How often do you wash clothes? Laundry is a huge ‘money sucker’ and I am not just talking about the energy costs. The more often you wash something, the more wear it gets. It isn’t just having clothes on that ruins them, it is the detergent and drying action. Yes, even line drying can add wear and tear.

Fading, missing buttons, zippers that won’t zip, and ruined decorations. Yikes! All of this just from washing alone.

Ok, I am not going to tell you to stop washing your clothes. That would be pretty gross. Just reduce the times you do wash an item. Let’s say you have a blouse that you wear to work. If you come home and it has no stains from lunch and isn’t stinky, why not just put it on a hanger? It isn’t dirty, just worn. You have just saved yourself a possible washer mishap and saved a tiny bit of energy, plus water. Oh, don’t forget detergent and washing machine/dryer wear.

Kids clothing can be treated in the same way. Children are going to have more messes on their clothes than adults (most adults) so you will wash them more. To help preserve their good clothing, remove school clothes and have them change into play clothes as soon as they arrive home from school or daycare. Hang or fold if no stains or smells are present. You can sometimes even spot clean a small dirty area, saving a washload.

We are not going to discuss saving underwear. That is a cheapskate method I know I will not use. No way. It goes on, comes off, goes in laundry. End of that conversation. Socks? That’s up to you. Me? I wash them, even if it is a handwash and hanging in the bathroom like nylons.

Something I have always found a bit silly is the washing of towels after one use. The way I see it is this: You are clean when you come out of the shower or bath, right? Then why would you assume your towel is dirty after drying a clean body? Sure, you may have dry skin on it if you scrub the water off, but by treating your body nicely (patting, not rubbing), you won’t have all that gunk on your towel. Just hang up, let dry. If your bathroom is always humid, hang the towels in another area of your home. Of course if a towel has a musty odor it will need to be washed ASAP. But we let our towels go up to 3 uses. If they’ve only been used for swimming, we get a few more by hanging in the sun.

What about you? How often do you wash clothing?

(by the way, sorry for not posting this week. I’m 37 weeks pregnant and have been having a lot of on and off labor. If you all do not see me after this for a while, that means there is a new addition here a bit early!)

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 29th, 2008 at 5:23 pm and is filed under Clothing, Daily Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.