Radical laundry reduction

pigpen wrote: »

2 wear nappies (which frequently leak!!.. out-pee'd rather then inefficient) and we tried that but the boys.. with their autistic spectrum disorders wouldn't sleep or settle and the girls were appalled.. DD1 does do this now.. she decided she felt 'safer' with them on once she started menstruating..

I get your thinking now! Sorry I didn't know whether you had kids etc (as I don't usually pop on this board!) and thought it was a bit odd.:rotfl:

But I can imagine it's easier for you to change them everyday.

When I was working I used to change my blouse every day, but wear it for two days if you see what I mean, I always hang my clothes on hangers outside the wardrobe at night, if it smells 'sweaty' next morning it goes in the wash..................OH had a clean shirt everyday........I hate ironing shirts, so glad he is retired and only wears a shirt occasionally.................

I only change our bed every second week and the duvet cover once a month, just turn it over.....we have a bath each night before we go to bed.

Now I am retired I wear a tee shirt for a couple of days, so 2 or 3 a week, trousers for a couple of days, then they get a change. We both have clean pants on every day, but wear nightshirts in bed, so no smelly bottoms.......OH wears his vest for 2 days then it goes in the wash.............theoretically, now we live in sheltered housing I could change the sheets every week, but then I would have to iron it.............forget that........................

When we go on holiday, I take pants etc that dry quickly, we rinse socks and knickers out each night when we go to bed and I use a spud masher in a bucket to 'posh' clothes, and a salad spinner will spin water out of socks and pants... we take a weeks clothes with us and we can manage for 3 - 4 weeks like that.........it just takes organising.

Foot note: my youngest son had the smelliest feet this side of heaven.......he had to take socks with him to change into at lunchtime when he was at school..........nothing we did made any difference, then suddenly he got a girlfriend, and started washing his feet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that making the kids change out of uniform as soon as they come home from school really helps to keep the laundry down. I always did it with mine and they could get 2 days out of a uniform most of the time (barring accidents at lunchtime!). For some strange reason, my daughter doesn't bother and then wonders why she has to provide a full clean uniform EVERY day!

If their school has a choice of colours for shirts/blouses (ie blue/white; grey/white) I would always go for the colour rather than white! Maybe have white for when it's school photo day! Same with socks - grey or black rather than white AND always buy the big packs of socks that all match so no problems when odd ones go missing (if 2 go missing - one from each pair - at least you STILL have a pair left!) lol. It's also a good idea to suggest to the school that they should have the kids wear a protective garment when doing art/crafts - even if the parents buy them personally, the teacher could at least encourage them all to wear them. My grandkids have come home with sweatshirts/polo shirts ruined with paint and glue that won't come out.

I always wash my underwear every night (by hand) when I'm staying somewhere other than home. A good rub with the towel, and it normally dries on the radiator overnight.

I wear a white blouse/navy skirt for work and of course need a clean blouse every day. But I have 2 navy skirts that I rotate each week - 2 days then 3 days alternately. If I spilt something, I would just sponge clean that particular bit of fabric immediately and wear again - unless it was something 'stinky'! Dgd2 (3 months) 'got me' one afternoon last week before I had a chance to get changed for the evening - what a little angel :A !

As we have showers every morning, I don't throw the towels in the wash every time. We each use our own towel and hang it up to 'dry off' afterwards. Obviously, if showering after hard or grimy work then the towels would be changed immediately. But under normal circumstances 1 bath sheet will do for 2 showers.

I do change teatowels everyday and dish cloths - prefer those to be really hygienic as they are used around our food preparation - dish cloths get soaked in a bleach solution at night before being rinsed out and thrown into the laundry for the next wash!

My kids come home with their school uniform already dirty so changing them into clean clothes would just mean another set of dirty clothes after tea.

They wear their underwear under their jammies so jammies last 2 or 3 nights.

Bedding changed once a fortnight.

Towels used for 2 days then washed.

OH's and my clothes are worn until they are dirty.

Washing machine is on once a day, twice when the bedding is changed.

You know you have laundry issues when you run out of clean underwear!!!!!! Which I have just found I have........it'll have to be OH undies for me today.......I MUST GET MYSELF ORGANISED!!!!