LivHealthy

When I was a little girl, I would change my clothes 3 or 4 times a day.  At the end of the week, my mom would sort through my massive laundry pile and determine what clothes I had actually worn for more than 5 minutes.  Since I started doing laundry myself and our family has grown, I've always been on the look-out for ways to reduce the amount of clothes I had to wash.  It was after my mother-in-law babysat for me one day that I finally realized what I needed to do.

It was the morning after she babysat that I discovered a small pile of clothes left out on top of my son's dresser.  His t-shirt and pants were folded neatly in the pile, while his spaghetti sauce stained shirt was in the laundry pile.  She simply did the same thing that my mom did- she looked at the clothes to see what was really dirty and folded up the clothes to be worn again.

Now while I wasn't as bad as I had been when I was a little girl, I did often wear clothes just once and then would toss them in the laundry.  And I had passed this habit on to my kids.  Some weeks I would do up to 10 loads of laundry for a family of 4.  This had to stop!

Here are the new habits I'm teaching my kids... before you toss that item into the laundry pile:

1. Look at it- is that item stained?  Can you seen any areas that are particularly dirty.  If yes, then put it in the laundry pile. If not, then either put it on your chair to wear the next day or put it away to wear later in the week.

2. Sniff it- is it stinky?  Yes, smell the underarms, but also smell the garment in general.  If they were doing a stinky science experiment in school, some of the smell may be in the clothes.  If the garment is clean, with just a slight odor (I'm thinking some lingering scents of tomatoes from making dinner), then hang it up to air out.  Do a sniff test again before putting it on though (nobody wants to smell like stale tomatoes).

In our house, pajamas are worn for at least a couple of nights unless someone had a messy breakfast or was very hot at night.  Each family member has their own bath towel that they use for the week and keep in their room.

Just think, if each member of your family put just 4 items less in the laundry, then that would be one less load to wash!  You will benefit from:

• lower hydro bills
• lower water bills
• less detergent to buy
• clothes lasting longer (they won't get as worn out in the washer & dryer)
• feeling good doing your part for the environment since less laundry detergent, water and hydro is being used.
• and most importantly- more time for YOU (or whoever is on laundry duty), since there will be less to sort, wash, hang up or put in the dryer and put away.

Photo Credit:  Corie Howell on flickr