I don’t think there is a woman out there who doesn’t feel that there is WAY too much laundry in her life. It just goes on and on, endless waves of wash, dry, fold, put away. The constant dryer lint, the repeated balled up pant leg that didn’t get dry, the incessant fuzz ball coated sock. Oh! The humanity!
I decided that I am done drowning in laundry. I am throwing in the towel (heh heh.) I have implemented some new tricks so that my family produces less dirty laundry and they have made a big difference! I hope these little tweaks to your laundry life will be a huge help!
Wear Pajamas for Multiple Nights
When we first brought our son home from the hospital we kept everything so sterile. Everything had to be SUPER CLEAN which meant new jammies every night. But now that I have lightened up a bit and realized that if they look clean and they smell clean they are okay for at least three nights. I told my idea to my husband and now we both know to keep the jammies on the bed if they can be worn again. We make sure to wear our pajamas for multiple nights too. Going from seven to only two pairs of pajamas per person per week reduced the laundry by about a load a week.
Extend the Use of Towels
When it was just me and the hubs we never had too many towels in the wash but then enters my son and now I wash towels ALL THE TIME. It’s like they multiply in the hamper. You know that part in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where they are in the vault and everything they touch multiplies? Yeah, it’s like that. So I decided to make some changes so I could keep up. Now I do Towel Tuesday where I gather all the towels around the house: bath towels, kitchen towels, hand towels, and washcloths and wash, dry and put away that day. As long as you make sure your bath towels are being hung to dry out they will stay fresh and usable for a week. This has reduced my laundry by a load a week! If you don’t have a way to hang your bath towels already I highly recommend Command hooks! You can easily put up a hook for everyone’s towel to dry without damaging your walls.
Change your Definition of “Dirty”
Thoughtlessness causes a lot of laundry in my house. We take off our clothes, throw it all in the hamper, and call it a day. However, when I take a moment to think about it not all my clothes are “dirty.” My sweater never touched my skin nor did I spill on it. My jeans still look and smell clean. Now I slow down and take a moment to really decide if an article needs to be washed. Often times it can go back on the hanger or in the drawer for another wear. I take an extra minute or so to put the clothes away and I save a lot of time on washing and drying these items! We have reduced laundry by about a load a week using this technique.
Use Bibs for a Whole Day
I used to use one bib per meal for my son because I didn’t like the idea of touching the crunchy, pea encrusted bib later in the day. I decided it was time to get over it because the grossness of it wasn’t worth the amount of time I spent doing laundry. So now I use one bib all day! I shake it off into the sink after each meal and put it in the hamper at the end of the day. Using about seven bibs a week instead of about twenty-one (that seems ridiculous now that I look back on it) has reduced laundry by about a half a load a week.
Prevent the Dirtying of Clothes
My husband and I both started wearing an apron while we cook. This keeps our clothes free of splatter which means less pre-treating! Yay! You can also put smocks on yourself or the kids while doing messy craft projects or playing outside. Have cover-alls for working in the garage or the yard. When you do get your clothes a little messy, consider spot treating instead of sending the whole item through the wash. A little spot of dirt doesn’t necessarily call for a trip through the washing machine.
Purge your Closets and Drawers
I think we all have too much stuff. A few years ago I started researching the Konmari method of tidying and organizing. At this time my husband and I both purged our closets BIG TIME. I went through my clothes and my husband went through his. We said good-bye to anything holey, faded or with pit stains. We bid farewell to everything we no longer loved, that no longer fit, or that we hadn’t worn in a year or more. Before the great cotton purge of 2015 we could easily put off laundry for weeks and before we knew it our laundry pile was so big it had its own gravitational pull. Now, we are forced to keep up with the laundry so we don’t run out of clothes. This also left us with clothes we loved which means we wanted to take better care of the items. We are more careful when wearing them and also want to send them through the wash less to prevent them from fading and wearing down.
Have a Family Meeting
I really think communication and clear expectations are key to healthy relationships. Sit down with your family to discuss what each person can do to help defeat the laundry monster! What habits does your family have that you can change to lead to less laundry? Does someone use a new towel to dry off the dog’s feet every day? Does someone wear three outfits a day? As a team you can make some new laundry “rules” and even implement a challenge to see who can produce the least laundry. You can reward your good work with more free time together.
I have seen serious reduction in the amount of laundry produced in my house and the amount of time I spend doing laundry. As the sole ‘laundry-doer’ I have faith in these little changes and I hope you find that they help reduce your laundry too! What will you do with your extra free time? I think I will crochet. Leave any other tips you have in the comments and have a beautiful day!
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