Laundry

Chances are if you are reading my blog you do laundry, and if you are like me you do LOTS of it. i have been a SAHM for over 11 years and i am still trying to balance the laundry it is a pain but has to be done! i have friends who LOVE to do laundry i am not one of those people. i mean i don't mine separating, washing, drying.... it is the folding and the putting away i loathe! Recently i have found some things that seem to work for me a little better than my old method that i will share.

I used to do all of our laundry in basically a day or two a week, generally i would start the first load Monday night when i went to bed and then in the morning switch it and the machines would not stop until i went to bed that night some weeks i did not finish on Tuesday so i would finish on Thursday usually doing bedding that day. i was doing about 14-18 loads a week and trying to do them all in one day, see why it wasn't working well! but  Well since i am pregnant right now i had this odd fear of going into labor on a Sunday or Monday then my family wouldn't have any clothes for the week and what would they do (on a side note isn't it funny the things we think when we are pregnant?!)

With 6 people in the house and 1 on the way we accumulate ALOT of dirty clothes! I am some what of a laundry snob and like things done a certain way (like about everything i do though so i am sure you are not shocked)

• i don't like to reuse towels generally and i know lots of people do but i don't like to do that
• speaking of towel we go through a TON with having a pool and my kids swimming competitively. so we have a LOT of towels, we probably own at least 50 towels i woudl guess 
• i like certain products (pics to follow)
• i wash all the sheets once a week, and all the blankets on our beds every other week

my new laundry system:

i wash EVERY day of the week, unless i am caught up on everything(rarely happens!) what seems to be working best is:

• i do all the kids stuff on the weekends. it is nice because they are home and can put it away. it is usually about 6 loads between the 4 of them i would guess.  i wash and dry all the clothes, my daughter Liz puts away all of her clothes, Jake's clothes and hangs up the boys shirts. David puts away all there socks and underwear, shorts, pj's etc. Johnathan doesn't really do any of it yet because it would end up in the oddest places like a kitchen cabinet or something.
• i try to do mine and Johns by Monday so we are set for the week this is about 4-5 loads
• i do towels Tuesdays, and Wednesdays which i would guess would be anywhere from about 3-4 loads each day
• Thursdays i do bedding. on the days i just do sheets it goes pretty quick because there is ours,then boths boys in one load, and Liz and Jake's in one load. on the weeks i do bedding it adds 2 additional loads for John and I, then 1 for each of the kids (those weeks bedding takes all day and usually spills over to Friday)
• then on Fridays i catch up with any left from the week and if i am pretty caught up i wash towels again, or like today i washed some pillows, rugs for bathrooms, and shower curtains

the new system seems great because with the old way i always felt behind, and if i had somewhere to go it would ruin my system for that week with the new way if i miss a day i just add it the next day.

Now on to the details and products. i have tried all kinds of detergents, fabric sheets etc but i def. have favorites when i do not use my favorites i feel my clothes are not the same so i use more which is not good because the money i "save" i am using stuff up so quick. Oh and i have a normal boring washer and dryer i would love to have these front loaders:

but for now they are out of the budget and that is ok as long as mine work i will be content with them.

ok so here are my favorite products and ignore the bad pictures i am not a photographer and i took them in my laundry room on the fly one day so it is not even very clean in there

i buy this box at Costco, it says it washes 180 loads, i have never got a 180 loads out of a box that i am sure of. i go through a box of this around every month and a half so i guess i average about 18 loads a week  so about a box will last me 108 loads.

 

 

 

i use fabric softener in every load except for shower curtains, rigs, pillows, etc. i use liquid in the wash and fabric sheets in the dryer. i always buy gain liquid because i love the smell of Gain products and they leave my clothes soft. for fabric sheets i am the least picky about these things, i bought these at Costco with a coupon and they ended up cheaper then the Costco brand which is what i normally get. if i have a coupon i will buy gain ones cause like i said i love those products but i am not going to spend the cash on these cause they all work fairly similar. i have that bottle of spray and wash/ oxy cleaner for stains, i don't go through this stuff very quick and i will use whatever is cheap, this was on clearance at target so that is what i got.

when i have  a baby i buy one big bottle of Dreft and a thing of baby oxy clean to last me the first few months, when i run out i just use all the normal stuff we use i figure by then we have all held the baby enough to get them used to the detergent we use. i do love the baby oxy clean to soak the load in especially like right now when i am washing things for the first time, and i have several things friends have given me that may have sat for a while.

lastly here is a picture of my laundry room told ya i am not a photographer HA! and it is a bit of a mess but i am just keeping it real =) i put up a shower rod over the washer and dryer to hold hangers and when i need to dry something that cant be put in the dryer, or i want something hung immediately out of the dryer. The blue bag on the dryer is where i put all the socks that need pairs after we fold everything so there aren't stragglers in drawers, i go through it every week or two and match the ones in there.

 

sorry if that was a VERY long post! and i am sure not too exciting but i love to hear how others tackle regular daily chores. So do you have a system that works for your family that you want to share? let me know and i will come over and read all about it