Laundry Tips and Tricks

Laundry is one of my most hated household chores. There are 6 of us in the house, and the two youngest still have occasional potty accidents, so sometimes they can go through more than one outfit a day. The laundry can pile up very, very quickly. When it would get really out of control, we would spend a whole day doing load after load of laundry. We would get so fixated on washing the clothes, we wouldn’t be folding or putting the clothes away. Now instead of a huge mountain of dirty clothes, we would have a huge mountain of clean but wrinkled, and un-sorted clothes, which is better, I guess…sort of.

 

Staying on top of it all

When I started my One Month Challenge last month, I put doing a load of laundry on my daily task list. In order to make sure everybody has the right clothes when they need them, I went a step further and made a schedule based on what days the kids have or don’t have after school activities, so that their laundry gets done on a day that they are home after school to put it away.

For our house, this means:

Monday:  N

Tuesday: M and O-they share a room, a hamper, and often their clothes, so they share a laundry day too.

Wed: Linens

Thursday: L

Friday: Mom and Dad

Saturday: no laundry

Sunday: Catch up-for when there is an extra load or two that didn’t get done.

For the past month, this has worked really well. The older kids never run out of uniforms, we don’t run out of towels and Mike always has appropriate work clothes available. This system also makes the folding and putting away easier, since everything in the basket goes to the same place. My kids don’t have many white clothes, but what they do have, I tend to set aside to add to the larger whites load on Friday.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

To save money, I make my own laundry soap. It only takes me about 20 minutes to make a batch that lasts us about two months. That two month supply costs maybe $2.00. All of the ingredients are found in the laundry detergent aisle. Sometimes the washing soda and soap can be hard to find. I only know of one store in our area that carries washing soda, but they are also available online. I started with the recipe from LivingOnADime.com, but I have since altered it a little to work better for my kids’ stains.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

6 C      Water

½ bar   Fels Naptha soap, grated

½ C     Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (not baking soda)

¾ C     Borax 

Heat water and grated soap in a large pan until the soap is fully dissolved. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Heat until powders are fully dissolved, stirring frequently. Keep a close eye on it because it tends to boil over (although, the spilled solution does a pretty good job of cleaning the stove top.) Once completely dissolved, boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat. The mixture should have a honey like consistency. Place one quart of hot water into a 3-5 gallon bucket. Add soap mixture, and then enough cold water to make 2 gallons. . (Before my first batch, I measured 2 gallons of water into my bucket, and marked the level with a permanent marker.)  Mix well. Let stand for 24 hours.* Solution will gel up.

To use, stir well and use ½ cup per load.

If it doesn’t reach honey consistency, or gel up, it will still work. It will not suds up.

*This detergent will separate, so it must be stirred before each use. Pour it into liquid detergent bottles before letting it stand, and then just shake it up before each use (Be sure to leave some space at the top for shaking.)

We saved ½ gallon plastic Pace picante sauce bottles to store ours in, any fairly thick plastic bottle with a handle will work fine.

Stain Removal

Speaking of stains, I don’t buy commercial stain treater anymore, so here are some things I use to deal with various stains on clothes:

SAFETY DISCLAIMER: Most people know not to mix bleach with ammonia, but it is also dangerous to mix bleach with vinegar and lemon juice, so do not add bleach to a load using any of those items. As a rule, do not mix bleach with anything but water.

I have not tried some of these tips, they are compiled from around the internet.

Ammonia is not recommended for very delicate fabrics or fabrics with latex in them, because it will dissolve the latex.

ALL PURPOSE wet a bar of Fels Naptha soap and rub the bar directly on the stain. This works particularly well on grease stains, and is very economical. One bar of soap has lasted me over a year.

BLOOD Hydrogen Peroxide or baking soda paste+

CAR GREASE dishwashing soap

CRAYON WD40 let sit for 3-5 min, Rinse, treat with dishwashing liquid, Rinse,  use stain pre-treater

GRASS Hydrogen Peroxide

GUM hot vinegar, set 1-2 min then scrape or freeze then chip off

INK Rubbing Alcohol or hairspray

RING AROUND THE COLLAR Rub shampoo into stain, launder as usual

SKUNK pre wash in skunk smell solution*, then launder as usual

SWEAT pre treat with white vinegar, or baking soda paste

            OLD-  1:1:1 solution of baking soda peroxide and water let sit for 30 min

                        1 Cup white vinegar in machine, soak 30 min

WAX scrape off excess wax  then pour boiling water over spot

+BAKING SODA PASTE 6Tbsp baking soda with ½ cup water

*SKUNK SMELL SOLUTION 2 cups hydrogen peroxide, 8 oz baking soda, a   couple of squirts dishwashing liquid and a gallon of water

To make clothes wash more easily, soak overnight in a 1 Tbsp Ammonia  to 1 Gal water or use ¼ cup Ammonia for a full washer.

Challenge Update

Week one went really well. I met my goals each day and was really thinking this was going to be easier than I thought, until...

Week two arrived. The second week it was a bit tougher to get out of bed in the morning. I still managed, but it took a lot of self convincing each day. I still met my goals everyday, so yay me!

Week three was a mess. On Monday, our Rabbi and friend passed away suddenly, and it hit the entire family very hard. I managed to keep up on Monday, but I didn’t do any laundry or dishes the rest of the week. I did manage to get up on (or almost on) time each day, got dressed, and the kids’ lunches got made each night with the exception of the night following the funeral, but that was about it.  Fortunately, since I had been keeping up with laundry the previous two weeks, there wasn’t too big of a mountain. My husband got the laundry caught up on the weekend while I was out selling cookies with my Girl Scout troop, so I was able to start the last week on track.

Week four was not as off as the previous week, but I still didn’t get fully back on track. We lost another family friend this week, so I wasn’t in a very gung-ho kinda mood. Laundry got done, but it didn’t always get folded and put away properly. The dishwasher mostly got emptied, but sometimes I had the kids do it afterschool. The good thing about all of this is, I am still motivated to keep going. In the past, after losing ground like this, I would just quit. But I am not going to quit this time. Today is the last day of my challenge, and I am on track to meet all of my goals for the day.

Overall, I think my challenge went well. I am waking up at 6am every morning, even on the weekends. Today I was even the first one awake in the house! Even my bad days are more productive than they used to be, due in part to getting dressed in the morning. The laundry is under control, and even when I slip up, it doesn’t take much to get it back on track.

Now that I have finished my first challenge, I hope to add 5 new things to do/change each month. My next goals are more self improvement focused, rather than household focused. In addition to keeping up with my previous goals, I want to:

No nail biting. I have had this terrible habit for as long as I can remember. I am in a wedding in July and would like my hands to look like they belong to a female without having to pay big bucks for acrylics.

Portion control. I want to keep my meals down to something that could reasonably be called a single serving, and stop eating out of boredom, especially right before bed.

Put my clothes in the hamper as soon as I take them off. I tend to just drop them on the floor outside the bathroom or next to the bed with the intention of putting them in the hamper in the morning, but that rarely happens.

No dining out. Well, with one exception. We have tickets to a show in April, and we are likely going to meet up with friends before or after, so I am allowing for dining out that one day.  Even though I am making an exception, we are going to eat at home before the show, so that any dining out can be a small snack, or just a drink. We don’t go out much, but it always seems to happen more than we planned.

Work on this blog more. I am challenging myself to work on Better Mom for 15 minutes a day, even if it is just coming up with post ideas.

Conquering Mt. Hand-Me-Down

As I mentioned previously, I have four kids. Keeping them in relatively clean clothing that are free of holes, in an attempt to make them not look like feral children can be quite a challenge. Even at discount stores clothing costs can add up, especially for kids who are going to out grow it soon. At least with my own clothes I can get several years of use in return for my investment. With the kids, I’m lucky if the clothes fit for a year. When you factor in stains and holes in the knees, we’re lucky if clothes last 6 months.

Hand me downs can really help stretch a family’s clothing budget. I mean really, you can’t beat FREE! While the price is certainly right, there is some time involved in making the most of donated clothing. I automatically accept all offers of hand me downs. Sometimes this can lead to an overwhelming stack of bags and boxes of clothes to sort through, especially if they aren’t dealt with right away and they begin to pile up.

Mt. Hand-Me-Down turned into a Mole Hill

Having a simple system helps make quick work of even the biggest hand me down pile up. The first step is to get rid of all the items that you can’t use. I usually go through the pile looking for anything that is too small, has holes I can’t or won’t repair, has significant stains or that I know my kids just will not wear. These go into a pile to donate to a thrift store or shelter. Items that were part of a set and are missing the top or bottom, if the single piece is difficult to match also go. In most cases, this thins the pile significantly.

Some might say that I am being too picky with something I got for free. The thing is, I may be trying to be frugal but I am also trying to reduce clutter, so even free items have to be worth the storage real estate. With that in mind, however, PLEASE don’t throw away usable clothing or other household items. Donate it. Whether it goes to a friend, a shelter, or to a charity that operates a thrift store, it doesn’t matter, just donate what you can. There is a Jewish teaching that every body needs to give to charity, even if the charity you give comes from charity you received from someone else. There is always someone worse off than you, and it doesn’t cost me anything to donate my unused stuff.

Storage labels for clear bins

Most of the time the usable hand me downs are a size or more too large for my kids to use right away, so they need to be stored. I use clear bins so that I can see the contents and reduce digging for a specific item later. I sort clothes by size and if there is enough of one size to fill more than one bin, I also sort by season. I write the size and season on a piece of paper and slide between the folded clothing and one end of the bin so that it can be read from the outside. I usually make a note of which child it will be for and an approximate date to pull it out of storage as well.

With a little effort, and the help of some clear bins and a permanent marker, those huge piles of donated clothes can quickly turn into an organized stack of usable, free clothing.