Laundry is Fun!
May 24thI am inspired today to talk about laundry. I know it’s not the most glamorous of topics, but it’s one those frequent activities where we can make small changes. With the weather finally getting warmer, hang drying laundry is much less a chore than it was in the winter.
The Joy of Clotheslines
Where I grew up everyone had outdoor clotheslines. My grandma hung her clothes out to dry everyday, and if it was raining, she hung them on the clotheslines down in the basement. She always really enjoyed doing her laundry. I think the time spent outside carefully pinning up the clothes gave her a little break outside in the fresh air, time to think and relax.
Living in an apartment, I don’t quite have the luxury of setting up a giant clothesline in my backyard. Instead, I have two of those little drying racks you can get at just about any home store. When it is nice outside, I can set them right outside my door, and the wind dries the clothes in less than an hour.
Sometimes it will take a load a full day to dry inside, so we can’t let the laundry pile up the way we used to. Also, we don’t have enough space to dry towels and sheets, so those still get thrown into the electric dryer. Using our dryer infrequently lowered our energy bill by about 30%!
Other Money-Saving Tips
I wash everything in cold water, so that knocks a bit off the bills as well. I use about 1/2 cup of Borax and just a little bit of Seventh Generation detergent. I want to experiment with making my own detergent one of these days, but for now this combination works well and is pretty cheap. Even though the Seventh Generation stuff is more expensive than normal detergent, I use a lot less of it per load now that I add Borax.
If you use powdered detergent and you want to wash in cold water, try dissolving the detergent in hot water first, then pour it into the machine. Otherwise you’ll end up with undissolved powder stuck on your clothes.
There’s something really nice about air—dried clothes, especially if you can get them outside in the wind. They have a freshness that the dryer just can’t match. Linens dried in the wind have an old—fashioned crispness to them that I really enjoy, so if you have the space give it shot. You’ll even end up saving some money in the meantime!