Dryer balls or Food Huggers?
In honor of Earth Day tomorrow, I have a fun offer for you guys from Mighty Fix!
Mighty Nest runs a subscription service called the Mighty Fix; when you subscribe to the Mighty Fix, you get an earth-friendly, healthy item in your mailbox every month.
The idea is that you can gradually switch from a more disposable lifestyle to a lifestyle filled with reusable things.
To entice you to join, Mighty Fix is extending a special offer just for Frugal Girl readers.
New Mighty Fix subscribers can pay just $3 for their first month, and for their first fix, they get to choose from:
- a set of 3 wool dryer balls
- a set of Food Huggers
Dryer Balls
If you go with this option, you'll get a set of three dryer balls, made from New Zealand wool.
Dryer balls are an eco-friendly, budget-friendly swap for dryer sheets.
Why use dryer balls instead of dryer sheets?
- Most dryer sheets are made with synthetic fragrances and chemicals
- Dryer sheets are disposable, so they become trash after one use
- Since they're disposable, you have to keep on buying dryer sheets
Dryer balls are not only reusable and natural, they also reduce drying time by helping the air in your dryer circulate more efficiently.
And if you want to give your laundry a fresh scent, you can put a few drops of your favorite essential oil on the dryer balls before tossing them in with your laundry.
I know some of you don't use a dryer at all (that's the tip-top eco-friendly choice!), so there's another offer too:
Food Huggers
Plastic bags and plastic wrap are super convenient, which means it's super hard to run a kitchen without them.
So, I am always happy when I find a product that helps me use less disposable plastic, and Food Huggers are one such item.
Plastic-free produce storage
If you have leftover produce, such as half an onion or half a lemon, you might normally put it into a bag, or cover it with plastic wrap/aluminum foil.
But if you have Food Huggers, you can just pop the Food Hugger on the cut end to keep the produce fresh until you need it.
Food Huggers are great because they help to keep food visible, and visible food gets eaten!
Also, they keep the cut end of the produce from drying out, which keeps the produce fresh and edible longer.
Plus, Food Huggers are infinitely reusable, and they're dishwasher safe.
Aaand, they nest, which means they will take up almost no space in your kitchen.
Food Huggers double as lids
I got a set of Food Huggers in my Mighty Fix a few years ago, and while I often use them for their intended purpose (food storage), just as often, I use them as a lid for all sorts of containers.
They fit on Mason jars, glass bowls, and even saved glass yogurt containers.
And you can put them on top of a half-finished drink too.
This is one of those glass Oui! yogurt containers; the Food Hugger fits perfectly.
(Since I'm frugal, I have to say this: Oui yogurt is a bit pricey; overall, it's much less expensive and much less trash-producing to make your own yogurt or to buy quart containers at the store. But if a container makes its way into your house, you can at least save the glass jar for other uses. And if Oui yogurt is your splurge, no judgment. 🙂 )
How to get your dryer balls or Food Huggers
Just sign up for a Mighty Fix subscription, using one of the two links below, and your first month will cost only $3!
Dryer Balls
To get a set of wool dryer balls, sign up using this link or the button below.
Food Huggers
To get a set of Food Huggers, sign up using this link or the button below.
You can cancel your subscription at any time, so this is a very low-risk offer. 🙂
Free shipping
You never pay a shipping charge with a Mighty Fix subscription, so your introductory month truly does just cost you $3. Excellent!
Consider a yearly subscription
If you'd like to commit to getting a Mighty Fix box for a whole year, do consider the one-year option...it brings the monthly price down to just $8.25, which is like getting three months free!
We're shearing sheep on Friday. I could make a LOT of dryer balls. Good thing I don't have a dryer, so I don't have to. 🙂
And that is why you are top-tier frugal! 😉
I did give line-drying a solid try, but man, I really hated it. And then it turned out that Sonia had a lot of outdoor allergies anyway, so that was kind of a final nail in the coffin for line-drying.
Yeah, I can't take too much credit for being an eco-warrior on this one, because I would never want to live without a dryer in damp climates. The only reason I can line-dry without having clothes strung all around my kitchen is because we have off-the-charts UV here all year round, and also usually wind. And even then, I sometimes have a week or so in the winter where I have clothes hanging on chairs around the woodstove.
When we vacationed in the southwest a couple of years ago, we rented a VRBO. The dryer wasn't working correctly so I draped our damp clothes on the porch in the sunshine and was amazed with how quickly they dried. My climate is much more humid so we don't have fast results like that.
I live in southeast Tennessee, and between the extreme humidity and the unreal drifts of tree pollen, trying to dry outdoors is now a losing battle. We can hang things on the screened porch and turn the ceiling fan on when the dryer is broken, and I hang my work blouses in the laundry room to dry because it keeps them crisp without ironing, but that's about it.
I’d purchase the dyer balls if you made and sold them. I have used them for a few years now and love them. I only use the dryer for certain items. I have drying racks—the one was my grandmothers and has to be around 100 years old—and still going strong!
I have these food huggers! In addition to what you wrote here, one other thing I have found is that I don't have any problem with a cut onion stinking up the frig when using these, and the onion smell doesn't linger on the hugger after a run through the dishwasher, either.
I have dryer balls as well, and have used them for several years. Since I line-dry pretty often, I'm not sure of their actual life span, but mine have lasted a really long time - the ones that the dog didn't get hold of, that is. For some reason, wool dryer balls are really, really attractive to my dog. I've rescued them in time numerous times, but not quite every time.
Hi Kristen!
Has Sonia tried the nondairy Oui yogurt? My daughter who is lactose intolerant loves them. Also, we’ve really enjoyed the numerous products we’ve gotten through Mighty Nest. All of them are high quality and have lasted well.
Looks like a great deal, just not for Canada I think 🙁
So wool dryer balls might also speed up drying time?
I never use dryer sheets, never have, or fabric softener. We don't have much of any nylon clothing to make static, but also, static is caused by over-drying. (A friend used our washer-dryer once when his was broken. I was appalled that he set the dryer timer for 120 minutes. The actual drying time was more like 40 minutes).
I won't buy into the "your clothes must smell like floral chemicals" advertising line.
Yep, plastic and wool dryer balls are all reported to speed up drying.
I had a set of plastic ones, but the spikes wore off of them over time. My wool ones are lasting much longer.
I’m curious how often you get something you don’t end up liking or using from the Mighty Fix subscription. My frugal instincts are not inclined to sign up for buying random items I may not need or use.
Luckily, you do have the option to go in and select something for your fix before it ships; you can stick with what they chose for you, or you can swap it out for something from a bunch of other choices!
I confess, I tried Mighty Fix, back when the first item was dish cloths. They were nice, but the pressure of having to review the options monthly to try to find something I could use got to be too much for me, so I cancelled after a few months.
I think if you're older and have a fully stocked kitchen and pantry, it's harder to find things you actually need.
It's also important to note that Mighty Fix is the retailer, they are not the manufacturer, so they don't make the products.
This time around, I already have plastic dryer balls. If I got these wool ones, that would be more plastic headed for a landfill. Whomp, whomp.
The food huggers look quite handy, but at the risk of sounding like a crank I would sincerely like to see a scientific study of whether or not dryer balls actually speed up drying time. And it would need to be sponsored by someone other than the manufacturer of the dryer balls.
We, as a society, have drifted into many, many "learned" needs.
I use dryer balls and it absolutely cut the drying time.
Fair question! I don't know any scientific studies (I'd be interested too), but I'll offer one specific observation.
I didn't really know about dryer balls but I got some for Christmas, so I've been trying them out. I've found they're particularly useful for me in loads that used to get twisted up and dry unevenly, like fitted sheets with a bunch of socks twisted into a wet clump in a couple of places (so everything in the load was dry except those clumps). The dryer balls help the clumps happen less often, so the load dries evenly and nothing has to get thrown back in.
I stopped using dryer sheets years ago and have never used dryer balls. I have some socks that like to cling to certain clothing items. All I do is shake those items and there are the socks! I normally would shake those tops to help with wrinkles as I often don’t get to things right away. I am a constant fluffer!
Wow, thank you! I joined because we've needed real wool dryer balls and we live in a town that is a retail desert (not a food desert), especially for anything eco-friendly. So this worked out perfectly.
I have sometimes wanted to buy a few of the Oui yogurts just for the handy-sized little jars, but the lack of lids was holding me back, so that's great to know about the little hugger lids.
Is there any way to just shop for these items without subscribing? I'm not a fan of subscriptions. I'd rather be able to choose what I want to buy & just buy it. And I guess it's ok to just sign up, get the product for $3 then cancel......
I bought some dryer balls from Dollar Tree and I don't know if I need more than three or if the wool ones work better, but I didn't notice any improvement in static. My nylon clothing was still full of static 🙁 Any suggestions?
If you're getting static with your dryer balls that means you are leaving the dryer on too long. Try reducing your dry time 10 mins and work from there. If 10 shorter you still have static try another 5 or 10 less. I can dry a whole load in 30 mins with my dryer balls. I used to have rubber ones and I just switched to the wool. Both worked equally well.
Nylon clothing will just be staticky, honestly. Without fabric softener coating the fibers, even air-dried nylon is staticky.
I detest fabric softener (it coats the inside of both the washer and dyer, so even laundry loads where it isn't added end up coated in the sticky residue), as it makes my towels not-absorbent, and scents my clothing (I personally don't like scented laundry!), which is one reason I generally steer clear of nylon fabric of any kind.
The closest thing I own is my workout gear, and that I air-dry. It does get a little staticky, but it so much better than pulling a towel off the rack after a shower and discovering it won't dry me off!
I have a question about the dryer balls. I purchased some in the past but couldn't get over the loud thumping sound of them when the dryer was running. The ones I tried were plastic. Do the wool dryer balls make less noise in the dryer?
I definitely think that the wool balls are quieter!
They are definitely quieter - I can't hear ours at all, even the one time I accidentally started the dryer without putting in anything other than the dryer balls!
Thank you for sharing this. But, how is it Earth/ environment friendly to get new products every month that you can (mostly) do without? FWIW, I've never used a dryer anything and never had any problem drying our clothes.
That all depends on whether you are currently using disposable products much. If you are already living a pretty disposable-product-free lifestyle, then this wouldn't help you!
But if you currently use plastic bags to store half an onion/pepper, etc. or if you currently use dryer sheets, then these products are an eco-friendly swap.
We have a set of 6 dryer balls and use them all because we run large loads to reduce electricity and water. They aren't great at eliminating static, so we always play the "how many nylon knee highs are stuck on my nightgown today? game. The record (so far) is 9. We also play the "keep that dryer ball away from the dog" game, and the "where's that 6th dryer ball hiding this time?" game (hint, often in a sleeve). Fun times!
But I love the dryer balls anyway. I'm allergic to fragrances so these are scent-free and I don't have to go down the stinky grocery aisle to buy dryer sheets. We've been using them about 1 year with no sign of wear.
Add safety pins to your dryer balls, it made a huge difference for me.
What!?! Tell me more! How does a safety pin help? With static or with getting stuck places?
Well, I wound up having subscription remorse and cancelled it, an action helped along by the post office delivering the dryer balls to Georgia instead of Tennessee, so I haven't gotten them. That's also not Mighty Nest's fault, but I did send them an e-mail about it, so we'll see.
I will just buy the Food Huggers and whatever other plastics reducing items Mighty Nest has on offer down the road, as it seems to have some very neat stuff at good prices. Thanks for letting us know, Kristen.
Maybe you can show how you use them as lids because I can’t get them on the jars.
Hmm...I just kind of stretch them over the top. What kind of containers are you using them on?