A Frugal Laundry Day

Aw, laundry day. For some odd inexplainable reason, I happen to really like laundry day. I love the smell of freshly laundered clothees, and the simple task of folding everything just so before putting it away.

As you can see from the photo, our bedroom is used as a makeshift laundry room. (Since we rent, the washer and dryers are in the basement, so Hubby lugs it all down there for me and I fold everything up here. It's much easier this way since our closets and drawers are nearby.) My newest laundry helper is our drying rack on the right.

We tend to go through linens and clothing rather quickly (this happens when you have a husband who changes his outfit three times a day!), so for Christmas we bought a drying rack at Target. Instead of washing and drying three loads of laundry, we only have to dry two loads in the dryer now. The other load gets dried on the dryer rack and along the shower pole in the bathroom. It might not seem like much, but doing this saves us $5 each month on laundry. It only takes about 12 hours for everything to dry completely, so you could put it all in the bathroom overnight and fold and iron the next morning.

The dryer racks also serves as a handy tool for hanging items that need to be ironed, and it makes it much easier to transport them to another room (just pick up and go!).

We have discovered that air drying our clothes has more benefits than just the $5 monthly savings. For example, your clothes last longer when dried this way. Dryers tend to make clothing pill and wear out quickly, but air drying helps keep clothing looking newer longer as well as aid in keeping their shape. We sleep with flannel sheets in the winter, and after air drying them for the first time, we noticed they were significantly softer than when dried in a dryer.

If you've never air dried your laundry before, I encourage you to try it! Your clothes and wallet will thank you. You don't even need a dryer rack right away- simply use hangers and your shower rod to start off with. Begin by air drying a few items, and gradually work your way up to a full load.