The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free.
Nothing is 100% certain in life… except for laundry. But you can use laundry hacks to scale that mountain. I have found ways to simplify laundry day so I can move this hill of dirty clothes as quickly as possible.
One day, I did the math on how much dirty laundry our family creates each week:
- Six people
- Seven days
- Each person wears one outfit a day: one shirt, one bottom, one pair of underwear, and two socks
- Each person wears one pair of pajamas
- Each person uses one towel
Tally that up and you have 336 pieces of laundry.
Holy moly! Can we just move to a nudist colony?
And if the laundry doesn’t get entirely done on the weekend, it rolls over to the next week. Mount Laundry grows to insurmountable heights. And, inevitably, someone cries, “Mom, I don’t have a school uniform shirt!”
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I had to get our laundry under control. It was time to implement some laundry hacks.
Simplifying my laundry routine
The way I figured, there were two keys for reducing the number of laundry loads I ran each week. Two factors that significantly impacted my laundry routine.
KEY ONE – Place fewer clothes in the dirty clothes pile.
If we could just do away with clothes, laundry would be a cinch! But going naked isn’t an option because… even if I could, I wouldn’t want to.
So I needed to reduce the amount of clothing my family and I were wearing.
Typically, the children wear a uniform to school and then change into play clothes. After getting out of the shower, each child used one towel to dry their bodies and another towel to dry up Lake Okeechobee that was all over the bathroom floor. After bath time, they dressed in pajamas.
I don’t like for the children to play outside in their school uniforms so “play clothes” was not open for negotiation. But, there was definitely ways we could stop using several big, bulky towels each night.
First, I taught our children how to use the shower curtain properly. It was a simple thing, something I assumed they knew. Surprise! You can actually keep the water in the tube by closing the curtain all. the. way!
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Then, I installed hooks in the bathroom so each child could hang and reuse their towel.
KEY TWO – Get a larger capacity washer and dryer.
Did you know that even if two washing machines are the same size on the outside, they might have completely different space on the inside?
I have my heart set on the LG TwinWash™ system that has a huge 5.2 cubic feet of space for washing. Wondering how much dirty laundry that equals? Over 20 pounds!
Plus, you can wash smaller loads in the LG SideKick™ pedestal washer while your larger loads run in the front-loading washer. Doing two loads at once means you are done with laundry in half the time.
Other features of the LG TwinWash™ system include:
- 14 wash cycles so you can choose how to wash your clothes, making them last longer.
- SmartThinQ™ technology so you can start the washer with your smartphone and manage your laundry with voice commands using Google Assistant.
- TurboWash® for saving up to 30 minutes on those big loads.
- Monitor energy usage so you can save even more money in the laundry room.
- Five temperature settings to protect those delicates but blast the musty whites.
- Steam technology for dissolving detergents, removing stains, and annihilating odors.
Be still my heart! Who knew that appliances could give me such a thrill? I guess there is a reason why my husband takes me to Best Buy on date nights. (wink, wink)
Easy laundry hacks
Once you have the two keys for easier laundry days, you can reduce the time you spend doing laundry even more with these laundry hacks.
Buy fewer clothes
Maybe it is just me but when my children have drawers stuffed with clothes, I don’t feel the urgency to get the laundry done. Mount Laundry grows to astounding heights until a child yells, “I don’t have any socks!”
So, if they have fewer clothes, I am more keen to keep the laundry rolling.
Stop sorting
I was taught to sort laundry: whites, darks, lights, reds, and towels. But now that I have a house full of people, I wonder if all the sorting is worth it.
Some things need special treatment, like delicates. But do you really need to wash your jeans in a separate load from your towels?
If you are worried about color transfer, purchase a detergent that inhibits color bleeding.
Get a laundry sorter
If you just can’t get beyond the idea of tossing all the laundry in a load together, then get a laundry sorter and divide the laundry into loads when you take it off.
You can actually train the entire family to divide laundry using my free printable laundry sorting cards.
Use towels twice
I mentioned this earlier but let’s take a closer look at this idea… When you get out of the shower, you are clean. Right? So, essentially, the towel isn’t THAT dirty.
If you hang the towel and let it dry, you could easily use it the next night without feeling gross.
Wash clothes more often
How often do you wash laundry? Are you a one load a day person or do you prefer to focus your laundry efforts into one day a week?
People who wash one load a day have a smaller mountain to climb on the weekends. Yes, that’s not a really exciting idea on my list of laundry hacks, but it’s practical.
Set a reminder on your phone and flip the laundry every morning and every night. That’s two loads a day that are getting cleaned.
Have an “urgent” basket
If you have a kid in team sports or frequently have a child saying, “Have you seen my favorite…?” consider putting an “urgent” basket in the laundry room. If someone has an article of clothing that MUST be washes as soon as possible, it goes in the “urgent” pile and gets placed with the next load.
Of course, with the LG SideKick™ pedestal washer, you could wash a quick load any time without needing to fill the washer with an entire load.
Keep your laundry room tidy
When your laundry area is a mess, you subconsciously avoid it. I mean, no one wants to go into a dark, smelly room… especially not to do laundry. Yuck!
By keeping your laundry room clean and organized, laundry day is easier, faster, and less intimidating.
Save your Netflix binge for folding time
You might think I’m a little crazy, but folding laundry is therapeutic for me. Something about the redundancy allows my mind to go into neutral.
It’s also the only time I allow myself to watch Netflix. When new episodes of The Crown are available, we have the cleanest laundry in the neighborhood.
Use a folding board
If you haven’t mastered a neat folding style and find yourself refolding the same shirt over and over again, investing in a simple folding board will have you creating display-worthy piles of shirts in no time at all.
Don’t want to buy a folding board? Just cut a piece of cardboard to the size you prefer and fold happily!
How have you simplified laundry day?
If you have a laundry hack to share, leave a comment. I would love to know how you simplify your laundry routine because I am always looking for more ways to save time and money.
Happy Hiller says
That was very interesting to read! There are lots of helpful tips, thanks. I see you’re suggesting washing clothes more often so that Mount Laundry won’t grow to insurmountable heights. There’s no doubt. But if look at this from another point of view. I suppose when you don’t wash clothes everyday and wait for your basket to get full of dirty clothes, your washing machine does fewer cycles, so you consume less water.
Am I right?
drift hunters says
Absolutely not. But let’s consider this from a different angle. Obviously, if you don’t wash your clothing every day and instead wait until your laundry basket is overflowing, you’ll use less water since your washing machine will do fewer cycles.
Electrician Wakerley says
Thanks for guide through some of the most common laundry tips and tricks. From changing the detergent to using a washer with less water, we’ll have you covered. Keep it up!
Gerad sasidharan says
Meet Penny is a site that helps busy people simplify their laundry day. With easy-to-follow tips, you’ll be able to get your laundry done in less time than you ever thought possible!
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