I mentioned recently on my blog that a friend of mine admitted that she and her husband do 16 loads of laundry for two people, per week! I was quite amazed, or horrified, depending on how you look at it, as two people in my household equates to three loads a week and a family including children come in at around 5 loads per week. I asked readers how much laundry they did and found a variety of interesting responses.
I used to do a lot more laundry but gradually cut down, saving myself time and money. Here are my tips for reducing the laundry pile and saving money:
1. Don't wash everything just because it has been worn once - apart from underwear and socks, everything for grownups gets used more than once. For children I've found often t-shirts need washing after one wear, but on the whole jeans, trousers, tops, sweaters etc can all be used several times before they need washing.
2. Take care of your clothing - if I take the time to change and put the clothing away straight away, it is more likely to keep it's shape/form and not look like it needs washing or ironing!
3. I wash sheets every other week maximum! I'd love to do it less, but once you've seen bed bugs under a microscope your opinion changes on such things ;)
4. I use no more than 2 towels per person, per week!
5. PJ's and nighties are used for 3-4 nights in a row before they are placed in the laundry!
6. I wash at 30 degrees!
7. I use eco-friendly washing detergent and use only 1/2 the recommended amount! In the future I hope to make my own!
8. I hang dry most clothing on a small clothes horse and wait to do sheets and towels until the weather is semi-nice (aka not raining) so they can go outside.
Several of my readers mentioned they make use of comfy clothing once home from work and I've found this works for me too, as I can wear them many days in a row without needing a wash - leggings + sweat top is my favourite choice of comfy clothing!
Do you have any laundry tips to share? How many loads of laundry do you do per week in your household?
41 comments:
Wow! 16 loads of laundry for two people, per week is way to much washing.
I am single and do 1 load per week with clothes and fortnightly I do a second load with sheets and towels.
I use 2 towels and 1 face cloth per week which I hang out to dry every night after use.
After work I get into comfy clothes which I use all week as I usually only have them on for a couple of hours before I have my shower and get into my night gown or PJ's (I wear the same night gown or PJ's all week.
I hang all my clothes out on the clothes line or if it's raining on an indoor clothes line as I don't own a clothes dryer.
We have 2 small kids, not in school, and my husband works from home (wears casual clothes). We get 2 or more wears out of jeans/ jumpers/ cardigans alot. We wash sheets once a week in Summer/ fortnightly in Winter & one towel each plus bathmats/ handtowels for each bathroom, washed once a week. PJ's last a week.
We all bath at night, so figure we've put our PJ's on when we are clean & gotten into bed clean too, no need to wash bed linen so often! I just can't get past the habit I picked up from my mum, to do the beds once a week...
I have only ever washed in cold water. Used eco-friendly, grey water suitable liquid for years now. Rarely use dryer, love my Hills Hoist & use clothes racks alot. I am hoping to get a retractable clothesline for under patio this Winter, or if not, keep using doors/ backs of chairs to finish drying sheets!
We do wash alot of facewashers though... from kids bath at night, plus they have one each for the day, for meals... we seem to always have alot of facewashers on the line/ racks!! Better than disposable wipes...
I vaguely remember my mother doing all our laundry by hand - we got our first washing machine in 1959 or 60. At this time there were my mother (housewife), my father (shirt and tie), my two elder brothers (mechanics),me (relatively clean little girl) and my youngest brother (cloth nappies). Of course we wore our clothes several days in a week. Nobody expected a mechanic to start his work every day in an impeccably clean overall which would be dirty after half an hour. And you could send your child to the playground with a little of yesterday´s mud on his pants, just imagine! Now we shower twice a day and wash everything we have touched once, are we really so dirty?
I wash daily, in the bathroom sink with a flannel and wash all over with one bowl of water. Hubs does the same! We have two showers a week. We wear the same over clothes for two or three days and jeans can be worn all week. We don't do any manual work, don't get sweaty or smelly, so where's the dirt? We have clean underclothes every day and one towel each (mine's pink - his is blue! yep really) and that lasts all week, it gets hung up to dry after use. We wash our sheets once a week and the underwear goes in the same wash. Our over clothes and one towel each goes in another wash. So two washing machine loads per week. We also recycle the water by pumping it onto the veg garden in the summer too! Oh - I have one bath a week, with hubs on a Saturday night!
I make my own laundry soap because everything else irritates my son's skin. It's a great way to use soap which isn't "pretty" enough to sell, and saves me money loads of money. I do end up washing more laundry (at least his) because he's not exactly capable of staying clean! I also have to dry my laundry in the dryer as he cannot stand the feel of airdried clothing against his skin, or using airdried towels. I have however picked up the trick of putting one of his old trainers into the dryer, which cuts drying time in half. I also don't dry to "parched-dry", but only just dry, the last bit done inside.
Sheets are done once a week, at least mine anyway. Sprog's may be done more as he has problems with toileting at night from time to time.
I'm not amazed that you don't have any Australian commenters. They might all be ashamed of showering at least once a day and in the summer possibly 2 or 3 times a week. In fact Ausies usually express disgust at dirty European standards of very little washing. I think the real reason for these differences in opinion and fact relate to temperature. One commenter said that she doesn't smell. As much as many here would not believe that, I do. Your climate is so much colder compared to ours that I would imagine that perspiration wasn't part of many peoples indoorsy lifestyles. Here all you might need to do is vacuum half the house and the water is pouring off you, fringe dripping, rivulets down your back into the undies, etc. So of course, in the driest continent we wash a lot more than most other countries. Out of necessity. Having said that things like petticoats and aprons can protect good clothes, as can changing as soon as you return home from a cool weather outing. But in summer no 'decent person' in the warmer parts of Australia would not change their clothes daily. Cherrie
I am Australian.
Hi - UK temps are temperate, never too hot and never too cold. Average summer 'heat' is 21- 25 degrees and winter is 5 - 10 degrees. I never sweat, in fact I'm always cold, even in the 'summer'! I come in from work and hang up my good work clothes and put on my old 'at home' clothes, always wear an apron and head scarf when I cook and make sure I keep myself clean. I assure you all, every cm of my person is washed every day - just in less water than you're used to - however the average water bill where I live is almost two thousand pounds a year! so we have to use less of it as we can't afford it!
Whoa! 16 loads sounds like overkill. We do a lot of what you mentioned:
2-3 washes a week (for two of us)
one towel per week, sheets changed every 2-3 weeks (we have a damp apartment and getting them to dry in the winter is tricky!)
Also, we do wear comfy house clothes quite often and don't sit around in things that will wrinkle. And we shamelessly wear the same thing again and again. Which is no problem here in France, but is frowned upon in my home state of California.
I'm Australian and live in the subtropics. Hmmm humidity (blergh). Anyway. I have two kids (single mum) and can get away with 2-3 loads per week (1 load for clothes, 1 for face washers, clean up towels, hand towels and bath towels, and maybe a load for sheets or miscellaneous stuff). Sheets are done when I can be bothered, usually no longer than 3 weeks in between though. I consciously decided to get a few more clothes so I didn't need to do more laundry. (When I had a partner amazingly I used to sometimes do 7 loads per week, not sure why it was so much!) Living where I do the tumble dryer is rarely needed, can hang stuff on the line all year round. Our household uses less water per day than most households in my area use per person per day.
Our family of 5 does about 5-6 loads/week. One towel a week, sheets every other week on the adult bed but kids sleep with a (removable) duvet and bottom sheet that gets washed every 6 months or so (pillowcases more often). They're young elementary aged so this still works.
I make all my own laundry soap, wash on cold, hand scrub our bad stains and we hang dry all our laundry.
Laundry is one of the more pleasant household chores in our home and is very manageable.
http://fimby.tougas.net/homemade_laundry_soap
http://fimby.tougas.net/hang-drying-family-laundry
I'm in Adelaide, Australia. There's two of us and I would do at the most, 4 loads of washing a week. Sheets get done once a week, as do towels. I stagger the washing, so that I can chuck things in with the sheets or the towels. I use cold water and hang everything on the line which is undercover.
Since we've had water restrictions in South Australia, we don't have showers as often as we used to (sometimes it was twice a day, but we were quite active, running and cycling) In winter you can get away with not showering as often, but if you have a run of 40 degree days, a quick, cool shower makes a difference.
If I'm not going out I wear the same clothes for a week, unless of course I have done something particularly dirty (like gardening) in them. I have comfy clothes for wearing round the house, and then I have good clothes for wearing out.
I will often hang the good clothes in the fresh air to freshen them up instead of washing them, also I sponge off any marks.
I have noticed as I get older that my sweat doesn't seem to smell as much or maybe it is that I am used to it :)
What I've noticed that helps the most is having a pair of grunge pants. For me, it's army pants...stole two of my baby brother's pairs, and picked up two more at the army surplus store. I can feed the horses, tramp around outside, and repeat for several days before they get yucky.
Another help is having a huge supply of soft undershirts. These get changed daily, just like underwear, but help to save the shirts I wear a LOT.
I hear you Aussies...in the summer here, WV gets nasty! It seems as if you can't go outside without getting soaked. Obviously, washing habits HAVE to change in the summer.
One point I have to disagree with is the sheets...I have several sets, and choose to change them at least once a week. Sometimes more! :) I guess that is my real vice...
Actually, if you're wearing cotton socks and you drape them over your shoes or something when you're not wearing them (instead of wadding them into a ball) you can wear them more than once without any smelliness.
I was thinking about what we do, and realized only underclothes, work clothes and exercise stuff gets washed after 1 use. Everything else gets 2 uses. Ends up being about 3 loads/week for 2 of us. Then, I realized, we tend (not sure how much thought or intentionality there is) to use stuff that's been worn a few times when we know we will be stinky, sweaty or dirty. So, it still gets 2 or 3 uses... but a tad more strategically. This does require thinking ahead sometimes, or pulling stuff out of the laundry basket if you are heading out to do something dirty.
for the two of us plus a 12 year-old we do about 4 loads per week.
I do make my own detergent and use 2 tablespoons per wash(I mix 2 cups of borax, two cups of Arm and Hammer washing soda, 2 cups of baking soda, and one grated bar of laundry soap)
We too follow those guidelines you mention, except we dry in the dryer. We have dusty fields around the farm, and pollen like you wouldn't believe it. My goal is, though, to put up a clothesline this year-I just have to find a good spot.
I have a family of five including a 3 year-old and a 5 month old and I only do about 9 or 10 loads a week. I can't see how a family of two could do that many loads.
16 does seem like a lot. For two people I do between 3 and 4. A load of lights, a load of darks, and maybe a load of towels and a load of sheets. And I do follow all of your suggestions! Work pants get worn at least twice. This is made easier by changing into "lounge" clothes once I get home. Towels get used for several days before going into the wash. And I always intend to wash sheets weekly, but it ends up being every other week usually.
16 loads is too much time and money to spend on laundry each week for two people. We have 5 kids (one baby under 6mos) & two adults and there is no way I get close to 16 loads ... in fact, I can't imagine doing that many ever in a week! Washing that often also means clothes/towels/sheets need to be replaced more often -- even more expense.
My clothing laundry rules are very close to yours. We use towels for a full week unless a change is needed for some reason.
Of course, having a large capacity front load washing machine really helped me decrease the number of loads. I wouldn't go back to top load by choice.
Just for reference, we live on a farm, don't have grass around the house (yet!), and are in windy ND.
I am surprised no one has mentioned the size of your washer here. We recently moved from a regular side-by-side washer and dryer to a stackable set, and the stackable's capacity is WAY smaller. I don't feel like I do more laundry overall, but I do a lot more loads because they are small loads.
We have a family of 5. It varies, but I probably do between 6-8 loads per week, plus another 3 loads of cloth diapers.
This is with trying to cut back, not washing the sheets too often, etc. It seems to be as much as I can get it down to.
My 5 year old and 1 year old simply get their clothes really dirty, and can never wear anything more than once. Plus I use only cloth rags for all cleaning, and this tends to add up too--especially when my 1 year old is constantly making huge messes!
Such wisdom here, thank you for sharing your experiences and tips!!
Hubby and I used to do 2 loads/wk in high efficiency/capacity washer. Now that we have a 1 month old, we do laundry about every other day, so 3-4x per week.
Like Lauren, we have a Thin-Twin stacked washer and dryer, about half the size of a regular machine. The two of us do 3 loads in that weekly, plus 2 more loads biweekly when I wash bed linens (I don't make the bed when we get up - instead I flip it completely open to air, and then make it up in the evening; pillowcases will often get thrown in with a weekly load).
Also, we're on a septic sewer system and don't want to overload its filtration capacity. So we do only one wash load a day. One retractable clothesline plus a folding rack on the patio supplies enough ourdoor drying space when weather permits, so I use the dryer only when necessary.
My husband and I do no more than 1 load a week. My husband works outdoors and there's no difference between clean and dirty clothes by the end of the day, so he wears pretty much the same thing all week.
I work in an office and must wear a new outfit every day (wish I lived in France, b/c I could do without the bother). Why is it not acceptable here in the states? I will say that here in Montana it is probably not as strict as California, but still.
We tend to wash things when they look or smell unclean. Up until 6 months ago we did not own a dryer and would hang dry out clothes inside or outside depending on the weather. In our dry climate, it never takes more than a day or two for our things to dry. Saves us a lot on our electric bill.
We have a baby on the way and I would like to use cloth diapers, however it will mean doing laundry much more frequently. Has anyone had luck hang drying them?
I wash underwear after every use but everything else gets washed when it needs it - no idea how many wears that would be for things like jeans/trousers because I lose count. If it doesn't look dirty or start to smell it lives another day.
I do wear a different outfit to work every day, but then won't wear that outfit again for a while - maybe the airing it gets before wears helps?
Sheets every other week, towels/tea towels etc every week. Dog bedding when it needs it.
I make my own laundry soap, wash clothes in cold water, sheets/towels/dog bedding at 40C and dry everything on dryers
We use most of your tips. Both hub and I wear our clothes more than once, including work out gear. Although depending on how much we sweat in the summer, then we might wash after one wear of anything and especially hub's uniforms. We wash in warm cold. Between the two of us we probably do 2-3 loads a week. We wash sheets every other week, blankets once a month or as they're dirtied by the dogs. We each use one towel per week and we wash kitchen towels also once per week---all just get throw in with our regular item loads. We both change when we get home from work and I can usually wear my pjs all week no problem. We use eco friendly detergent and line dry at least half the clothes in our garage each week (housing policy doesn't allow a line outside).
Even if you need to wear a different outfit each day, you can often wear them for a few weeks if you re hang them after each use. Typically I check for smells before I hang them, and also before I rewear clothes, esp in summer. Wearing a singlet or under shirt also helps outer wear stay clean, and extends their life. I've found that even when clothes get damp and sweaty in the tropics, hanging them up straight away let's them dry, and can allow you to get a second wear - even if its for a few hours.
I also hang items that may fade inside out when drying them outside, and make sure clothes get folded into the basket when bringing them in to prevent creases.
REF: nappies/diapers............I never used disposables, I also never had a tumble drier. I simply rinsed the pooey nappies in the toilet, ran them under the tap, soaked in a bucket of bicarbonate of soda and then washed with the whites. I made sure though that I had 48 nappies (4 dozen was rec'd) and I would have some soaking, some washing, some drying, some ready to use. As for people who can not hang washing to dry in the back garden of their own property!!!! Your constitution should be re written to allow you the liberty to dry your clothes, nappies etc in the open air! and Chelsea - what dictators say you have to wear different clothes every day? land of the free??? I think not! Here in the UK.....wear wt* you like, so long as it's not smelly/dirty and appropriate to your job. I have all my work clothes in black, anything goes with any thing, no one would know if I wore the same thing or something different every day. Too much washing is OCD! unless you live in 40 degrees which I don't or do manual work, which I don't there's little need to wash clothes every time they are worn
willywagtai, I am Australian and was the the first to comment on this post.
I'm a college student who does two loads of wash every 5 weeks. I figure the 32oz bottle of Tide I got freshman year will last me till graduation.
I wear the same jeans and pajamas all week. (yes I am a girl! in public no less- no one ever knows the difference). I wear a clean shirt to classes, but recycle them to wear on the weekends.
I obviously only do my towels and bedding every five weeks (i do change the pillowcase more often.)
I was raised using the same towel and wash cloth every night and hanging them to dry. my mother changed towels and bedding every two-three. clean towls everday is an unheard of luxury for hotels.
I also have work clothes assigned exclusively for getting dirty. i've been working in the dairy barns for the last month and i wore the same mucked covered jeans every day- they just get dirty anyway and laundry costs $2 dollars a load, and requires 6 trips up and down two flights of stairs
I live in Northern Australia and have a family of eight. I wash about 16 loads a week. I do towels once a week (one load of my front loader), tablecloths every 2nd day thrown in with tea towels, face washers, dishcloths, etc, sheets as they need it (I don't count the time between washes, but encourage the kids to change pillow slips once a week), and the rest is clothes. It rains a lot here, and there's heaps of red mud. Even with a raincoat and hat and gumboots we end up hot and wet and muddy and smelly. Some days recently I went through 3 sets of clothes in a day, plus pyjamas. I couldn't get my clothes to dry between trips to work with the cows and they were caked with mud and manure so I got a new set out.
We homeschool so the kids will often go out during the day and get wet and muddy, and need a second set of clothes for the afternoon.
When we go to town we often shower and change into 'town' clothes, which are usually recycled if they smell ok and don't have food spilled on them etc.
We wear pjs for a few nights' running, and try not to wash clean clothes, but the reality is that life's dirty here!
We all shower at least once a day, year round.
We have our own water supply, homemade laundry soap, a dryer plus outdoor and indoor lines, plus a clothes airer. Our machine is a front loader that uses less power and water than my old top loader.
When not faced with humidity or mud, we can wear our clothes for longer or more times, and therefore wash less.
My MIL probably does the 16 loads for herself and my FIL *shakes head* towels washed after each use, sheets changed twice a week, clothes and pyjamas each washed after every wear. She also runs a full dishwasher twice a day for the two of them!
My other half had a bit of adjusting to do, coming to live with me ;) I wash towels when they need it - the bathroom gets quite cold and damp in winter so this is more frequent than in summer when they dry very well between uses. Sheets when they need it (e.g. kids wet the bed) or when there's a sunny day and not too many clothes to wash.
I have 2 adults and three children in my house and I generally do 5 loads a week of clothes, 1 of towels, and 3 of cloth nappies. We have an 8kg washing machine.
I live in Australia and in summer I definitely need to change my shirt every day, but can often wear a skirt more than once. The kids don't smell when they sweat, but two of them still tend to get very grimy and/or spill food on themselves, so they go through a lot of clothes. Like many others, we have 'house clothes' which helps.
Thanks for the continued wonderful posts, comments and tips! It is also very interesting reading about how different tempertures and climates effect laundry!
Kat - 2 loads every 5 weeks is very impressive!!!
I grew up in Tucson, AZ. We hoped for something like 8" of rain a year and temperatures would get up to 114-116F. The more time spent outdoors, the more likely our clothes needed to be washed, but we tried to repeat clothes as often as possible.
Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is indoor climate. I think it's also important to note the amount of water required to keep our houses cool. We do less laundry if we're not sweaty. In Tucson we weren't sweaty because we had swamp coolers. I'm not sure which is the better pay off, refrigerated air or laundry?
My baby is in cloth diapers which I wash twice a week. For my husband and I, I usually do 1, sometimes 2. So at most 4 a week.
I do about 5 loads a week for two adults and two kids: darks, whites, coloureds, reds and maybe an extra of coloureds or darks, or woollens. Sheets and towels are washed once a week with the appropriate colours. I hang clothes between wearings and expect the kids to get more than one day's wear out of their uniforms, though I notice with boys that it's often not the case! (Do they roll in playground dirt??).
Hathor, perhaps your son is reacting to pollens in sun-dried clothes?
16 loads a week for 2 people is absolutely absurd.
Our household of 3 averages 5-6 loads per week: Whites, darks, towels, bedding, delicates and finally, cleaning cloths.
Everything, including jumpers, is washed in cold water. Our machine is a front loader that uses 57 litres per wash. Washing water drains directly onto the garden during summer and dry winter spells.
We use soap nuts for all washing. Clothing comes out brilliantly clean and soft. Best of all, soap nuts are economical to use and are environmentally friendly.
Everything is hung out to dry in the sun and fresh air, eliminating the use of 'anti-bacterial' detergents.
Outer clothing is worn until it needs to be washed. After work and school, everyone changes into their 'at home' clothes which are worn all week. This reduces the need for copious amount of washing.
As for personal washing, one shower or flannel wash per day per person is sufficient.
Jane
When we were a family of four at home, I bought 4 sets of towels (bath, hand, facecloth, bathmats)in four definitively different colors selected from the same line for continuity and coordination: we had pink, blue, brown, burgandy. Even the littlest person could recognize his (blue) towels from his own rack and use only those. This looked very nice in our all-white bathroom (I chose shower curtains and accessories accordingly) and greatly saved on laundry. No coming into the bathroom and tossing all the towels into the laundry because you couldn't tell who had used which towel for what.
I live in New Jersey and we work in New York City. Once you step foot in the New York City subway all you want to do is burn the clothes you're wearing. It smells and it is horrific in the summer when temps can reach 120 degrees and up. You feel so dirty that you have to wash the clothes plus we have so many strange germs and illnesses lately, that you have to wash everything just in case you have been exposed to some weird germ, bug, virus etc.
Our household has two adults and we bathe twice a day, water is very inexpensive about $34 per month. We have a Prius and use CFL bulbs in our home. I wash about 2 to three loads a week, whites, then darks, then delicates and change sheets once a week and towels twice a week.
I also wash clothes in cold water and always hang to try all my husbands white undershirts and workout socks. This keeps the shirts nice and white. I also hang dry shirts, polos, delicates. It keeps the clothes looking newer longer.
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