundry detergent brand that helps people achieve a dependable clean, reached out to ask me if they could sponsor a post about ways to save money on laundry.
Soooo, I said yes, since that's right up my alley!
1. I use dryer balls
I use wool dryer balls, which promise to help reduce static cling, reduce drying time, and also can help save money on energy costs.
I used to have some plastic dryer balls, which eventually cracked and were no good. But I've been using my wool dryer balls for years, and they show no signs of wear except for some pilling.
Since they last so long, they’re both a cost-conscious and eco-friendly option. Go for the wool balls over the plastic ones!
2. I use an affordable laundry detergent: Purex® Laundry Detergent
You may remember that I tried making homemade laundry soap years ago. That was an abject failure that left my clothes covered in stinky residue. NEVER again!
Instead, I use Purex® Mountain Breeze® Liquid Laundry Detergent, which provides a dependable clean at an affordable price. It fights 99% of common stains and provides an all-in-one powerful clean with long-lasting freshness, so it gets the job done for me without breaking the bank.
And if, like me, you have someone in your house who is sensitive to fragrances, you should know that Purex® Free & Clear Liquid Laundry Detergent is free of dyes and perfumes and is hypoallergenic.
So it’s a great option for families on a budget who also want a detergent that works for their sensitive skin.
3. I use laundry bags to prevent damage to clothing
I have several zippered mesh bags, plus two designed specifically for bras. These are excellent for items that might get twisted and damaged in the wash.
And they're great for keeping items from damaging other laundry; for example, you know how bra hooks can get caught on the other laundry?
Or how the straps can get wrapped around other clothing or worse, the agitator in the machine?
Putting them in the bag prevents all of that and helps me to save money from needing to replace any damaged items.
4. I air-dry selectively
I dabbled in being an exclusive line dryer for a while, and I decided that was not the life for me. I happily reunited with my dryer and haven't looked back since.
But I do air-dry:
- anything with a lot of elastic (dryer heat is hard on elastic!)
- anything super prone to fading
- items I can't afford to shrink
- delicate items
- sweaters
Line drying, even in my selective fashion, helps to reduce the cost of running large loads in the dryer and also helps maintain the quality of more delicate items that can get damaged in the dryer. That saves me money in the long run!
To help avoid wrinkles, I throw my laundry straight from the washer into the dryer, set the dryer on low/no heat for a few minutes, and let the clothes tumble.
Then I take the needs-to-be-line-dried stuff out, hang those things up, and dry the rest of the load in the dryer.
I used to press "start" and rely on myself to remember to come take out the air-dry items a few minutes later but...I forgot so many times! So now I always, always use the timer on the dryer.
I cannot be trusted. 😉
5. I pretreat/soak stains
If I have an item with a stain on it, (like a grease stain or a food stain), I gently rub a little bit of laundry detergent directly into the spot and let it sit for five minutes before washing it according to the care tag label.
Purex® Mountain Breeze® Liquid Laundry Detergent works as both an effective pre-treatment and regular detergent, helping to save me costs on buying two cleaning solutions while also helping to remove pesky stains.
If a stain looks particularly troublesome, I sometimes soak the item beforehand – and even better, I try to give the stain a quick rinse shortly after it happens, in cold water for any food and beverage stains or in warm water for any oily or greasy stains.
That way the stain doesn't have a chance to set in.
How do you like to save money on laundry?
P.S. When I got started on writing this post for Purex, I ended up with way more tips than I could fit into the length they wanted. So, look for another post with more laundry tips soon!
We too use a reasonably priced and unperfumed laundry detergent (Purex not sold in our country), a powder as adviced for our washing machine. I am a determined high temperature launderer. Bedlinens, washcloths and towels, kitchen linens and such I always wash at 60C. And the majority of clothes are laundered at 40C. I calculated that it would make a difference of only 15-20 euros a year to switch from 40 to 60, which is worth it to me as an asthma patient. However since we do a substantial amount of our laundry when the sun is shining, our solar panels provide much of the electricity we use for laundry. This makes laundry a fairly cheap chore apart from water, detergent and the general wear and tear of fabrics. Also, I line dry as much as I can and I specifically love drying bedlinens outside on the south facing balcony and then making the bed with sheets smelling of sunshine. A frugal indulgence 🙂
With regards to silks and woolens and other very fragile fabrics (not worn on the "third armpit" obviously): if they are unstained but need refreshing, you can put them in a ziplock in the freezer for a few nights and that will kill germs and prevent smells. I find this a good way to keep silk scarves smelling fresh without drycleaning them.
Thirdly, our washing machine can do heavy loads so I can also wash our synthetic duvets at home rather than having them drycleaned. This is both frugal and convenient. For the sake of superstition I will not say how old our washing machine is, but it is a very sturdy one and I am secretly wondering if they still make machines as robust as our trusty old one.
Note: I work from home and I can easily schedule a load of laundry on the few sunny hours of an otherwise cloudy day. I love our solar panels!
@JNL,
I’ve never heard of the freezer trick for scarves. Interesting!!!
@JNL, only the Maytag Commercial washer is robust these days.
@Book Club Elaine,
That make is not sold in our country, we have had German make washing machines for as long as I can remember, the best among them Miele.
Reading through the comments I realized that there are indeed apartment blocks with shared laundry facilities. I have not shared facilities since I was a student, they were in a basement near the heater kettle and all line dried laundry would be dry in six hours, with towels like sanding paper.
@JNL
I feel that pain, although thankfully I moved. I lived somewhere where the water was so hard, it tested 500 percent above the "may cause damage" level. You had to get used to crunchy hair, water heaters with a short life span, and the glass shower door being the grossest thing ever. ,
In my house, DH does the laundry, which I really appreciate. BUT I bought a small hot pink (hard to miss color) hamper for the clothes that I prefer to wash, since they need a little more attention. This way, they don't shrink, wrinkle, whatever I need to keep them nice. It saves me from having to purchase more clothes!
Also, DH does the laundry quite often so I'm never out of every day things like socks, undies tshirts, etc. so I'm not tempted to buy more.
@MommaJo, My husband does the laundry, too. But I had to reconcile myself to all colors and whites being washed together. Since he is colorblind, he doesn't notice or care if colors run and turn everything in the load pink or lavender or orange (all have happened) and I have learned not to care. Having been referred to hospice services once many years ago, I suddenly had great clarity about what was worth caring about for me. On the other hand, my friend who just entered home based hospice this week, is still paying someone to pick up and wash her clothes and iron her sheets and bras (?). She has done this since she could afford it and it is still important to her now, so I say good for her to figure out what she wants to live with and can live without. (Although the ironing bras is a puzzle to me.)
I have literally never heard of someone ironing bras until just now. Why???
@Lindsey,
I agree about ironing bras. I've never ever ironed a sheet, though some of the edges could probably be improved by being ironed....life is too short for that, in my opinion, but if it's important to your friend, so be it.
Our regular winds are such that line drying is out of the question, lest our clothes blow into the next county! However, I do use dryer balls and a special bendy brush for cleaning the lint trap pocket in our dryer, in addition to cleaning the lint trap with every load. With three cats and constant laundry thanks to a groundskeeper husband, the lint trap and adjacent area fill up fast!
Dryer balls also act as a fabric softener. I've never used fabric softener, now that I think about it--partially because of the extra cost but mostly because my sensitive skin. As a redhead's daughter,* I can't handle dyes or perfumes, so why give myself one more thing to potentially react to? 😛 Dr. Bronner's is my soap choice for the heavy duty stuff, with Arm & Hammer Sensitive Skin for everything else.
*Dad's immune to poison ivy, but those are decidedly not the genes my pasty self inherited. 😛
@N, Thanks for reminding me to clean the lint trap! We don't use our dryer much in the summer, but when it's raining I do, or for sheets that are hard to hang out on our clothesline.
@N, I'm a redhead and have been using castile soap since I was little because I'm sensitive to non-soaps. My face and body are only washed by Dr Bronner's, as are my redhead daughter and dark haired sons. No gross face wash or body wash for us, just natural soap.
@N, You are the first person who has known someone else who is immune to poison ivy! I am and when I was a kid tried to convince my brother he was also, by rubbing some all over his body. He was not.
@Lindsey, My DH was/is immune to poison ivy. That is, he always was immune, and only just now gets a tiny reaction if he touches it.
I am jealous! lol
One of the things I (mostly) do is buy clothes that are easily laundered. No dry cleaning is less expensive.
I line dry things that need it or when it seems I have enough time/good weather conditions. Sometimes it's too humid, and I'm definitely not going out in the cold.
@Jody S, I too buy mostly clothes that are easily laundered. I quit buying clothes that have to be dry cleaned when I learned that depending on the type of solvent used, air emissions and hazardous waste generated by these businesses may be regulated by the state or EPA. I don't need those dangerous chemicals on my clothing!
Thank you for sharing that Purex has a dye and scent-free product! That’s a requirement for my laundry. I didn’t know they had one. I’d love a break from T’s prices. Will look for Purex.
I had a huge laundry room in one rental where I could line dry inside. I loved that. It’s back to the dryer now.
I do pretty much everything that Kristen mentioned in today's post. I don't use dryer sheets (I found that they often stained clothes), chlorine bleach or liquid softener. I switched to using vinegar for rinses years ago and have been pleased with the results.
Vinegar comes in huge, inexpensive jugs (A jug that lasts for months costs less than one pack of dryer sheets or a bottle of liquid softener would cost.)
After years of using various name brand liquid detergents that claimed to be for sensitive skin, and still having problems, I now use Trader Joe's Free liquid laundry detergent.
And we air dry (in the apartment) for various types of clothing because the dryers in the laundry room have a tendency to over heat no matter what temp you pick.
Towels, sheets go in the dryer. Vinegar really does a great job of softening.
The one area we cannot control in terms of cost is what we are charged to use the machines in the apartment building's laundry room. Over the years, costs have increased for both washers and dryers. With dryers, the cost has gone up even as the amount of time you get has gone down, so air drying clothing has saved $ on that.
We generally wash every week and it's usually two large wash loads and 1 to 2 dryers if we're doing sheets and/or towels. It comes out to around $20 to $25 a week. That's not cheap but it's even more if I were to take it to a local laundromat that may have bigger machines (and higher prices plus I'm not keen on using machines used by general public) with a greater capacity for both washers and dryers (thus saving turnaround time).
I use a spray cleaner to wipe down dryer interiors and empty the lint tray before and after use. When I can reach it, I empty the machines other lint trap. Every now and then will do an empty wash with seriously hot water and bleach to sanitize the washer before doing a load. Our building does NOT have anyone wiping down the machines, emptying lint filters and the like. And some of our neighbors have, shall we say, not especially hygienic habits, especially those with pets (hair ALL over the interior and exterior of the washers; tons of lint in the dryers that they never clean out after using).
Paper towels, spray alcohol and spray cleaner are in the laundry basket. And we line the carts used to hold clothes (both dirty and clean) with trash bags. It's essential lest you contaminate your clean clothes with the residue of someone else's dirty clothes. It would be great if there were designated carts and people used them, but that's fantasy land.
We never, ever use the folding tables but lightly fold some items and fold them in the apartment.
It used to be a nightmare in summer as the room only had a fan. Fortunately, the building installed an AC unit a few years ago and now we can do laundry as needed instead of sometimes skipping because it was simply too hot to be in the basement.
Years and years ago when I traveled and lived in two other apartments, I was never home to do the laundry (which I actually enjoy doing; feeling of satisfaction to see dirty become clean) and relied on two laundromats who provided the service. One was owned by my landlord with whom I had a good relationship and the other by a woman I became friendly with (and whom I tipped with cash on more than one occasion). Back then, it was far less expensive to have your laundry done and because I knew the owners personally, I got really good service (only one piece ever lost; nothing destroyed).
I have to laugh when I hear people who have in-house or in-apartment washers and dryers complaining about cost and access. They can do wash at any time they want and I've figured out that over the years, I've paid for multiple machines outright several times over (I've lived here for decades.) For years I refrained from doing the numbers on annual costs, but then I met a neighbor who shared what she spent and OMG. Sometimes you just don't need proof to know that you have costs you cannot control.
One thing we do, is to carefully count how many pieces fit into the large machines (whites, darks, etc.) and only do a load when we have enough to fill.
When I was traveling all the time and could not coordinate laundry turnaround from the service, I ended up buying more towels and undies! At one point, I had a lot of tidy whities so I could not do wash for several weeks for them! (All were purchased on sale at a minimum of 50% off )
Since the cost of doing a wash is the same whether we do it hot, medium or cold, we opt for hot for sheets, towels; medium for most clothing; and an occasional delicate/cold for special items.
My best laundry trick? Using oversized kitchen trash cans (lined with laundry bags) to sort/hold dirty items. It's an instant way to see how much we have. Bags are washed each time we do laundry. It's easier to store and access them with these cans, which we keep in a closet or on a wire shelving unit.
@Irena, So many NYC people I know use wash n fold services, as it's really not that expensive. Have you considered it?
@Irena, Your trash can tip is new to me. I'm always curious as to how others store/sort their dirty clothes. We have a hamper but even just two of us fill it fast. I did steal a trick from a friend and now we keep dirty towels in a mesh bag hanging on the back of the bathroom door, saving some hamper space.
@Irena,
When my daughter was single, she lived in a studio apartment with no washer or dryer in the apartment and no laundry facilities in the complex. We found her a little all-in-one washer/dryer that she could roll to the kitchen sink and hook to the faucet and set the discharge line in the sink. I think I found it online at a site named "small appliances.com" or something similar; I believe the brand was Haier. She used it until she moved out of that apartment a couple of years later, and sold it to her landlord when she moved, as it had added value to her apartment.
I don't know if those are still out there or if you would even be interested, but I just thought I would mention it.
@JD, They are but a lot of NYC apartments forbid them.
A long time ago I read Elaine St James' book "Simplify Your Life" and she talked about having a small wardrobe of clothing but also washing clothes less frequently--not everything needs to be washed right after wearing unless you're doing yard labor or exercising. (Obviously underwear would be exempted from this!). This led me to pare down my wardrobe and be more judicious about when things "need" washing.
I haven't used fabric softener in years. White vinegar when I feel things need a little something. Hanging towels to dry thoroughly between uses cuts down on frequent washing.
I use cold water for everything except towels.
I like line drying! One house we lived in had no dryer, not even a hookup--the previous owners had lived there for over 25 years with just a washer and a big clothesline out back. (Though they were also notorious for running over to the neighbors and begging to use their dryer on cold, wet days--they were not frugal, they were miserly.) We lived there eight months before setting up a dryer in the garage, but I learned to love the smell of line dried sheets, towels, and clothes. We jury rigged a small clothesline here, as well as an indoor line in the garage, and it's nice to not use the dryer when feasible.
@Karen A., I LOVED her books. I was maybe 23 when I read them and they changed my life.
@Karen A., Elaine St James’ “Simplify Your Life” is one of my favorite frugal living books because so much of what she recommends also saves money.
We used the free and clear version of Purex all the time when we still used liquid detergent because DH is sensitive to certain detergents. I switched to A&H powder a while back because it gives us fewer problems with the door gasket on the washer. Liquid detergents tended to make it mildew.
I rack dry anything I don't want to shrink, which is about half my wardrobe due to fabric content. Rayon does much better not in the dryer and cotton-poly blends are way less likely to pill when air dried.
We each have our own laundry basket and do our own laundry. I do the laundry for the pets and the house: cleaning rags, towels, bedding for people and pets.
@Karen A., Thanks for the mention of Elaine St. James' "Simplify Your Life". This is the book I was trying to remember the other day when the posts were about frugality and I veered off into the simplicity realm that seemed to catch hold at the same time the Tightwad Gazette was published -- early 1990s. This book made a huge impression on me.
@Karen A., thank you for mentioning Elaine St. James. I've not heard of her but now have reserved "Simplify Your Life" at the library.
@Central Calif. Artist Jana, I hope you enjoy the read! I still aspire to her ways of having the same meals in rotation every week. We sort of do that, but I have the family vote and we usually end up having tacos every Thursday, pizzas on the weekend, so I guess we do, at least part of the time.
Love my wool dryer balls, white vinegar, Tru Earth Compact Dry Laundry Detergent Sheets (unscented), oxi clean free stain remover, and Tondil free & clear laundry detergent (used on my son's restaurant kitchen clothes) and only $7.89 from Aldi. Naptha bar soap and also liquid dish soap are heroes in our stain removal arsenal; dish soap is made to tackle food and, therefore, works great on clothing, too. Tap cold setting on my machine works well for most everything, but I use warm or rarely hot setting on bedding or tough stuff (other son's a metal fabricator, and husband runs/hikes/skis--oh wait, they all ski/snowboard 🙂 Daughter wears her clothing so gently that it appears brand new even when it's 10+ years old, and she thrifts a lot of her things. When all else fails for stains, I resort to an overnight soak in a bucket of hot water with oxi clean, a squirt of liquid dish soap, and occasional hand agitation; 24 hrs later stains and odors are history (unless it's an old stain that's been dried into the fabric). Everyone is old enough to do their own laundry, and I remind them that the dryer is their enemy when it comes to stain removal, but there are still the times I hear a plea for help with a stubborn stain. My daughter recently FaceTimed me to show me red sharpie on a favorite white shirt. She very skeptically poured on the rubbing alcohol & as we watched the marker lift out of the fabric and float away, her smile grew 🙂 Ahhh...mom-knowledge is a good thing 😉
@Beth, I use Dawn dish soap (actually the Kroger version of it) to pretreat grease stains. Works great! And hydrogen peroxide is good on white towels for biological stains. Going to remember the rubbing alcohol for ink on fabric 😉
@Beth, That's right! Rubbing alcohol! Thanks! I knew there was something that would work, but couldn't remember what it was. My husband got ink on a new pair of shorts last week.
@Ruth T, when I worked in newspapers, the composing room staff showed me how to get non-reproduceable blue ink off clothes with a shot of cheap, high alcohol hairspray. I never used hairspray and found this fascinating.
We have water softener for hard water so nothing I have tried beats Tide. For clothes that are not stained I currently use Method. Price is low on the list for detergent as I need it to work more than saving $. Cuz yes -Tide is more money.
I wish more manufacturers would jump on the concentrated detergent to save on the billions of large plastic bottles that detergent comes in goes to the landfill. We recycle but I doubt much actually gets recycled.
@Mar, before COVID, empty ships returning to China from the US were filled with plastics to be recycled there where there are no environmental regulations. Then a lot of articles in the press showing photos of American waste poisoning Chinese workers and their environment so I don't know if the practice has stopped. Concentrating the liquid would make lots of sense.
I love to use Dawn dish soap to pretreat. I put a generous amount of Dawn directly on the stain, get it wet, rub well, and then immediately throw into the load of wash.
I also love Dawn for stains. It was great when my kids were little and would spit up their formula. Now I use it to get the grease out of my son's work shirts (he makes pizzas and must wipe his hands on his shirt ALL THE TIME).
@Kim S., Dawn works, but don't make the mistake I've made of leaving it in overnight, or for a day or two, because it takes the color out of the fabric. Like Kristen, I can't be trusted to remember!
@Kim S., I read someplace that after the gigantic Valdez oil spill, when Alaskans saw that Dawn was the treatment for getting oil off the feathers and fur of various animals, sales of it in this state shot up. It probably helped that Dawn donated a huge amount of the detergent when they heard vets recommending its use to try and save the animals soaked in oil and dying.
Does Purex make a powdered detergent? It’s harder and harder to find these.
I am not a passionate launderer. I do a load most days and I don’t separate my laundry. I deal with whites by just never buying anything white.
I prefer laundry to be something I don’t have to think about as much as possible. Here are my best tips to achieve that:
1) Fold laundry right out of the dryer (or straight off the line). Put it away immediately. It always seems like you don’t have time for this, but it is actually much faster than transferring the load somewhere to fold and put away “later.”
2) Clean out your dryer vents. Not just in the machine itself, but also the one that vents through the house to the outdoors. If you are renting, your landlord should handle this. Keeping these cleared out will speed up your drying time considerably. Impacted lint is also a huge fire risk.
3) If you have to replace your washing machine, buy a Speed Queen. These are industrial machines remarketed for home use. They are designed to last for 25 years and have a 3 year full warranty. Buy the simplest model, which is designed to be fixable. Our last washer lasted 3 measly years and the repairman opined that this was the normal expected lifetime for most washing machines now.
@Tarynkay, If anyone has an older Maytag washer/dryer set made in Newton, Iowa, those are super good as well. Sometimes they were sold under other names such as Admiral. My late cousin owned laundromats and could fix laundry appliances. He looked at my Admiral machine (originally sold at Montgomery Wards stores but I bought it from a used appliance store) and determined it was a Maytag because it had commercial belts on it, as all Maytags did back then. So if anyone has an "original" Maytag, fix it if you can -- it is far superior to most of the stuff sold today. Sadly, Maytag was bought out and the only thing that is different on it these days is the name plate; it is essentially a Whirlpool product.
My Newton, Iowa-manufactured laundry set is still going strong after many years, but if I had to replace it, I'd go with Speed Queen. Our appliance repairman friend says Samsungs, LGs and other "new" brands are not designed right and will not last you very long.
@Fru-gal Lisa, shrug. I've had Samsung washers/dryers for many years now. One washer had a door locking sensor problem, so I just ordered the part and replaced it.
I do really love the stacked washer/dryer I have in the cottage in a closet. They're supposed to be apartment sized but they accept surprisingly large loads. Plus it's about two feet from each bedroom.
@Fru-gal Lisa, My Kenmore washer and dryer are two of my favorite purchases of all time, some thirty years ago. No frills, just did the job.
Unfortunately, the washer died last year and we replaced it with an Amana.
Although that Amana had fewer unnecessary parts than other machines in the store, (no, I do not need to phone my washer so it turns itself on), it wrinkles the clothes just terribly. The set-up is to put in detergent, then clothes, then close the lid, which locks, so the water fills last, "auto-sensing" the size of the load. We don't overload it, either.
The water filling last squashes all the clothing down and it never lifts up again. This is the opposite of how I learned to do laundry, which was to fill the washer first, then add the clothing. I hate this machine.
@Fru-gal Lisa, I wanted a Speed Queen but only one retailer sold them at the time had a long waitlist, so we had to settle for a Maytag commercial washer which works great, although I have no idea about the type of belts. Turns out that Speed Queen machines pre-2018 are the real workhorses. My brother-in-law just got one on FB Marketplace because the owner wanted Wi-Fi enabled appliances.
@Tarynkay, 3-year lifespan for a large appliance should be criminal! Why is it ok to fill up our landfills with almost new totally useless appliances? And why aren't all appliances fixable? Who knows the answers to these questions... You've got a great repairman.
@Book Club Elaine, I personally the repairmen are full of it. Of course appliances last for much longer than that, and as a matter of fact, they're more fixable now than ever. Maybe they resent that today's appliances are generally easy to fix.
@Book Club Elaine, I spent a chunk of change early this year on a Speed Queen set after our 23-year-old Whirlpool began wearing out. Totally worth it!
We had the old washer and dryer completely rebuilt once before, but the motor was going in the washer and the dryer struggled to get clothes dry after so many years. The Speed Queen dealer was very interested in how we kept them running so long.
@Book Club Elaine,
Who ever heard of wifi enabled appliances? Good grief!
@Fru-gal Lisa, Common and handy now. You can set a dishwasher or a dryer to run during cheap electric rates, set your oven to start baking your dinner an hour before you get home, set the robot vacuum to run while you're at work, etc.
I do line-dry exclusively--I don't even have a dryer--which works because I live in a very dry place with insane UV levels. It can get tricky in the winter, but I make it work.
I also mostly wash with cold water. And I don't always even use laundry detergent. I didn't use it at all, really, for a long time, but now I tend to have dirtier clothes with more grease on them with husband and sons doing all kinds of labor, so I do use detergent for that.
@kristin @ going country, eeeeh, what? Underwear needs detergent, at the very least. It's all contaminated with E. coli. And if you don't use detergent on underwear to kill the bacteria, you're gonna get it spread to the next load.
I've been buying laundry pods for years, as it made it a no-brainer for my kids to toss one in the washer with their own laundry. No messes and no wasting of detergent. I usually buy whatever is on sale or has a coupon, but I used Purex for years. I keep a bottle of Shout gel in my linen closet where my laundry hamper lives, and I pretreat stains with it before I toss the items into the hamper. And lastly, I pull everything out of the dryer when the buzzer sounds and put it directly on hangers. I do not intend to iron my scrubs, but I also don't want to look like I just rolled out of bed. I made my own laundry soap and line dried for a time. My clothes never smelled fresh and I just had way too much laundry to do, so I went back to using the pods and the dryer and never looked back.
Over here in England, I use Fairy laundry detergent and fabric softener which are both non-biological/hypoallergenic (as I started to be very itchy after using biological products). It isn't the cheapest but we keep an eye out for when there are offers on one or other product and stock up to see us through to the next offer.
Our washing machine has a "speed perfect" function which basically halves the washing time so we always use for "normal" loads.
I use the delicates wash (40 minutes) for most of my tops as they don't fair well in a normal wash and I really can't afford to replace them.
We do not have a tumble dryer - when the weather is good it goes on the line, less good on airers indoors.
@Stacey in UK, I use Fairy non-bio too, or else Persil non-bio, and I am so envious of the cheap energy costs in the US compared to here in Ireland!
@Joan, Costs vary widely over the US. Here on LI, we pay more for a megawatt than you do in Ireland.
@Joan, I am loath to change to a different non-bio when I know that Fairy isn't a problem.
We use the pods/capsules for the main washes as they are premeasured but use liquid in the delicates. We often found residue from the pods attached to the clothes because it hadn't dissolved properly in the short wash cycle.
1. I have had the same box of dryer sheets for 6 years. I use them everywhere except the dryer. But I do use wool balls in the dryer.
2. I buy my laundry soap on sale with various deals and as long as I stay away from Gain, my daughter doesn't have a reaction. I like to keep the cost under $.07 a load. I have a septic system and only use liquid.
3. I pretreat. A lot. I make my own pretreat with laundry soap, vinegar, ammonia, and water.
4. I boil my kitchen towels when they get bad. I try to switch out the towels everyday, but sometimes I forget.
5. Everything gets sorted and my adult children know...towels get washed with towels and nothing else.
6. I sort out anything that needs special attention and it goes in a bin on my dryer until I have time.
7. I buy 75% of all our clothes from second hand sources. I don't get crazy if they get ruined. BUT I try everything to avoid that. My son had a gel pen (worse stains) leak all over a pair of work shorts. I used hand sanitizer that I picked up somewhere free. About a bottle and a half to get the ink out. It took 3 days of applying with rags on the back of the stain, and then washing the garment. I think it went through 4 times on a small load. I know it seems like a waste of time and money (for just the water.) The shorts were 19.99 new and were worn 2x. They were mandatory as part of his uniform and he had just started. Sometimes I have to weight the pros and cons.
8. I mend and try to find any little problems as they go through the wash. I have a small pin cushion stuck to my shelf above the washer with needles with white and black thread in them.
And at my advanced age with 4 adults living in the house this is seamless. BUT when I had babies, small children, teenagers. Most of this didn't get done all the time. Be kind to yourself. You are doing the best that you can at this time.
@Amy CheapOHmom, I would love the “recipe” for laundry pretreat.
@Amy CheapOHmom, As someone with small children, I appreciate the disclaimer you put at the end!
@Jean C, I use a mason jar(I use the measurement lines,) and basically add one cup of each: laundry soap, water, white vinegar and then ammonia. Then I add it to a reused spray bottle as needed.
@Amy cheapOHmom, I have always heard that mixing vinegar and ammonia basically just creates water. Vinegar is acid and ammonia is a base. I do use one or the other, depending on the soil I am dealing with.
@Amy CheapOHmom,
My mom got a large ink stain out with milk, milk, milk and an incredible lot of patience. She would always know which old remedy for which stain.
My best laundry tip is to be too physically ill and shaky to make it downstairs to the basement where the washer and dryer is, so my kids do it for me! When they move out (please God soon) I will get one of those combo washer/dryers with a ventless heat pump and install it in the kitchen. They're running about $3K now, so it's cheaper just to make the kids do it.
My kids have done their own laundry since they were 12 or so. I switched to tabs then because my daughter especially tended to spill detergent everywhere.
I also save money by refusing to use softener or dryer sheets because they're pointless and stinky.
@Rose, I'm with you on softener and dryer sheets. Marketing hype, fake smells—no thanks. The best way to avoid static cling is to avoid nylon and acrylic clothing.
I do a lot of the other things that a lot of you others do: I wash primarily in cold water (I do use the warm/cold cycle for whites/lights); I rack-dry everything except bedsheets; I use vinegar for fabric softener; and I'll stop using dryer sheets with my bedsheets as soon as I use up the current box (which came out of one of DH's rental properties, so it's pretty old).
But here's my confession: My name is A. Marie, and I'm a Tide-aholic. The family devotion to Procter & Gamble products goes back to my maternal grandmother's fortunate third marriage: "Grandpa Bill" was a childhood friend of one of the Gambles and thus invested heavily in P&G stock. So it was P&G money that sent me and my siblings to college.
My other good juicy rationalization is that I have a front-loading machine and need to use an "he" (high-efficiency) detergent, which Tide is. And this machine really uses very little detergent per load. But if Purex makes an "he" product, I'd consider giving it a try.
@A. Marie,
The paper mill in our town used to be owned by P&G - not only did nearly everyone use P&G products all the time, we were also a test market, which was a lot of fun, actually. We'd open our mailboxes and find large sample packets of random products to use. Sometimes they would appear on shelves later, sometimes not, but it was neat to get samples of almost any category of new product that P&G produced.
@A. Marie, I find a lot of deal on P&G products. I can get Tide for $.07 quite often.
@Amy cheapOHmom, a load.
@A. Marie, I feel the same way about Microsoft (where I worked). Paid off my college loans, bought houses, paid my kids' college. No Apple in my house, ever.
@JD,
A friend of mine's DH works for P & G (Cincinnati is P & G's HQ, though they're planning a big move to their Mason, OH facility, where friend's DH works)....Anyway, he works in a personal care department -shampoo, etc. - so he always brings home samples of new products for them to try. Which sounds super fun to me. 🙂
@A. Marie, Lol fellow Tide girl here and I only buy Dawn Ultra and heavens I cannot live without Dawn Power Wash. I spilled bacon grease on my new shorts, I tried Spray and Wash which did not get it out. I called in the Big Guns of Power Wash and I got it out!
I almost always wash on cold water, and if something needs sanitizing, I use Lysol Laundry Sanitizer in lieu of fabric softener. Otherwise, vinegar does the job -- and yes, it softens clothes really well.
My laundry is a solo act, so I often mix colors and whites just to have a full load; therefore, I use the color guard sheets in the washer and this absorbs any dye that comes off clothing before it latches on to other garments.
My laundry detergent tends to be whatever off-brand is cheapest, since I'm mostly washing to get perspiration, not stains, out of my clothes. I really like those new kind of jugs that have spigots that you set on the shelf's edge. You don't have to lift a container, you just press the rubber ball on the spigot and collect the detergent into your measuring cup. It's like turning on the faucet! Sometimes I'll refill/reuse the jug if my next laundry detergent purchase came in a regular bottle. Whoever invented that spigot-container should get the Nobel Prize, IMO, LOL!
If things aren't wrinkled, they are hung up immediately. Ditto, underwear and anything with elastic.
If there are wrinkles, they go into the dryer for 10 or 12 minutes on "de-wrinkle," and then hung out to dry. This is esp. important for T-shirts; if you put them in the dryer for too long or on too hot a setting, the hems mess up.
I have a second shower rod over the bathtub (no shower curtain, just the rod), and that's where the items on coat hangers go to drip dry. The drips go right down the drain! (I measure and located the rod either in the tub's center lengthwise, or a little more than one-half of a coat hanger width. Works great! But make sure it's low enough that you can reach it but high enough that someone doesn't hit their head while showering, LOL.)
I also have accumulated many wooden dryer racks -- I buy them cheap from garage sales, estate sales and I even got one at Goodwill in December (probably donated by a college student who was graduating and moving away). Those things are $20+ in stores, the last time I looked, but I usually can pick them up secondhand for a couple of bucks. One such rack is located over the HVAC floor vent in the laundry room, and the others are a step away in the garage. They dry really fast in the summer heat!
King sized sheets and blankets are dried in the dryer, along with any towels, and I have a crumpled up ball of aluminum foil which prevents static. I'll throw in a clean, dry bath towel (or beach towel) to absorb the extra moisture and cause the load to dry faster. Yes, I always, always always clean out the dryer's filter screen!
Interestingly, the best switch I've made for laundry is to start using natural deoderants on most days. I always wore antiperspirant (nothing fancy--just Secret or Mitchum,) but it seemed to accumulate under the arms of my shirts and after a while, my shirts were just perma-gunked. I tried Oxiclean, washing in hot water, pre-treatment, dish-soap/baking soda scrubs...nothing. The aluminum-free deodorants that are popular now seem to come out of shirts more easily, even in a gentle, cold-water wash. I do, however, still reach for antiperspirant on days when I expect to sweat a lot (i.e. wearing polyester scrubs.)
Otherwise, I do laundry in a pretty boring fashion. I machine dry sheets, socks, scrubs, underpants, towels, leggings, pyjamas and my toddler's clothes, and everything else gets hung up. I wash my clothes when they are dirty--jeans after 2-3 wears, wool sweaters once a season. Between two adults, we always have a laundry rack full of clothes drying somewhere. This is very annoying in a small apartment--my kingdom for a laundry room! But we get a lot more wear out of my clothes that way.
When I had a bedwetter (one kid wet until age five and then started up again in their teens after their father left) a cup of vinegar in with the detergent did a great job with the smell.
@Rose, a nurse friend told me that urine is actually a protein which sets in with hot water, so the trick is to rinse with cold water first. That was a great tip when my very old cat peed on me in bed one night. . . He was my last indoor cat.
@Rose, I've found the same! We have a toddler, and one time the daycare sent her wet clothes home in a plastic bag, which we forgot about for a few days, ew. After a hot wash, we soaked in vinegar and washed again and it all came out clean and fresh.
@Central Calif. Artist Jana, That's not true. In fact if there's very much protein in your urine, you're pretty sick.
Generally though that's true with protein stains like blood. Hot water cooks the protein and makes it much harder to remove the stain.
(I worked in a dry cleaner's in college. I learned a lot.)
@Rose,
I was just thinking the same thing....if you have protein in your urine, your kidneys aren't working right.
I've used Purex before. I remember it worked just fine, but I'm one of those increasingly rare people using homemade detergent. It must be my water that makes it work for me; my clothes get clean and smell fresh coming out of the washer. I also line dry or rack dry very nearly everything. Really rainy weather or wet bulky items that would sour before drying will cause dryer usage, but I can go weeks without using the dryer at all. I have an umbrella-style clothesline outside. Years ago I bought the big Amish-made wooden drying rack that Lehman's* sells and I have a cheapo rolling hanging rack as well. I use both all the time to dry things inside. I will sometimes set them up under a ceiling fan for things I want to dry in a hurry.
*I have no financial interest in Lehman's Non-Electric Store, I just love their store and would love to go back there for a visit again.
I use dryer balls, and in fact, one year, made them for funny presents. That was when they weren't available everywhere for reasonable prices like they are now. I clean out the dryer screen every load, before starting the load. It's become a habit to pull the screen and clean it before hitting "start" on the dryer. I check the dryer vent to the outside about once a year, since I use the dryer so little.
I read this somewhere a long time ago, and it's worked for me; juice and fruit stains can be removed by stretching the fabric over a bowl and pouring a kettle full of boiling water on the stain.
In the laundry room I keep a spray bottle of a mix of Dawn dish liquid and hydrogen peroxide to spray on stains.
A certain grandchild who shall remain nameless got crayon on the white duvet cover in the guest room; rubbing alcohol on cotton balls removed it without needing the washer.
Being on a septic system, I almost never use chlorine bleach. I've been using Out's "White Brite" to whiten my white laundry and it has worked for me. Results not guaranteed, seeing as how homemade laundry soap also works for me but not others.
I use cold water almost exclusively.
I use a rubber bristled brush to brush items that have dog hair on them before washing. It helps a lot.
@JD,
My family and I stopped into Lehman's for the first time maybe 2 years ago when we went on a camping trip (in Ohio's Amish country). Wow! That place is amazing! I'd love to go back.
I have no brand loyalty with detergents, just go for the most effective / budget reasonable one I can, but what a difference to energy bills washing at a lower temp (where possible, depending on what you're washing!) and not using a tumble dryer makes. We line dry. That's all we do and we do not currently have a tumble dryer, though we would like to get one for occasional use eventually.
The number of people I have met who - at the same time as worrying over bills and environmental stuff - pretty much always use a tumble dryer.
I have the same bottle on my washing machine, albeit the next size up. My mama used Spray 'n Wash so I still use it. Saves a lot of extra washing.
@Jennifer, I forgot to mention that my other laundry obsession is Spray'nWash, even though it's not a P&G product. As I used to say about my DH (who was a champ at spilling things down his shirts even before the dementia set in), "Spray'n'Wash gets out what DH gets into."
I also did not know Purex made a "clear" detergent. I'm going to give it a try. 🙂
I think the real magic is the pre-treatment.
Our baby is just starting "solids" and many outfits get carrot/sweet potato dried on (and occasionally there is poop on clothing). I spray the clothes with vinegar and sprinkle them with oxy clean (although there are many brands of oxygen bleach that will work) and then I work the stain out with a brush. Sometimes I just dump the clothes in water and oxyclean and work on any stains later.
I scanned through the comments and didn't see this mentioned. You only need to use about two tablespoons of detergent to get your laundry clean. That's a great way to save money on laundry soap/detergent.
@Rebekah in SoCal, I put a 2 Tablespoon coffee scoop in the box of powdered detergent. It works great.
@Rebekah in SoCal,
I started doing this about a year ago - I use a plastic tablespoon I bought at a yard sale. Everything comes out clean and fresh.
By saving the laundry basket handles from falling off:) After too many of the gray handles popping off/cracking over the years (we move a lot so that may be why), I tried something new. At the time I had really cute red polka dot duct tape on hand, so I wrapped that around my iffy plastic basket handles & we’ve been good to go now the past several years. Cute & functional.
Fun post! We use scent free, so always good to hear of other affordable brands.
@Rachel R., That is a GREAT idea! My girls' hamper handle broke about a month ago and I was just thinking this morning that I needed to buy a new hamper, but I'll try this instead!
I don't really understand the phrase "clothing smells fresh." I don't believe it should have a smell.
The smell of fabric softener and dryer sheets, or worse-- Febreeze!, floating over the clothing at a yard sale is enough to cut my shopping very short. Ditto for heavily scented clothing at thrift stores.
@Heidi Louise, We once lived in a cul de sac with a neighbor who used VERY strong-smelling detergent and fabric softener, coordinated scents, and even though our houses weren't that close together, I could always, always tell when she was doing laundry because I'd smell Gardenia Garden Bouquet or whatever it was on the breeze.
@Heidi Louise, ABSOLUTELY! A few years ago when I spent the night at a friend's house, the smell of her laundry detergent (or softener? dryer sheets?) in the linens kept me awake all night. Clean isn't supposed to have a smell.
@Heidi Louise, I love buying secondhand clothing, but sometimes the perfumy smell actually makes me feel nauseous. I used to buy things with laundry product odor thinking it would wash out, but it doesn't always especially in polyester garments.
@Heidi Louise,
I cannot sleep if the bedlinens have a smell, they make me short of breath. The biggest compliment I can give a hotel or holiday home is, if the bedlinens smell of nothing.
@Heidi Louise,
I buy all scent free laundry things, because DH and our son are sensitive to various scents. I will say our laundry doesn't smell like anything (no flowery, cirtusy, "cool rain", "fresh meadow", etc), but maybe it's the *lack* of unpleasant smells we notice? Lol.
One of my favorite memories as a kid is hanging laundry out to dry at my nana's house right by the ocean (where I was usually nagged for hanging things the wrong way). The sheets, towels, etc didn't smell of anything as such but so fresh and wonderful.
Surely now that I live three doors down, I hang my own laundry out? Uhhhh....once a year maybe? (I now picture generations of my female ancestors shaking their heads at me. SHUT UP I KNOW A LOT OF OTHER THINGS OK)
Extra strong hydrogen peroxide is great to get old yellow stains out of whites.
And just for fun, the ol' boiling water from up high works often too. Stretch the stain over a bowl preferably outside. Stand on a chair or a stepladder and let er rip from a boiling kettle of water. The extra height gives extra water pressure. Besides it's fun.
I heard a tip about putting towels in your dryer to help your clothes dry faster, so I've done it. I've never really tested to see if it actually cuts drying time or not.
Big family so I found the big Costco size containers of laundry detergent are the best price per load and I stock up on as many as we need each sale cycle of our preferred brands. Ditto Oxiclean.
Anything that needs air drying goes in the dedicates load so I only have that one to worry about remembering
@Leigh, I think that Costco is my #2 in being closest to cleaning of Tide and price.
Interesting post, not that I'm ever bored on this blog! Anyway, much of what I do has already been discussed here like dryer balls, laundry bags, and keeping some things out of the dryer.
The two things that make me an oddity here are that I make my own laundry powder and no longer use an HE machine.
Before the HE world, no one complained that laundry soap was gunky and stayed on their washed items unless their machine was ready for the landfill (after at least 15 years of use). The agitator/impeller thingy in the center of the machine moved independently of the barrel so laundry soap, which was often powder, was disseminated throughout the load and the water was sent by centrifugal force out the side so dirt and soap went with it. Yes, more water was used and more soap. And clothes got clean.
I've had 4 washers in the last 15 years. Two were HE machines bought new and one was an experiment gone bad on a used machine. It's possible that we overloaded the HE machines because loading instructions were vague so the tendency is to fill that huge empty space. They worked well for at most 3 years.
The crazy stopped about five years ago when we bought a new Maytag commercial washer. It doesn't have buttons, just dials. No wi-fi. Not much plastic. It's plain square boxy and man does it clean!
I think that HE machines are an environmental disaster because of the energy to manufacture and wasted construction materials on items that last such a short amount of time.
I appreciate the forum to vent about something that really bothers me and that no one talks about. I'm stepping down off my soapbox now.
@Book Club Elaine,
So how do you make the powder? Do you grate Marseille soap to flakes?
Please share!
@JNL, grate 1 bar of Ivory soap in the food processor, then mix with 2 cups of Borax and 2 cups of washing soda. That's it. 2 tablespoons is enough for my large washer. Some online recipes I've seen also call for 1 cup of oxyclean, which I've used but it's fine without.
@Book Club Elaine,
Thanks! Will try. I like the odd experiment
You had a post a while back talking about your lint shaver. Well, I finally got one and I’ve used it to resurrect some favorite sweaters. I’ve also used it to get the pills off of my favorite chair. I buy laundry detergent on mega sale and stock up. I use downy as it’s the only fabric softener that doesn’t leave a residue on your clothes. I line dry 90% of our clothes. I have indoor and outdoor drying lines.
We use dryer balls. I wouldn't say they eliminate static, we have more static than when we used to use dryer sheets. They are wonderful for me because my asthma is triggered by fragrances. No fragrance. No chemically treated dryer sheets get released into the environment, no plastic bottles, and they do keep clothes soft. Very inexpensive, too. We've had the same set of dryer balls for a few years now.
Added bonus--amusing games with dryer balls:
1. Juggle the dryer balls --they are easy to juggle, but don't do it where they can fall behind the washer and dryer.
2. Find the dryer balls--they get hidden in the weirdest places--a blouse sleeve, a nightgown, a sheet.
and . . .
3. Get to the dryer ball before the dog destroys it. Hurry!
Kind of like dinner and a show!
For detergent, I need an unscented detergent. We buy a large container in bulk at a big box store. I'd like to try something with fewer chemicals and plastic like , but I'm concerned about them not working well. In the old days, powdered laundry detergent came in a paper box instead of a plastic container. That would be some improvement over all the plastic.
I have to do a double rinse because of skin allergies and I always feel guilty because of California drought conditions. But if I don't most detergents give me an itchy rash.
Mine is a two fold situation. My washer is a Gibson which is also whirlpool, I think. Over twenty years old. I have replaced the computer "motherboard" twice which is no longer made new but refurbished. I can do that myself. The dryer is same brand and one of the heating elements currently overheats. I do not want to get new ones for at least three reasons. They ARE repairable and better made than anything I can afford now. I do have a reasonably priced
repairman. The set is in the basement. Climbing stairs is not fun for me on the regular, much less w a loaded basket. I CAN hang things in the basement esp in the winter to air dry, but I have a dog that sheds incessantly. Getting a new set of appliances would require digging away some dirt that is in front of the outdoor access to the basement. Would not work to haul appliances either up or down the regular stairs. Before I stopped doing laundry at home, I did buy a "littles" hanger w clips for socks and bras to save space on the lines. Also hung scrub tops and pants directly on hangers to dry.
I have enough work clothes, underwear, socks and day's off clothes including loungey type pjs (that I don't mind answering the door in or running out for a second in the yard) to go for a month between washing. The varying sized washers at the laundromat accommodates the size loads I need. I carry in the longest taking basket first and put it in the approp sized washer, etc. on down to the quickest. I wash the dog's bed, too. I wash each load with temp according to the load: scrubs-warm, sheets/ comforter-hot, etc. I put them in the dryers when finished, Then fold from the dryer unless someone needs the dryers. I handle the clothes a minimal number of times that way, which saves time over the long run. The only things I don't fold are undies and bras and I fold them directly into the drawer once I get home. It takes two hours to do a month's worth of laundry. The advantage of being single.
As for laundry products, I treat stains w dawn from the hamper to the basket when I sort loads. I used homemade soap for a while and was doing laundry at home then. Was also left w that funky smell. I think it was the animal fat in the zote. And plain vinegar for rinse. Used A&H after the homemade and still vinegar. Since I started ordering a little more from Grove Collaborative, I use Seventh Generation Pods and Seventh Generation liquid softener. I haven't investigated if this is counterintuitive or not, but I also use a scoop of Borax per load.
Doing the laundry out, and using the more expensive products is a swap for the time I save. And it is ALL done at once.
I rotate detergents based on what I can get a good deal on, but typically Purex, A&H, or Tide. I also use less detergent than recommended on the bottle, which still gets good results and saves a bit of product and money.
I have a fairly large clothesline in the backyard and use it for almost everything. Some of my clothes for work go in the dryer, and I sometimes use Kristen's method: in the dryer for a few minutes and then on a hanger on a rod in the laundry room to finish drying. But I really do love line drying outside - especially for bedding and towels. They smell so clean and fresh. My friend says, "They smell like sunshine" 🙂 I live in Mesa, Arizona so there are very few days that I can't use my clothesline due to weather. And many times the items dry faster than they would in the dryer!
Great tips as always!
I use dish soap (Dawn) on any spills that I get on my clothes as soon after the spill happens as possible. It's great for anything with oil. I also have a Sunlight bar that I use from time to time to pre-treat stains.
I wash everything in cold water except for whites and linens and pretty much always use the dryer on low. I hang non-dryer friendly things on a rack in the basement. I have never dried my clothes outside but I might just give that a try on my back deck this summer. If it ever stops raining, that is.
To get dingy whites as white as possible, for items that can handle heat, I boil a soup stock pot of water and add a generous amount of OxyClean and some detergent and soak them for a couple of hours. My front loading washer does not have a soaking option.
i live in a nyc apt with laundry room in the basement. i was doing laundry a day after i arrived. met a woman who remained my friend until she moved to independent living a month ago. she introduced me to most of my neighbors.
i now meet a lot of new neighbors in the laundry room. the machines cost way more than when i first moved in but i like to use one machine and do it more often. we are 2 teens and 2 adults. the new machines that were installed a few months ago have presettings that i like. i never use the amount of detergent that pg recommends. i count to 3 while i pour.
during covid my husband did not want me to go to the laundry room so we had it done at the laudromat across the street from our apt. that was not really what i liked and i was happy when hubby felt it had gotten too expensive. we don't pay for gas or electric and we don't have a/c or a car. there are a bazillion restaurants in the neighborhood so cooking from scratch is definitely not my thing. my 13 year old son is a great chef and
had to bring a mexican dish to his last spanish class of the year. his classmates said it tasted like restaurant food. am so proud of him.
kristen are you ok? i don't see any comments from you on this post, other that the post itself of course.
how does using dryer balls (wool or otherwise!) save on energy costs? is it just because the clothes dry quicker?
@Ginger, The wool dryer balls remove static which is why most people use fabric softener.
Ah, laundry! When I was first married at 20, we were stationed in Germany. I was able to borrow a washing machine from the base supply. It was a wringer and I used the bathtub to fill and empty the washer. I also had a German spinner and would spin a few clothes at a time to remove as much water as possible before laying the clothes on the radiators or hauling them up three flights of stairs to the attic where my landlady and I shared lines. There were also lines outside in the back courtyard and I purchased a typical German indoor drying rack. In order to get the jet fuel out of my husband’s fatigues, I added a cup of spic and span to the wash. It really did the trick. We certainly couldn’t afford to send his fatigues to the base laundry. That also meant I starched and ironed. Fortunately, I’ve never minded ironing.
My first automatic washing machine when we returned to the states was the best thing ever!!!!
Fast forward 50+ years … I’ve taught my children to do laundry and continue to do ours. Grad school as a single parent meant no dryer. Once again, I was hanging clothes here and there. My good friend would invite me over and offer to let me dry a load of towels or sheets while I visited.
Now, I have a laundry room and both washer and dryer. I still hang clothes out using an IKEA drying rack and challenge myself to use every inch of the drying space. Towels, though, go in the dryer. My frugal hack in the summer is to put them in the dryer after I’ve washed them, leave the dryer door open, and then actually run it when I go to bed. It doesn’t heat up the house as much and takes half the time because the towels have dried somewhat sitting there.
I use wool dryer balls and always clean out my lint filter after each load.
I use only free and sensitive laundry detergents.
Now, if clothes could just fold themselves!
I use this homemade laundry powder recipe at times. Works for most laundry, otherwise I buy A&H non-scent for hubby's work clothes. The recipe is from: learningandyearning.com Ingredients
2 cups washing soda
2 cups baking soda
2/3 cup epsom salt
3 tablespoons sea salt
10–20 drops essential oil of choice optional
Instructions
Mix all ingredients together and store in a sealed glass jar.
Use 1 tablespoon per load. Add another tablespoon if clothes are particularly dirty. Add the laundry powder to your washing machine first, and allow it to dissolve in the water before adding clothing.
Add 1/2 cup of distilled white vinegar to your wash for odor control, or if your water is very hard.
I live in the U.P. of Michigan and haven't owned a dryer for over 25 years. It def. saves on electricity!
We line dry from avril to November
We don't wash clothes after just one use (except for underwear and socks, obviously). I'll wear a shirt or dress twice, pants/shorts 3 or 4 times and pyjama for many days before washing them. Unless I sweat in them or they are visibly dirry/stained.
Same for towels, I'll wash them when there is too many in the shower room (they tend to multiply in there, somehow...), so about once a week.
And we always uss cold water for wash and rince.
I also use wool dryer balls. For towel laundry I also pop in a cloth dryer sheet with essential oil I like the smell of.
I like dry my husbands jerseys/sports shirts, my clothes, and kitchen laundry. I use dryer for husband’s clothing & our towels. Clothespins are a double use - line drying & chip clips!
I use a homemade laundry detergent from a lady in Virginia - it doesn’t leave clothes stinky! I purchase detergent from her once a year as there is definitely a cost for shipping. I do try to purchase when items are on sale!
I also use a stain bar from Ellie’s (the homemade detergent lady).
I usually refresh/wash my wool clothing via a ziploc in the freezer or when it snows with the fresh powder snow.