A Simpler Life Series: Doing Less Laundry
“You haven’t done laundry in how long?” Martin said to me on the phone while I was thousands of miles away at college. Back then, I was probably shooting for a world record in the Women Not Doing Laundry division. The thing was, I hated shlepping my clothes down the hill and across campus. I hated spending my whole day in the laundry room for fear of having my laundry stolen, dumped on the floor, or worse – stained with dye by a bunch of pranksters. So I put it off. I learned to wear some of my clothes a couple times before throwing them in the washing machine.
Modern technologies like washing machines and dryers are supposed to save us time. I’m not sure they really are, though. Our great grandparents used to put on clean clothes on Monday. They’d wear the same shirt and pants or dress all week long. Then they’d wash them. Today we put on one outfit for work each day. We come home and change into something else. If we go to the gym, we put on another outfit.
Some of us use a different towel every day. We wash sheets and rugs and everything else all the time.
So I’m wondering: are we really saving time? Before women had a couple outfits to wash by hand. Now we have dozens of things ready to be cycled through the wash, folded, and put away all the time. What was supposed to save us time may now be just as much work.
Now I’m not asking you to change your habits to the point where you’re challenging my college record (which will remain an anonymous bit of data!). I’m just asking you to think about how much you’re running your washing machine in today’s portion of A Simpler Life Series. Do you truly dirty things before they wind up in the laundry basket? Washing laundry is so easy, so we find ourselves doing more and more loads. The time we spend quickly adds up.
This week, try to rethink how much laundry you’re creating. Is it realistic that your family shouldn’t be creating more than one load per person each week?
At our house: with such a small apartment and a half-size washing machine, Martin and I are really becoming aware of just how much laundry we create because in the winter, it takes an entire day for a load to dry on the metal rack. That rack is right in our way until the clothes are dry. It’s horrible. It also means that we’re wearing clothes a little longer so our rack isn’t out all the time… and we’re doing fine.
So what do you think? Could you cut back on the laundry you create and free a little time in your week? Then again… anyone dare to challenge my college record of holding out?!
April 7th, 2009 at 5:27 am
I really love this post.
I do try to reduce my laundry by trying to wear things more than once. Work pants especially. We usually only do laundry once a week but it comes out to be 4-5 loads, but that’s with a front load washer which uses less water!
April 7th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Just wait till you have kids – you’ll look back on this post and laugh! Pee, poo, spit up, food, all over all your clothes and your babies clothes and you’re forced to do laundry daily. Welcome to my world! haha!
But before F came along, I totally followed your philosophy, and we still do for our own clothes – wear them more than once if we didn’t dirty them the first time around. Especially jeans. I think they’re sooo much more comfortable after they’ve been worn once.
And I love the idea of hanging clothes to dry outside – I currently have a couple of racks/hooks set up in my tiny laundry room, but this summer I might try to pin up a line out in my backyard!
April 7th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Oh yes. Because laundry is free at D’s but coin-op at my place, I take my laundry with me to Seattle every three weeks when I visit. So I have to make sure that (a) it fits in a carry-on bag and (b) I don’t run out of clothes between visits. It works well since it’s Perpetual Winter where I am — if it were summer, we’d be doing more laundry, I’m sure …
April 7th, 2009 at 7:00 am
I wonder what you do about seperating your laundry if you are only doing one load a week? With my front load washer there is no way to change the load size. So if you only have one load per person a week, how are you seperating your whites and delicates from jeans/towels? You still have to do multiple loads that are not full… or am I missing something? Are you creating about one load a week and waiting a few weeks until there is a full load? Or are you not seperating the laundry?
April 7th, 2009 at 7:38 am
I do laundry at a generous friends house on Tues. and Fri. It has helped a lot to have that schedule. If I need to combine loads I do it on cold and line dry when I can.
April 7th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Christy,
I was thinking about people with kids as I wrote, but like you said – I have no idea what it’s like!
Desi,
Our clothes are still sorted between darks and lights. I was trying to suggest if you have two people in your house, try to average two loads/week. Three people/three loads a week. Et cetera. Forgive me for being unclear because yes, we do wait until we have a full load before we wash anything.
Contemporary Troubadour,
I sure laughed at the image of you packing up your dirty laundry. When you come home, you might be saying goodbye to D, but at least you can look forward to all those clean clothes!
And Erin Kathleen,
Keep up the awesomeness!
Katie
April 7th, 2009 at 7:57 am
my college habits (that I still have) are three loads every two weeks, roughly… small lights, big darks, and a towels/sheets load… and then the very occasional dry-clean-in-the-dryer kit.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Between the two of us, we usually have about 5 loads of laundry a week…yikes, that sounds like a lot. A load of dark towels/sheets, a load of white towels/sheets/tshirts/socks, workout clothes (warm water), dress clothes (cold water), and Chad’s work clothes (he works at a restaurant). We’re really good about reusing our towels for a week before grabbing a new one. But between working out and going to work, I go through two outfits a day. That adds up fast.
April 7th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Wow, I was an idiot this morning! Went back and reread the post and it all makes sense. You’re just modifying the frequency of washing something, not actually running a load. This is why I dont comment on something until after my morning coffee.
Thanks!
April 7th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I’m with Christy – I can’t cut back on my laundry right now. My daughter puts on a shirt and covers it in jelly, or chocolate, or peanut butter within 20 minutes. It’s well beyond minor annoyance dirt. My son is using cloth diapers which require regular laundering, no way around it. And I am constantly covered in spit-up and associated kid goo. I used to re-wear my shirts a couple of times, but right now it’s just not feasible.
One of the other things our great grandmothers did was to wear aprons and other clothing protection. I imagine this sort of thing is necessary if you’re not going to do laundry that often. And while I have a full-length apron it’s not terribly practical for nursing in, so I don’t wear it that much. I think that might be one way to get around the kid goo if I weren’t breastfeeding every hour.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
My husband and I do 2-3 loads a week, and we don’t wash our sheets every week. Basically, I don’t put things in the laundry until they either are visibly dirty or smell. Is that gross? Maybe… :)
Growing up, there were 10 people in my house (8 of us and two living with us), and we had an Indonesian spin dryer. We had a house helper that spent hours doing our laundry. We line-dried everything, which potentially saved electricity, except that then everything needed to be ironed as well!
April 7th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
There are two of us and we do laundry about once every 3 weeks, and that is either 2 or 3 loads (depending on if we had company stay with us for extra towels and sheets). Underwear needs to be done almost every 2 weeks, then a load of regular clothing (light and dark) about every 3 weeks. We re-wear most of our clothes until they are stinky (no children here) and keep our towel for about a week before it goes into the laundry.
Part of this is because we don’t want to do laundry so often (it’s in the basement and costs $2 a load) and partly because I was raised to wear clothes till they were stinky (to save money at laundromat).
April 7th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
We have 5 children, and I wash a load every day, so 7 people = 7 loads/week. Right on target. I also line-dry most everything (except towels…I can’t stand towels that feel rough like cardboard.)
Kids can throw the numbers off, especially if you have babies or bed-wetters, or boys who dig in the dirt most of the day!
April 8th, 2009 at 3:20 am
We wear our jeans multiple times before washing them. Sometimes M wears his so long I’m afraid they’re going to get up and walk out on their own. :)
Here’s our breakdown:
About every 10-15 days:
1 load whites (or until we all run out of socks).
1 load darks/jeans
1 load of M’s uniforms (these HAVE to be washer separately)
Weekly:
1 load towels and sheets (we use the same color sheets on the beds and the same color towels so they can be combined)
1 load delicates and pinks (I have a ridiculous amount of pink clothing that is mostly delicate)
1 load lights
So that’s 3 loads weekly and an extra load every other week or so.
I HATE laundry. Hate. With the heat of a thousand suns.
April 8th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Here’s what I do with my family, including baby:
Baby-Bug eats breakfast with a big bib that I wipe clean. For lunch, I let her get messy, so I put her “eating clothes” on and a big bib. What the bib doesn’t get, her “eating clothes” get and I wipe all of it (including her) clean. For dinner, I either feed her or use the “eating clothes” again. Now, for snacks, I just put a regular bib on her and if she gets messy, I wipe her clean. Of course, not all of it comes off all the time, but it’s good enough. I say a child who isn’t messy isn’t learning or having fun. Her “eating clothes” can last the whole week and are the ones with the most stains. (That is why I bought them used and cheap.) Now, I can save her regular clothes for our next baby because they are almost all like new.
Now, Martin and I wear our jeans the whole week. If we get little spots on them, we wipe them clean. If they get messy, we change them. Even with a baby, I can wear the same shirt 2 or 3 days in a row because I can just wipe it clean. Also, it helps that I don’t sweat a lot. Martin sweats a bit, so he changes his shirt every day. We also, of course, change the undergarments every day.
We each use a towel for a whole week before putting it in the wash and since we’re clean at night, we only wash our sheets about once a month. Nightclothes are washed once a week, also.
I wash our clothes in cold water in large loads on an energy-saving setting that takes 2 hours and 25 minutes, but at least I know all along I am saving money.
April 9th, 2009 at 3:01 am
We probably average 7 LOADS/week (as opposed to loads/week) for 4 people and 7 animals. LOTS of dog towels and even more cotton kitchen towels used for napkins. I hope to be able to step up into a new front loader washer in the not-so-distant future. That would be helpful and heavenly!
April 10th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Great food for thought…we have hooks in our house (well, actually, we HAD hooks, before we moved and we haven’t put them up yet) to put our clothing on that wasn’t dirty yet. That way it didn’t end up in the dirty clothes when it probably could have been worn about three more times!
April 10th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Oh I remember the teeny washer we had when living overseas. We still use our towels several days in a row among other things. :) Have a glorious Easter weekend!
April 10th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I wear my clothes over and over until they a. stink b.are visibly dirty c. it is just gross to wear them again. However I am only 1 of 9 people who live in my house so I do laundry every day except for Sunday. I rest on Sunday.
April 11th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Since it’s only the two of us, our laundering needs are minimal. But I do try to consciously make “good laundering decisions”…like towels from my bath I dry flat so they air/dry better and last longer. (Damp towels get musty/”dirty” quicker.).
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:00 am
This post is so right on! We wear pajamas several nights in a row, and try to hang up clothes if they aren’t visibly dirty or smelly. It still seems like we have way too much laundry, though!