How I Cut My Laundry Costs In Half

A while ago I caught a snippet from a morning show on Facebook where it was mentioned that it is not necessary to use the recommended amount when doing laundry. So I followed the advice and experimented a bit on my own. And the result was that I cut my laundry costs in half.
Secret confession: Laundry is my favourite household chore. I put the machine on then get to do something else for almost an hour before I have to worry about it again. It takes me 10-15 minutes to hang it up (the right way), and it’s done!

Laundry powder/detergent

I use the scoop from a tin of baby formula to measure the amount of laundry powder that I use. To properly compare, I weighed the amount of powder that fills the scoop that came with it, 50g. Then I weighed a formula scoop worth, 17g. That’s less than half! So instead of getting 80 loads of washing from the 4kg of powder, I now get 235!

Fabric softener

I’ve been buying the cheap fabric softener concentrate for years. I add the concentrate to 2 litres of water and that was that. But I had a brainwave to see what would happen if I watered it down with 3 litres of water. And all that happened was that I got more washes out of the fabric softener concentrate. On top of watering it down, I also add less to the fabric softener compartment of the machine. So instead of 26 washes, I now get 80.

Drying

We don’t actually own a dryer. We inherited one when we first moved into our house but it lived in the garage and we never used it. I grew up in a house with a dryer but I only ever remember it being used a handful of times. So I never felt the need to use it, so we put it on the nature strip, and someone took it. I use the clothesline or a clothes horse to dry everything.

Stain removal

The sun is an amazing stain remover. Just leave freshly washed clothes in full sun, with the stain visible. I like to peg my clothes so they lay flat on the top of the clothes horse. Or if it’s not such a nice day outside, I lay them out on my kitchen table. My kitchen table gets a lot of afternoon sun.

It’s been suggested to just use vinegar instead of fabric softener. But when it comes to cost, the fabric softener concentrate is much more cost-effective. The white vinegar is $ /L and the fabric softener concentrate is $ /L