Laundry is the one chore at my house that never really ever seems to get done. However, I have found several ways to cut down the cost of doing laundry. While its not a huge savings, little by little it does add up.
1. Cut dryer sheets in half. If using dryer sheets, I take them out of the box and cut them in half instantly giving me 2X the amount. Half of a sheet works just as fine as a whole sheet.
2. Use less fabric softener. Like dryer sheets, you really can use half and it works just fine. Many times I would just fill the softener cap and dump it in the machine. Now I specifically find the fill line marked inside the cap and use half of it.
3. Use less detergent. Don't overdo the detergent. Again, I use half to 3/4 of what the manufacturer recommends and the clothes come out just as clean. If you get alot of lint on your clothes, you are using too much detergent.
4. Make your own detergent. This can be very cost effective if you do alot of laundry. There are several online recipes that will produce a 5 gallon bucket of detergent for cheap-under $7 for 300+ loads. Personally, I have never tried it, but from what I have read the detergent works great. You can find an online tutorial with recipe, pics and cost breakdown here.
5. Wash in cold. Cold water cleans just as well as hot but uses alot less energy.
6. Load the machine to capacity. Doing several small loads uses more energy that one large load.
7. Line dry your clothes. Its free, it works, and it doesn't take much time. We started this a few years ago and at first I thought it was going to be so much work. Its not. 75% of our laundry is dried this way, year round, and I prefer to line dry it then put it in the dryer. Personally, I think our clothing doesn't fade or shrink and retains its "newness" longer. My husband put two clothes lines in the basement and also a drying rack. It takes about a day for it to dry.
How do you reduce the cost of doing laundry?
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