Minimizing Your Wash Will Maximize Your Savings 2by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 25 Jun 2008 04:08 AM
Washing clothes on cold means that there is very little if any dye transfer, so go ahead and wash reds in with your other darks. (For the very first time with new red garments, I suggest hand soaking them first to get out the loose dye, although I've never needed to do this myself.) I never wash reds separately. With three kids, I am never short on full loads, so I do tend to separate darks and lights. However, I have washed lights and darks together on cold when someone had to have a special outfit thrown in to the wash for the next day's wear. Everything turned out fine. There are also special additives to the laundry that you can purchase to catch the dye. Personally, I have never tried these products, but I would love to hear from someone who has and can talk about them. Another way to minimize your wash is by making your clothes last longer between washings. Have you ever worn more than one set of clothes in a single day. The scenario might go something like this (I'm going to assume that showers are taken at night, but you can switch this to morning as well): Wake up in PJs, change to shorts and a t-shirt. Putter around the house, then change to a more presentable outfit to take the kids to the park. Then at night, maybe put on another set of PJs. That is at least three outfits going in to the wash for a single day. Check back again. I'll continue discussing this topic and offer a solution for reducing the number of dirty outfits and the importance of having your laundry organized. Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. Starting June 1st, don't miss her articles in the Baby Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here. Related Articles: Frugal Laundry: Make Your Own "Detergent" Dry Your Clothes Twice as Fast Alternatives to Hanging Laundry Outside Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments StBridgit (322) 30 Jun 2008 04:59 PMI have used Shout's Color Catcher sheets and they work very well. As someone who has had to use Carbona's Color Run Remover, and has had some clothing permanently changed in color as a result of a stray red item, I make it a policy to separate out reds that I haven't washed before. I also find that especially at Christmastime a separate red wash is necessary!  Mary Ann Romans (26886) 01 Jul 2008 04:23 AMIf the changed item hasn't been through the dryer, you can try running it through the wash again with a mixture of tide, shout and cascade to get out any residual dye. Community Tags frugal, laundry, save money, wash Discuss this article
|
Frugal categories |
