We do TWO days worth of laundry in one. For us, that’s a lot of laundry, and I’m having a bit of a panic attack right now.
Consider the following:
- That’s a 39 gallon, 148 liter basket you’re looking at, folks. And it’s holding double it’s capacity.
- The pile comes up to Strawberry’s chest. Strawberry will be seven next month, and she’s tall for her age.
- Our everyday, largish laundry baskets hold 71 liters.
- Our old everyday laundry baskets, left over from the days that we used when our family and our laundry piles were smaller, hold 53 liters.
- It’s about 6 loads worth. 5 loads if we stuff our machine.
Like I said, that’s a LOT of laundry!
I can only offer one piece of advice for this. I don’t know if you’re already following it or if this is the pile despite it, but the realisation of this was a lifesaver for my husbands family growing up, and my family now. I hope you don’t mind me posting a long comment that, I hope, might help one of your readers if not yourself.
Clothing does not need to be washed after every wear!
Until the advent of washing machines, the wash was done weekly, and back then people often only had two or three outfits. Could you imagine doing your entire week of washing in one day? Back then many of the families had as many kids as you do, so it simply would have been impossible. At the same time, those kids did more running, and more dirty farm work, than we do today. Now, I’m not advocating wearing dirty, stinky, clothes or dressing an infant in the outfit she already chucked up on :) But a little awareness goes a long way. I dunno if you follow this or not, but I’ll outline it a bit below for anyone who dosen’t, because it really made a huge difference to the burden that clothes had become for us.
PJs – most people don’t wash these daily. Unless they have been wet by a toddler or baby with nappy leak. Most people can quite comfortably wear two pairs in a week, either alternating, or in 3 day blocks. Depending on your climate you may even be able to wear them longer.
‘Nice’ clothes – Think about the reasons we wash clothes. Generally, body odor from sweat and food/dirt/etc buildup. In nice clothes it’s usually for the first reason more than the second. Do your girls wear a top under a jumper or dress? That top may need to be washed after one or two wears, but often the dress is spotless from food/dirt, and has not even touched your skin because the top was under it! Depending on the dress or event we will sometimes even just hang it back in the closet. Even for boys, nice going out clothing rarely gets dirty, it’s usually washed because of contact with our skin, but if they have not been active or sweaty, those clothes can usually wear a couple of times. Our pattern is one nice outfit a week, worn on sunday, and worn again for any event that calls for ‘nice’ clothes, perhaps one or two a week in our family, then a new outfit the next sunday.
Play Clothes – Now in this case the clothes are likely to get smelly and dirty. A toddler or young boy may need new clothes daily (Or more!) and clothes may need washing after any intense excersize/sport. But during general everyday wear, most older children and girls clothes are pretty clean by the end of the day. Not clean enough to go back in the closet, but clean enough to wear the next day. I mean, no one outside the house is going to see them in their play clothes, so if they look a little raggad, it dosen’t matter anywhere near as much. A bit of dirt is on them, but they’re play clothes, even freshly washed play clothes will end up with a bit of dirt on them within an hour or two in many families! As long as they’re comfortable and don’t smell they’re fine by me. How often clothes are worn will depend on your kids, climate, and activities, but most families can wear play clothes for two days, three or more if they change out of them to leave the house.
Work clothes – This will vary widely, depending on your husbands/childs employment, an office job has very different requirments to a factory one. But it’s worth thinking about, especially if he wears a uniform so no one will even know he’s re-wearing anything. My husband works in manufacturing, so he gets a bit grimy, but it’s not terribly intensive so he dosen’t sweat much. He works outside the home 3 days a week, and during those 3 days he wears one pair of jeans unless he’s spilt something on them. The tops vary, during the winter like right now he wears a jacket/sweater over the top so the top is worn all 3 of the days, but I imagine in summer he will probably change it daily, if only to ensure his workmates don’t think he only owns one pair of clothes! :D
Denim – Denim is awesome, and can keep going and going. My mum had us change clothes daily, but she always had us re-wear denim. What you do with your denim depends on many factors, but consider how you use it. It can last a long time between washes.
Jackets and warm clothes – Some families wash jackets and sweaters daily. That’s an awful lot of regular, and pretty unneeded, bulk in the machine. We generally only wash sweaters and jackets when they look or smell like they need it. Sometimes that’s once a week, sometimes that’s only once during the season or at the end of the season during the seasonal clothing swapover.
Clothes that DO need daily washing – Underwear, usually socks depending on if they’re ‘special’ socks that go with a nice outfit or not. and often baby and toddler clothes should be washed daily. Having said that, even baby clothes can last if they’re layered. A baby who wears a singlet and often wears a bib can often re-wear clothes if they don’t regularly spit-up on things (babies who spit up go through mountains of clothes I’m sure). My 16 month old is suprisingly clean for a toddler, so she rewears quite a lot, but I am prepared for the fact this next baby may well not be!
As for what to do with clothes that have been worn once, you don’t want to put them back in the dresser or closet obviously, they could get the other clothes dirty, and you’ll never be able to keep track of what’s been worn when. (the only exception to this is boys suits or girls dresses/jumpers that had a top worn under then.). The way we handle it is that everyone has a bucket for ‘semi-worn’ clothes. Clothes must be pulled out of there unless a special outfit is wanted/required or there are no suitable clothes in the bucket, at which point they can get new ones out. The bucket should never be overflowing, if it is there’s a problem. Little ones might need some help getting on top of the system, but it’s pretty easy once you’ve implemented it.
I hope that helps someone. You may find it reduces your washing to half, or possibly even a third, of what you’re currently doing. For me it’s about a third of what I was doing when we first married (went from one load a day to two or three loads a week for two adults and one child), but eventually I’ll have a lot more sheets and towels to wash. My mother in law, when her family at home was at their largest size with two parents and 8 half grown children, including three who worked in manufacturing, she still only did one load a day, two on days when she was washing ‘work clothes’ from the four men/boys who were working or when she was doing towels and sheets, and I don’t think she washed on weekends. I’d say maybe 8-10 loads a week for 10 people.
It’s so freeing. Clothes can become such a burden to keep up with. I think this is why I don’t feel the need to limit the number of clothes we have in our closets, because I can limit the number of clothes we wear in a given week instead.
Great ideas! Thanks for sharing! Any time we can cut back on laundry and simplify our lives is a good thing. We do some of what you mentioned, but could probably do a lot better. Typically we wash two or maybe three loads a day, and no laundry on weekends. Yesterday was more than a “normal” two days worth of laundry, because of the weekend, so it was a little stressful. :-) We’re actually ALMOST caught up now and feeling very relieved about that. God Bless!
I love the above comment about recycling still clean clothes. Our family does this now but have trouble keeping track of how long something has been worn so I like the bucket idea. Up to this point I have had to rely on my faulty memory (me “didn’t you just wear that yesterday”?…son proudly replies “yeah, I’ve worn it for four days!”…me “uh, no”…son “but it’s my favorite shirt”). Sadly, we have had conversations like this at our house. Teaching boys proper hygiene is a constant theme and I’m afraid their clothes matching sense is bordering on hopeless. My hubby has excellent taste in clothes so maybe some of it will rub off while there’s still time!
LOL! We’ve had a few similar conversations around here, Amy! :-)