Saving Money in the Laundry Room

I thought I would do a series of posts involving money saving ideas in each room of the house. Life is tough all over and finances are strapped by most everyone so I thought I would share, room by room, what we have done to cut our electric bill from 1200kW this month last year to 600kW this year. So let's start with the laundry room. The first thing that can be done is to stop using the dryer. Install a clothesline outside and use it religiously. Step number 2 is to pay attention to the length of time of the wash. In times past I simply turned the washer on to the longest time setting and got it started. I have since discovered that my clothes get just as clean using the 6 minute wash as the 12 minute wash. Those 6 minutes on each load really add up when you wash almost every day. Also, if you have your washer set to do the extra rinse cycle, then turn that off as well. Doing those two things will save about 10 minutes on each wash cycle. For 7 loads a week that is 70 minutes a week less electricity that you are using. Staying with the washer for a minute wash most laundry in cold water. Yes, it does get just as clean. I only use the hot cycle for family cloth, sheets and towels. Everything else is washed in cold water. To save even more money in the laundry room, make your own laundry detergent. I have a couple of recipes on this blog and others around the blogoshphere have their favorite recipes also. The next step is to do your laundry duties during the day so that you rarely need to turn on the light. My laundry room light in fact is never turned on anymore. And last but not least, don't iron what you do not have to iron. In fact if you take the time to hang your clothes properly on the clothesline there should be very few things that really absolutely must be ironed. That is about it for the laundry room, tomorrow we will move onto another room. God bless.