Saving On Laundry
Hi there. I love your website and have shared it with LOTS of people in Roseburg, OR and anywhere else I might meet someone that could benefit from your advice and expertise. THANK YOU :)
I just wanted to share that my family and I (husband and 4 children plus one more on weekends) live in a small apartment with no washing machine or dryer. They do have a small room with laundry facilities on site but we can’t afford the cost for the amount of laundry we do! I have an arrangement with a good friend of ours to clean her house in return for using her washer and dryer.
This works out very well for us. I wash in the morning and clean up her house, which takes about 30 minutes to an hour (each day during the week but not weekends), and then swing back by later in the day and dry the clothes. Then I go pick up the kids from school.
This arrangement not only saves me TONS of money but it also saves my friend money and time because she doesn’t have to spend so much time cleaning. I admit I do not do a perfect job cleaning her whole house. I merely sweep and mop 1-2 days a week, load or unload her dishwasher and wipe everything down. I also take the time to fold any laundry she has in the dryer or sitting around and do her laundry (if she has any). I wish that more people could pull together to share resources in this way… -Cati
Thanks for the idea, Cati. I agree that sharing resources does help. I do this with my grown kids all the time. I do all of Tawra’s ironing and they do my yard work. For a while I didn’t have a washer or dryer so I would go to my son’s home and do my laundry and, like you, I cleaned or folded their clothes.
My neighbor and I do this, too. I needed a very tall ladder to pick my apples and in exchange I gave her apples and helped her to make apple pies. I babysit her dog and she takes me to lunch.
It really is a great way to do things. Often I think we do this with out really realizing we are. It just boils down to friends and neighbors helping each other out, which is a great way to do things!
-Jill
i LOVE this tip…and would love to have someone help me clean for use of my laundry facilities…
a GREAT tip….both are getting much value from the arrangement
This is a great idea! My daughter used to live in an apartment, and I could not believe how much it cost to use the laundry facilities there.
We share extra food with some of our neighbors. Yesterday, we volunteer at a church event and there was extra donated clothes. So we brought home for the children.
I agree that we can all help each other.
I think this is so funny. Lately I’ve been hearing alot about cities and townships trying to “share services” to help save money. It’s so funny to hear these politicians talk about this concept as if it were a brand new idea that they just thought up. Little do they know, the average citizen has been doing this for ever. All they did was give it a fancy “buzz word” type of name. Really, did you know you were “sharing services” all these years?
This is totally off topic but can’t figure out where to put it.
Is there a button to click on that says you follow this site. ‘
I have just started a blog and was going to put the blogs I go to but here there is no place to do that.
Nothing serious just curious. Would really like to mention this site but can do it a different way if following isn’t available.
I’m not sure but I can ask Mike.
i know when we had a dryer our electric bill was super high .. our water bill has basically stayed the same .. a woman i used to work with, she and her husband compared the expenses of using their own washer and dryer to going to the laundromat and she said it was a huge savings going to the laundromat ..
my sister in nj said it was the same for her .. no big difference either way but she preferred using her own bc she lives in nj and well .. in the summer she uses her line to dry her clothes and in the winter she uses the dryer but bc her apt is so small she keeps the heat on low and hte heat from the dryer actually helps with keeping her apt warm ..
we have a washer but we dont use it in the winter bc of the mice but in the summer i use it ..
When I was a child we were a family of 7. Mom worked 7 days a week with the taxi, fuller brush and housekeeping.
She would take the clothes on Sunday and use at least 10 washers. In the winter she dried everything there as well but in the summer some stuff came home to go on the line.
She didn’t know if it saved money but she counted it time well spend. she would leave the clothes washing while she did other jobs around town or took a taxi call. She was done in an hour and a half where at home she would take 2 days to get it all done.
I only use the laundramat for Don’s work clothes. He works in the mines so blasting smells and cement stuck to his coveralls would destroy my machine. so we wash them then bring them home for the drier.
I do laundry at night or on the weekend since that is cheap electric time.
Wish I could use a clothes line but with my arms it just isn’t going to happen.
sometimes it is a choice of time or money and for much of it I take time savings.
oh how I miss having our own washing machine and dryer. we rent and this apartment house has a shared, coin-op laundry on-site, which is convenient, and cheaper than the local laundromats (and well, *safer* too, to be honest). but gosh though, does it add up at $2.50/load. Thankfully, my adult son picks up the quarters since he lives at home with us and our younger son, and pitches in toward laundry and other things. He gets $150 in quarters a month, and at times, he has to resupply early :o One more reason my husband and I need to plug away at paying debt and saving for a home of our own (with a washer/dryer :) )