So if you wanna live cheap, it’s important to get your everyday expenses as low as possible. You’ve got to attack things like transportation, food, etc., wringing them of every last penny. It was in this spirit that I recently sought to lessen my laundry expenses.
I generally do two loads of laundry a week. At my apartment complex, it costs $1 to wash and $1 to dry. That equals $4 a week, or $208 a year. I thought long and hard about the most efficient way to lessen this expense, and finally I bought a used Wonderwash for $35 on Craig’s List. The Wonderwash is a small, hand-powered, water-saving washing machine that essentially takes one step out of washing clothes by hand. The math is simple: do 35 loads of laundry in it, and I’d break even.
Of course, I needed some way to dry my clothes. I don’t know why it never occurred to me before that I didn’t have to use the dryer at my apartment complex. I bought a $10 collapsible drying rack at Bed Bath and Beyond. After a 20% off coupon, the final price was $8.
So I’d invested $43 in some items that could potentially save me $200 each year. Not bad, right?
Well, I’ve been testing this arrangement out for a few weeks, and I’ve found there are a couple issues with it. For one, the Wonderwash, though it does work fairly well, just doesn’t get clothes as clean as a traditional washing machine. And also, using it takes a lot of time. I’d say it takes just as much time as washing the clothes by hand, though it’s a little less of a pain. Considering the actual amount of money saved each week, and the amount of time it takes to wash clothes in this thing, I have concluded that the Wonderwash is not really a very efficient device - so now I’ve got this hunk of plastic sitting in my bathtub. Does anybody want it??
On the other hand, using a drying rack to dry your clothes is a great idea (if I do say so myself). When I get done with a load of laundry, I hang it on the rack and point a powerful box fan ($11 at WalMart) at the rack for a few hours. This does a really great job of drying the clothes quickly, and it doesn’t cost $1 a load. Though I can only recommend the Wonderwash with great reservation, I’d definitely recommend purchasing a cheap drying rack and a box fan as a great way to save money on laundry if, like me, you live in an apartment and don’t have access to your own washer and dryer.
Any more tips from readers?
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September 30th, 2008 - 7:22 am
Are you kidding? Don’t you realize that whatever pennies you’re saving in bypassing the dryer is being lost by runnning the fan???
At least in my case, the dryer is electric. So is the fan, right? So you’re just substituting one electric appliance for another.
I line-dry my clothes all summer. In the winter, i hang them upstairs in my home to dry, but i certainly don’t run a fan. The dry heat from the furnace is sufficent to dry them and the humidity from the damp clothes helps keep my house from being overly dry.
October 2nd, 2008 - 6:45 am
My mother would always put clothes in the dryer just for a minute or two … to help with wrinkles … and then out to the line they went!
October 2nd, 2008 - 9:32 am
October 3rd, 2008 - 5:38 pm
I started rack drying my clothes in college when I noticed my blue jeans shrinking up. Now I rack dry everything except socks and underwear, to try to cut the total electric bill (which is huge). We have very low humidity here, and my clothes are usually dry within 36 hours. This also helps to raise the humidity in the house.
And, by the way, running a fan takes a lot less electricity than running a dryer. Dryers usually have some sort of heating element.
October 5th, 2008 - 10:02 am
Yeah, especially for those of us in the Mountain or Pacific time zones where there is a lot of sun a lot of the time, you can’t beat laying out clothes across all your lawn chairs and letting them roast (inside out to prevent fading!) in the sun. If it’s cloudy sometimes they end up smelly, though, like that left-in-the-washer-overnight smell.
November 11th, 2008 - 7:38 am
I always use a cold wash and never use the extra rinse cycle.
I make my own washing powder - washing soda and grated soap.
I disconected my dryer so I wouldn’t be tempted to use it.
I either line dry or hang the clothes near the woodstove.
The biggest saving for us though, has been cutting back on the laundry that we generate.
There are 5 of us and I do one clothes wash,one towel wash and one bed linen wash per week. I used to do one clothes wash every day.
Cutting down on the laundry saves so much time too.
November 26th, 2008 - 6:00 pm
I think that minimizing laundry also has a lot to do with wearing clothes more than once! Americans are notorious the world-over for excess washing, even amongst the spic’n’span GErmans and Scandanavians. Just because a machine is there does not mean it should be used until fully loaded with DIRTY clothes. How about deoderant? If you don’t keep yourself clean, or use deoderant, your clothes wind up stinking too quickly.
December 31st, 2008 - 10:40 am
What good ideas. Although I grew up on a farm in the 50s and 60s where frugality was essential, my goal was to have access to anything and everything that would create the lazy person I’ve become (I’m now 61). It has become more and more difficult to WANT to continue my career. I spend a lot of time these days about early retirement. When my 23 year old electric dryer stops working, I’m not going to replace it. I’m buying an $8 drying rack.
January 14th, 2009 - 6:07 pm
I always have issues with the amount of clothes you can put on an inside closethline/washrack.
What I’ve done is I got a couple of heavy-duty eye-hooks (screw into the wall, have a metal loop), wire-rope, and a clothesline tightener. I think everything cost under $8. When I pull the clothes out of the washer, I put them on hangers and hang them on the line. The line still sags a small bit, and I use clothespins spaced out every 2-3 inches to keep the hangers from all sliding together. Sometimes I run the fan, but generally I let clothes hang overnight.
I actually use this like a closet and pull my clothes off the hangers when I need them. You can get several loads on a 8-10′ section of line if you use hangers.
If you actually have a large closet, just space your wet clothes out about 3-4 inches when you hang them up. The only thing to be concerned about with an enclosed closet is that it might hold the moisture in. Even if you hang them outside the closet on hangers, moving them into the closet is very easy.
I also hang about 4-5 socks on a hanger, 2-3 pieces of underwear, and I can hang jeans on a hanger as well.
In reality, if you use closets/hangers, this actually saves a step from using a dryer. With a washer/dryer setup, you need to transfer from the washer to the dryer, and then you have to transfer them to a laundry basket for hanging/folding.
February 8th, 2009 - 6:27 am
I love this last commment by John H. I live in the South and hanging outside in the summer is hard, but not the rest of the year.But hanging on hangers is a Fab idea! Will for sure try this. At least then gathering it in before a summer storm would be fast, and then we could hang them in doorways inside. Thanks for the tip!
February 22nd, 2009 - 7:19 pm
I’ve recently read a similar review on the Wonderwash. There was a recommendation to use a five gallon bucket and put a hold in the lid then use a toilet plunger (new of course) to plunge the clothing.
March 7th, 2009 - 12:37 pm
Hi stumbled on you site when I went for a trawl through the net. I hardly ever use my dryer ,only if I am desperate i use the doors to dry large itens such as sheets and quilt covers by draping them over the tops , by morning there normalu dry or i use radiato clothes hangers for things like socks and underwear. I feel using a fan /air blower cancels out any savings that are to be made.Also if I have dish cloths , tea towels never waste fabric softner on them and use the cheepest detergent I can find. don’t care what they look/feel like I know there clean.whenwashing my everyday clothes I use a concentrated detergent reduced by half for my other clothes. if you have a lot of small Itens to dry there is a laundry aid you can but for as little as a £1 it has many pegs on it and a hook for hanging wouldnt be without mine saves space wonderfuly!oh and a tea cup of soda crysitals in the white wash helps a lot. happy wash days all rachel
March 31st, 2009 - 3:40 pm
Hello! You are absolutely correct about saving money. But have you thought about saving time. If you have the appliance you would need to wash the clothes in by hand, or take time to dry them. I think it’s a pain in a butt. I have changed to washing machines and dryers, and it’s saving me so much time to do my other things. Wish you best of luck
May 15th, 2009 - 9:32 pm
After using the small wooden drying racks for a couple years or so we decided to buy something a bit sturdier. We ended up with a tall metal drying rack from IKEA. It was 40 dollars and has been wonderful. It takes up less space in our little house, isn’t at all rickety and rolls in and out of its nook over the vent.We also salvaged a sturdy wooden rack with a broken leg from a neighbors’ free pile. I wired it together with twist ties so it can’t fold up anymore and hung it upside down in the kitchen to dry dish towels and hang pans from the lower rack. Not using the dryer saves us hundreds of dollars a year and it feels good to be using less electricity so we are spewing less coal smoke into the air.
June 16th, 2009 - 10:49 am
I always wash on cold. I use my shower rod as my ‘clothes line’, and hang as much as I can on hangers from the shower rod. I do my laundry in the evening so that it can hang overnight. Usually everything is ready for me in the morning. Then I just carry the clothes on their hangers into their places in the closet. It cuts costs, and I have found it to be a really efficient and easy system. Nothing too exciting, but it works for me.