In The Laundry with Thrifty Thursday....

these reusable woolen dryer balls by reFabulous are great to reduce static without the use of fabric softener



this set of washies from truly bella would also make great reusable dryer sheets and would definitely stand out from the rest of your laundry.


Welcome to Thrifty Thursday! Each Thursday will provide a new post with tips and techniques to save your pennies, be a bit kinder to mother earth, and promote buying handmade.

This week, we will step into the laundry room, where there is a wealth of waste going on, and many pennies can be saved.

1) Bring back good old fashioned laundry day- or night!

Washing only full loads will save on your water bill. An average washer uses about 30 gallons of water to wash a full load. Even if your washer has multiple load settings and you do several similar small loads per week, you are using many more gallons.

In many locales, electricity has peak usage times. Basically put, electricity costs you more during the day than it does at night. If you are a night owl, you can save money by doing laundry late into the evening.

If you resurrect laundry day, and dry consecutive loads in the dryer, your dryer is already nice and toasty warm, reducing drying time and saving pennies.

2)Reduce dryer time.

I could extole the virtues of not using a dryer at all, but its pretty darn convenient. In a perfect world, I would have a clothesline and plenty of time to hang all my clothes to dry, but right now I combine the dryer with a folding drying rack.

When you take your clothes out of the washer, don't forget to give them a shake before you throw them in the dryer. This helps cut down on bunching and wrinkling and will help reduce drying time.

Many clothes, especially casual workwear and synthetic fabrics don't need much time to dry and will wear longer and look better if you don't dry them at all. Many of my girly tees and tops dry better and look better if I hang them to dry or only pop them into the dryer for 5-10 minutes and then hang to finish drying.

Follow the manufacturer's instructions. There's a reason it says lay flat to dry on line dry.

3) Reduce laundry sundry costs.

Experiment with using less detergent. I find that I only need about 1/3 the amount of detergent that it says. I know this contradicts my above statement about following manufacturer's instructions, but the detergent company only stands to gain if you use what they say, and if you're like me, you're pretty married to one brand of detergent, so if i can use less, perfect!



Don't buy dryer sheets! Now I could be a real penny-pincher and say don't buy fabric softener at all, but I like the way clothes smell and feel after you use fabric softener. I like the 7th generation lavender products. So, I save on fabric softener by taking my fabric softener and putting it in a spray bottle. I then have a special cloth that is my REUSABLE DRYER SHEET and I give it a couple sprays and toss into the dryer. You can use any washcloth, fabric napkin, or other rag that stands out from the rest of your laundry and says, "I'm the dryer sheet!" This is my favorite trick. I literally only buy fabric softener once or twice per year.

Don't forget to keep that lint trap clean!!!