Everyone is trying to stretch their budget these days. These simple tips to save money on laundry are the best ways to save when you’re doing the wash.
For more tips on saving money, check out all of our frugal tips.
We’re all trying to save money right now. I mean, we try all the time, but things are getting really expensive right now. So any way we can save even a little bit of money, we’re gonna do it.
Most people think of tangible savings, like using coupons at the grocery store. But you can save on your electricity bills and water bills with these simple tips to save money on laundry. Follow these small changes and the savings definitely adds up
And, even if you don’t see those savings on a receipt like you do when you’re shopping, you’ll see those savings reflected in your utility bills.
Speaking of the laundry room, how often do you clean it? You need to clean the things that clean your things. Check out our Ten Things You Forget To Clean In The Laundry Room list next time you’re cleaning to make sure you don’t miss anything.
10 Simple Tips To Save Money On Laundry
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We tried to make this list in order of how you do your laundry, so you can think of the steps and savings logically.
Do full loads of laundry
When you’re doing laundry, you want the washer to be as full as possible. Of course, don’t overstuff it because then your clothes won’t get clean. But, it’s better to do one full load of laundry rather than two smaller loads.
Mathematically speaking, you end up using 25% to 50% less energy by doing larger loads rather than a half load. You also end up using less water overall because you’re washing fewer loads. You can see all the numbers here, if you’re curious.
That may mean that you’ll end up changing your laundry routine and waiting to do laundry a little longer than you usually do. Which is fine, right? I mean, everyone likes doing less laundry.
Wash laundry in cold water
If you’re able (check your laundry detergent packaging for this), wash your laundry in cold water rather than hot water. Some detergents won’t work in colder temperatures, but if yours does, washing laundry in cold water is an easy way to lower your energy usage.
See, when you wash in hot water, electricity is used to heat that water. If you wash in cold water, that electricity isn’t used, so you won’t have to pay for it.
Wash during off-peak hours
Energy costs are (generally, depending on your electric company) lower at night than during the day. There’s less demand on the grid at night. So, if your electric company uses Time of Use rates (TOU rates), anything you do at night is cheaper than anything you do during the day because the rate is lower. So the time of day that you choose to do laundry can make a big difference.
If your utility company uses TOU rates, find out when off-peak hours start and wash your laundry then.
Air dry when you can
The dryer uses a lot of electricity. So, if you don’t have to use the dryer to dry clothes, you don’t have to pay for that electricity.
Pick up a nice drying rack (preferably a metal one that doesn’t fall apart when people walk by; we have this one and have used it for years). A collapsible one (which ours is) is easy to store. I just found a really nice wall mounted, retractable clothes drying rack that’s so nice for the laundry room, so I think I’m going to upgrade to that.
Dry whatever you can on the drying rack, rather than drying it in the dryer and using electricity.
Yes, the drying time is longer on a rack, but it actually is better for some of your clothes in the long run, so your clothes last longer.
Clean the dryer lint trap
Most people remember to clean the dryer lint filter. That’s the piece that pulls out where all the lint accumulates. People remember to pull that out and clean it on a regular basis.
But, the lint trap itself, which houses the dryer lint filter, doesn’t get cleaned as often as it should. Please. Clean them both as part of your regular maintenance.
An unclean dryer lint filter forces the dryer to work a lot harder to dry your clothes (similar to how an unchanged air filter makes your HVAC system work harder). And if the dryer is working harder, it’s using more electricity, which is costing you more money.
A clean filter uses less electricity, which costs you less money. So clean it for monetary reasons, but also, clean the dryer lint trap for safety reasons too.
Dry like items together
When you’re drying items, you want to dry similar items together because they’ll take a similar amount of time to dry. Dry towels with towels and shirts with shirts.
It’s simple logic.
If you mix and dry towels with shirts, the shirts will be done long before the towels are. So you’ll end up running the dryer longer than if you just dried all your shirts together. If you dry all the shirts together, they’ll all be done at the same time and you won’t be running the dryer longer than necessary.
Don’t overstuff the dryer
They say size doesn’t matter, but the size of the load in your dryer actually does matter.
You don’t want to overstuff the dryer. But, you don’t want to understuff it either. If you have too many items in the dryer, the dryer will need more time to dry everything than usual. So you may actually end up needing to run it either longer or a second time to get everything dry.
While things are drying, they ricochet off each other and that helps the drying process. So, if you don’t have enough clothes in the dryer, they won’t ever get dry (one shirt in the dryer will basically come out wet if its dried alone).
If you need to dry just a small load of clothes, adding wool dryer balls with your laundry will help to get things dry.
Wash your laundry alone
Don’t try to do all your errands at once. Don’t wash loads of laundry, run your dishwasher, and take a shower all at the same time. That’s too much water for your house to use at once.
The water pressure will (most likely) be off and your home will work harder trying to get that back up, which (you guessed it) uses more electricity than it would if you just did these things separately.
Purchase an energy efficient washer and dryer
If you have it in your budget, purchasing an energy efficient washer and dryer will help you save on the amount of energy used to do your laundry, which will save you money overall. You can find a list of energy efficient washing machines on the Energy Star website.
Of course, with this tip, you’ll need to spend money to save money, so you have to weigh the pros and cons of buying a new washing machine. Also, just keep it in mind for the next time you need a new washer and dryer.
Buy your laundry products with coupons
All those other tips will show you savings on your electric bill. And, since they’re not a lot of money all at once, the savings hard to see. But if you buy your laundry products with coupons, you’ll be able to see those savings written on a receipt.
You can find coupons in your Sunday paper. You can also use cash back apps, like Ibotta and Shopkick, to get cash back on your laundry products, like liquid detergent, fabric softener, and dryer sheets. Those apps are a great way to save overall, so definitely use them any time you’re at the store.
More Laundry Tips:
While you have laundry on the brain, we have a few other laundry-related posts that you might be interested in.
There’s one with our tips for How To Keep Your Laundry Room Smelling Fresh. That goes hand in hand with our Ten Things You Forget To Clean In The Laundry Room. And it also goes with our Organizing Your Laundry Room Done Easy post too. Once it’s clean and organized and smells nice, you might not mind doing laundry.
While you’re doing laundry, make sure your socks stay together with our 4 Laundry Hacks So You Don’t Lose Your Socks.
And, just for fun, check out our DIY Laundry Room Wall Art tutorial.
What are your Simple Tips To Save Money On Laundry? Let us know in the comments.