Laundry Costs – 11 Tips For Minimising Laundry Costs
Want to know to minimise your laundry costs? Here are 11 tips to reduce your laundry costs and SAVE MONEY!
Let’s chat about minimizing laundry costs.
If you want to know how to minimize your laundry costs, then you are in exactly the right place.
We all have to do laundry, right?
But that doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg to have clean clothes.
You may not have given this thought before doing your laundry is often more expensive than most people realize.
Did you know that we do laundry so frequently, that even a small savings per load could end up saving you a lot of money?
Today we are going to talk about the simple things you can do to cut the cost of doing laundry.
When you have more members in your household, this would obviously add up to an even bigger savings.
These tips will save the average family of four over $300 per year:
LAUNDRY COSTS SAVING TIPS
1 – Air-dry your clothes.
Do you have the space to air-dry your clothes or hang them on the clothes line outside?
If so, do it my friend!
If you can avoid using a dryer, you will save approximately $100 each year.
Or probably a lot more, depending on how much you use your dryer.
You will save money not only on your electric or gas bill but your clothes will also last longer.
That’s because the heat and tumbling in the dryer damage your clothing.
Fun fact: I don’t even own a dryer so all our clothes are air-dryed!
LAUNDRY COSTS SAVING TIPS
2- Spin your clothes twice.
If you are attached to your dryer, did you know you can use the spin cycle to get the excess water out of your clothes?
This means if you spin your clothes twice, you can reduce the drying time in your dryer.
LAUNDRY COSTS SAVING TIPS
3 – Stick to cold water.
While hot water works a little better, it does cost more.
In fact, the biggest cost of doing laundry comes from heating the water.
You can save a bundle by choosing to go with cold and even better if you can find a detergent that is specially formulated for use with cold water (here in Australia that brand is called Cold Power).
LAUNDRY COSTS SAVING TIPS
4 – Create your own laundry products.
There are many online “recipes” for making your own detergent, bleach, and fabric softeners.
These are surprise, surprise, just a fraction of the cost of grocery store laundry soaps and products.
So, if you want to explore different organic options that are also cheaper consider making your own to save money.
5 – Use less detergent.
I can’t tell you how long it took for me to work this one out!
It turns out that for years I was using MORE than the recommended amount required for a load.
That is, if ½ cup was recommended, there I was using ¾ to 1 cup instead.
Like duh!
Remember, these companies who make laundry detergent want you to use more than necessary so you have to purchase more.
- Experiment with using less detergent. You’ll probably find you can use half as much (true story!).
LAUNDRY COSTS SAVING TIPS
6 – Wash full loads.
This is a pretty obvious money saver but are you doing it yourself?
The electricity used to fill, agitate, and drain the washer is essentially the same, whether it’s a full or partial load.
The same goes for rotating the drum on the dryer.
- So, you can save a massive amount of money just by waiting until the load is full rather than ½ or ¾ full.
LAUNDRY COSTS SAVING TIPS
7 – Cut those dryer sheets in half.
Half of a dryer sheet is usually sufficient or even zero (here in Australia I have never heard of anyone using a dryer sheet!).
Experiment to see what works best for you.
LAUNDRY COSTS SAVING TIPS
8 – Clean the dryer trap.
Excess lint will trap moisture in the dryer and cause your clothes to take longer to dry.
So give it a clean because the sooner the dryer does its job, the less money it costs you.
LAUNDRY COSTS SAVING TIPS
9 – Wash your clothes less often.
Some individuals have outdoor jobs or those that require manual labor so of course, you will wash your clothes more often then.
But many others have jobs where they can avoid getting dirty or sweating excessively.
- As long as you haven’t soiled your clothing, consider wearing items more than once between washes. Shock, horror, yes this is a thing! If your clothes aren’t dirty or sweaty and generally look clean, YOU DON’T HAVE TO WASH IT just because you wore it for a few hours.
LAUNDRY COSTS SAVING TIPS
10 – Purchase energy efficient appliances.
Washers and dryers are obviously different depending on the brand.
There are washers that will handle larger loads and use less water plus dryers that use much less energy.
Sometimes these higher efficiency units cost more upfront but the savings are worth it in the end.
11 – Adjust your settings.
Another quick tip is to wash your clothes at a lower setting if possible.
Same goes for drying your clothes with lower heat.
Every load of laundry doesn’t require the highest, more elaborate settings so go low if and when possible.
All in all, washing clothes is a chore that many perform on an almost daily basis.
That’s why it’s so important to cut costs wherever possible.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an extra $300 a year to spend on something more entertaining than laundry?
I think so! In the end, you can both help the environment AND help your family’s budget by applying these cost-saving tips whenever you do laundry.
Three cheers to that!
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I’m Frances Vidakovic – a mindset & action coach for quietly ambitious women who want to stop overthinking and finally take aligned action. I help women achieve their goals and follow through on what matters, without sacrificing their sanity or soul.