Doing load after load of your family’s laundry doesn’t just take a lot of time; it can also end up costing you more than you realize financially as well. In fact, it is estimated that American families spend anywhere from $80 to $600 per year on laundry alone! Just imagine the savings you could have if you didn’t have to do laundry all of the time!
While you probably can’t stop doing laundry altogether, it is possible to save big on this common household chore. This post will show you how.
1. Wear Things More Than Once
Just because you’ve worn something once doesn’t automatically mean it’s dirty, especially if you only wore it for a short period of time. Sweaters that don’t even touch your body, the pajamas you can barely keep on your toddler and the shirt your son only wore to church for an hour are all prime candidates to go right back in the drawer. Towels can be used more than once as well.
Similarly, make sure your children are only putting clothes in the wash that are actually dirty as well. If your daughter develops a bad habit of deciding what to wear by throwing everything on the floor or your son throws everything in the hamper to avoid folding it and putting it away, that’s a lot of extra laundry you don’t need to be doing. Find a variety of affordable laundry hampers at Amazon.
2. Wash Only Full Loads
Rather than doing laundry after a specific amount of time as passed (such as every morning or every evening), wait to do a load of laundry until you have a full load. Not only will you spend less time doing laundry, but you can save big on your water bill as well.
Alternately, if you need to do your laundry on a schedule to make sure that it gets done, try lengthening the amount of time between loads. For example, instead of doing laundry every day, you could do laundry every other day or every three days, depending on the amount of clothing your family owns.
3. Use Less Laundry Detergent
When adding detergent to the laundry, do you usually just throw some in without bothering to measure? If so, you may be using way more than you need. While a little extra laundry detergent won’t break the bank right away, all of that wasted detergent can really add up over time. Not only will you need to buy extra detergent, which can be expensive, but you may shorten the lifespan of your clothes or washer as well. I buy my laundry detergent at Amazon on a regular basis when it’s on sale.
4. Invest in an Energy Efficient Washing Machine
Consider replacing your old or run-down washing machine with an energy efficient washing machine. My sister has an energy efficient washing machine and she absolutely loves it. Our washing machine is about 10 years old and still working, so when that time comes that it decides to give out, we will be replacing ours with energy efficient machines.
5. Switch to Cold Water
Unless your clothes are exceptionally dirty, chances are that hot water isn’t really necessary. Make the switch to cold water for the majority of your laundry loads and save the hot water for the towels and undergarments only. This will ensure that the germs on these sensitive items are well taken care of without needlessly wasting money with every load.
6. Skip the Fabric Softener
What if I told you that you really didn’t need fabric softener to get your clothes nice and soft? It’s true. Skip the expensive fabric softener and use 1/4 to a 1/2 cup of vinegar instead. Vinegar not only helps soften your clothes, it also helps prevent fading, keeps your washing machine cleaner and helps remove excess detergent from your clothes. Just be careful not to mix it with bleach, as this can result in a toxic gas.
7. Don’t Forget the Laundry!
Have you ever thrown in a load of laundry, only to completely forget about it until several hours later or even the next day? Having to rewash a load more than once isn’t just frustrating, it’s also an expensive and time-consuming habit to get into. Set a timer if you need to or make the laundry part of your daily routine, but don’t forget to flip it!
Related: 5 Tips to Keep Up With Laundry
If you are looking for additional ways to save money that don’t take a lot of time and effort, saving money on the laundry is one easy and excellent way to do just that! Try it out for a few weeks. You may be surprised at what a big difference just a few easy changes can make.
How do you save on laundry?
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