Ok, we have pretty much beat the frugal food issue to death the past few days!!! So maybe we can try our hand at a new topic. Seems like behind food, clothing is pretty important to most people. Too cold here to go without it! The water was slightly frozen this morning when I went ot feed animals. BRRR!!!!

Does anyone have any frugal laundry tips?? Doesn't matter how off the wall. Some people need some help in this area and all answers will be considered. Thanks Friends, everyone is doing a good job here!!

-- Melissa (cmnorris@1st.net), October 18, 2001

Answers

Second hand clothes as much as posssible, even hubby's suits for work. At one point I made homemade laundry soap and it works great. No fabric softener (its bad for you), instead use a ball of tinfoil in the dryer or vinegar in the rinse water, or nothing at all ( thats us now). I handg clothes as much as I can when the weather is fit for it. The rest of the time its the dryer or hung in the house. And theres the laundry according to me!!LOL

-- Alison in N.S. (aproteau@istar.ca), October 18, 2001.

Tin-Foil??? Really, does this work as well as fabric softener sheets? I have never heard of this before.

-- Melissa (me@home.net), October 18, 2001.

When it comes to laundry, I love my laundry ball. At first I was skepitcal. It is about the size of a tennis ball with knoby round points all around it. It is filled with some sort of squishy something inside. Any way, it was 40.00. I wasn't going to buy it but the guy said to take it and try it first. After 2 weeks I bought it. You only have to put in 1 tsp of soap(and that's only if you want to). I bought a huge 10.00 (bigger than a 5 gal bucket) container of laundry soap. I still have about 1/2 a container and that was almost 2 years ago! I do about 5 loads a week and I am still amazed. It has more than paid for itself and is guareented for 20 years! My mom does about 7 to 10 loads a week(MY dad is a welder!) and she only goes thru about 1 container every 8 to 12 months.!I agree with the used clothes completely. I used to buy the $100. jeans in high school and they lasted about a long as the $10.oo jeans from Wal-Mart which lasted about the same as a good .50 pair from a garage sale.

-- Micheale from SE Kansas (mbfrye@totelcsi.net), October 18, 2001.

Michaele,

I just called Brothers in Christ Distributors and they're sending me info regarding the laundry ball and their other products. Thanks for suggesting this. For those of you interested, I posted something earlier in the week about using laundry discs, and Michaele responded about the laundry balls. Thanks again.

We have a lot of lime in our water and I notice that the clothes get a white dusting on them, so I periodically run a washer full of just about ½ gallon of white vinegar. No clothes. This really cleans out the lines, drains and tub and freshens the whole machine. I do this in the dishwasher too, but not so much vinegar and just the rinse cycle.

-- Charleen in WNY (harperhill@eznet.net), October 18, 2001.

TIN FOIL??????? Please explain.

-- Cheryl in KS (cherylmccoy@rocketmail.com), October 18, 2001.

I'm glad Melissa asked this question and it turned to laundry, because I was going to post about laundry. So, I love my fabric softener! Not dryer sheets, but the liquid in the washer. It's the smell of the clothes that I like. Can I make cheaper stuff at home, because I'm not ready to give it up yet. Maybe when the boys are older and don't stink so bad, which will probably be when they leave home!! I've decided that sweat is a part of the male persona.

-- Ivy in NW AR (balch84@cox-internet.com), October 18, 2001.

I forgot to add how about a clothes exchange. We are planning one right now at our church. Everyone brings good, clean used clothes that you or your kids have outgrown and display them by size. Then, the next day everyone comes again and gets to take home what they want!! Sometimes, those who bring clothes get an early shopping time and those who are just picking up things come last. This way you are getting rid of unnecessary items, getting new to you items and you never know who has a huge need that you may be filling. I am always amazed at the amount of good quality clothes that show up at these. Some churches let non-members come for a modest fee ($5 or so). This can be a wonderful outreach to a community too. Anything left at the end of the swap it put in the church clothes closet for the needy and it seems there are soooo many.

-- Ivy in NW AR (balch84@cox-internet.com), October 18, 2001.

I have a question about homemade laundry detergent. The instructions I received from another forum indicated it would thicken into a gel. Mine doesn't gel. I used 1/3 bar Fals Naptha soap, 1/2 cup borax and 1/2 cup washing soda to 2 gallons of water. It does a pretty good job but why doesn't it gel? Any suggestions?

Wishing you enoough.

-- Trevilians (aka Dianne in Mass) (Trevilians@mediaone.net), October 18, 2001.

With six children, they are required to wear their outside clothes at least twice, sometimes three times before they go in the dirty clothes. In the winter they get showers twice a week; that's when they get a clean set of clothes. It took me awhile to get out of the bath-every-night mode, even when we were paying for water. But the more children we had, the more laundry, and back trouble forced me to cut down somewhere.

We do sheets every two weeks. Before someone invented fitted sheets, they used to wash just the bottom sheet each week. The used top sheet became the bottom sheet for the next week and the clean sheet was put on top. So each sheet was washed alternately every other week. I mention this because usually the fitted sheets wear out first and you are left with lots of flat top sheets. I have bought fitted sheets as replacements, but one fitted sheet is sometimes almost as much as a whole new set.

We don't use fabric softener, not even when I did cloth diapers. If you hang out on a windy day, they don't get stiff, not even the jeans. But if you want dryer sheets, get the liquid softener and work a little into a washcloth to throw in the dryer. I wouldn't be able to use it anyway, because perfumes clog my sinuses. I couldn't even use scented baby wipes!

This house has small bedrooms with not a lot of floor space, but in our last house, each bedroom had its own basket. The baskets were emptied in turn, one a day, by the oldest occupant of the room. That child sorted, washed, and hung, then took down, folded, and put away. The younger occupant got to help according to his/her ability.

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), October 18, 2001.

OK, thanks for everyone's responses so far!

Here is how I handle the "laundry situation"! You know how everyone has that one spot that is just on the verge of disaster? Well that is in my laundry room!!!! My entire house will be spotlessly clean and organized and this room looks like a cyclone just went through it. I also use it as a second kitchen, so I am often cooking and canning in there as well. I have clothes lines strung across the room and clothes racks sitting around. Also those little round things with clothespins hooked to them for socks and such.

My husband always looks in here and says "I need to fix this room up for you!" He is so nice to want to do this, but I doubt it would improve things much!! During the cool months and in rainy weather I wash everything and hang it in here. Everything gets hung to dry except an occassional load of white clothes I will put in the dryer. I also hang jeans on a line in front of my wood burner. It has hooks on each end, so I can take it down, because the wood burner is in the dining room. During nice months I use the lines outside to hang out the laundry.

In my laundry room are many baskets. Clothes are sorted as they come into the room by their owners. I have a basket for each of the following: whites, 2 towel basket (one for each bathroom-the towels are different colors), colored clothes, old dirty clothes, and dress clothes. When I use my wringer (as often as possible, but the motor is not working right now, and Cale hasn't had the chance to find one), I start with the "good clothes" and work my way through to the dirtier stuff, I might change my water at least once. I usually put the clothes that require bleach in the automatic washer. I wash sheets and blankets about every 2 weeks, rugs about once a week, and coats about once a week. I use 1/8 cup of Purex Mountain Breeze liquid laundry soap. This is enough to get the clothes clean and about 1/4 of the amount the bottle says to use. I like the smell of it and it is usually about $3-4 for a 100 ounce bottle, which usually gets me 100 loads of laundry.

When I am using the automatic exclusively I wash whatever basket is full tht day, some days whites, others towels etc... I like to wash often because I can only hang about 3 loads in the Laundry room!

We take turns folding and the kids all put their own laundry away.

-- Melissa (me@home.net), October 18, 2001.