Saving Money (with the Laundry??)

With recent downturns on Wall Street and the economy as a whole, We Can Live Green thought it might be nice to send a couple of money saving tips your way. By the way, we are starting a series on Monday on money saving tips. Call it ‘Money Monday’ if you will!

So, how to save money doing the laundry? A few ideas follow:

1.  First of all, Americans use too much laundry detergent when washing. There was even an article in the Wall Street Journal about it! See here for article by the Wall Street Journal. A great article on the mechanics behind over-sudsing featured in the New York Times is here. Yes, I’m serious.

2. Now that you are informed, what do you do? Start with Mr. Schmidt’s test for oversoaping, as written in the New York Times:

“Here is Mr. Schmidt’s test to determine if you’re oversoaping. Take four to six clean bath towels, put them in your front-loading washing machine (one towel for a top loader). Don’t add any detergent or fabric softener. Switch to the hot water setting and medium wash and run it for about five minutes.

Check for soap suds. If you don’t see any suds right away, turn off the machine and see if there is any soapy residue. If you see suds or residue, it is soap coming out of your clothes from the last wash.”

Basically, if you see suds you are over-sudsing. Over-sudsing means you are wasting money and potentially damaging your washing machine. Mr. Schmidt claims that you can use 1/8 to 1/2 the recommended amount of laundry detergent. That will save you money in two ways – 1. your laundry detergent goes a lot farther than it used to and 2. you will save on wear and tear on your machine!

Let us know how this works for you!

Dedicated to Healthy and Thrifty Living-

We Can Live Green