Oh, the things you devote time to, when you’re devoting time to taking care of the kids and house.
I spend so much time doing laundry that I wonder how other people manage it. On a typical day, I wash, dry, and fold 4 loads of laundry. On a “light” day, maybe 2 or 3; on a “heavy” day, 5 or 6.
If I consistently do 4 loads per day, I have maybe one day every two weeks that I don’t have any clothes to wash. So then I wash all the blankets and shoes and stuff.
I should note that I do all of my sister’s laundry as well, but that’s usually only about 3 loads or so per week.
I truly do not understand how parents who work outside their homes full-time manage to keep up. If I were working more than 20 hours/week, or working those 20 hours during normal daytime hours instead of in the middle of the night, my house would be an absolute disaster. I can just keep up as it is, as long as I don’t get sick, go out of town, or have guests over. If anything upsets the rhythm, it goes to hell FAST.
So. How do you do your laundry? How many loads/day or loads/week?
We each do our own. I do one to one and 1/2 load per week of my stuff, Mini2U usually has a load and 1/2 per week, and Mr2U does maybe three loads per week (but his stuff gets dirtier because of his job, plus he doesn’t have a lot of different things to wear) - I do one load of sheets per week (they all fit) and towels go in with each of our regular stuff. My biggest problem is getting Mr2U to take his stuff out of the dryer. It drives me batshit!!
When the revolution comes you will be the first against the wall. One load…bah!
I have a new washer and dryer. (YAY ME!) as a result of going neck deep into debt, I could wash and dry laundry 24/7. I loves it. Esp. my dryer. A big honking load takes 45 minutes. My old dryer didn’t put out the heat, the cold frigid bitch. It would take an hour for just a load of undies. How retarded is that? So I line dried for years.
I love doing laundry.
I just hate putting it away.
Me too, Shirley. I could wash and dry all day with no problem. The problem is that by the end of the day, I have the red chair piled with the little kids’ clothes, the half-wall thingy piled with the older boys’ clothes, and the brown chair piled with my stuff. Then there have to be towels somewhere, as well, so there’s no place to sit.
Having gone without a washer and dryer for the last few years of my last marriage, I SO love having one now. It makes a huge, huge difference in the house-to-clutter ratio.
It’s just two of us, and we do our laundry on the weekends (sometimes every two weeks): three to five loads (whites, lights, darks; I’ll do “mediums” if I have enough), not including towels and sheets. Towels go in every Sunday; sheets are usually every two weeks (we have multiple sets but we really really love the cotton jersey ones). We also hate folding.
Working mom of two small children. Apartment, no washer/dryer, but the laundromat is right across the street.
I do laundry twice a week, filling two of the largest, industrial-sized washers on Sunday morning and then catching up a bit on Tuesday afternoons, when I get off work a bit earlier. My husband has most of his work clothes done at the drycleaner.
I don’t mind doing it this way. It’s not my favorite job, and it’s kind of nice not having to think about it every day. If I had to drive to the laundromat or lived somewhere with bad weather, I might feel differently, though.
Once a week, two adults. We don’t have a washer and dryer- I do laundry at the local laundromat, which is a pain in the neck, but we don’t have space or money for the machines. Yes, yes, I know we’re spending more then the price of the machines on doing our laundry elsewhere. Shut up.
Three loads a week, unless I have to wash towels and sheets. Then it’s five or six. Say an average of four.
I do 5 loads of laundry every Monday: darks, lights, whites, towels, and sheets. Most of this can be hung out to dry in decent weather and only two dryer loads happen. The kidlaundry gets done about every 5-6 days, and that is one load. Blankets, quilts, and other sundries as needed; maybe one load every month. Jeans loads are for some reason DangerDad’s responsibility, and get done about every 10 days.
bodypoet, I’ve forgotten how many kids you have, but that’s a heck of a lot of laundry. Are any of them old enough to do their own? We were on our own for laundry by age 10–there were 5 of us.
I have 4 kids, ages 3 to 18, a fiance, and myself. The older ones can do their own laundry, but I generally just do it as I go along. The basic rule is, is if you complain, you do your own. Otherwise, if you bring it to me and take it away when it’s done, I’ll wash and dry it for you.
I don’t know where it all comes from! I do have to wash all the towels we use every day, or they smell musty. The little kids account for another load per day. Everything else just comes from random things that need to be washed, or stuff that needs to be caught up (right now I’m trying to get all the winter things washed up, as they’ve been stored). Then there are blankets and coats and whatnot…it just seems to never end. Anything that gets left out has to be rewashed, too, as the cats will nap on it. And of course, my sister’s stuff accounts for at least a few loads every week, as well.
I find it easier to do laundry if I just never STOP doing laundry, if that makes sense. If I skip a day, or if I try to do only one load per day, I start forgetting it in the washer, or it doesn’t get put away. I just lose my momentum.
I do smaller loads, too, so that my dryer can keep up.
I can’t imagine a day where I’ll only have to wash once a week! Heavens.
Two of us, no kids. We each do our own once a week, maybe less for my wife because she has way more clothes than I do, and can go longer without visiting the laundry room. I’ve gone for two weeks without having to do my own. I feel for all you folks with kids, and SOs who do dirty jobs. I can see why you hate laundry!
Nineteen-year-old college student. I do 4-5 loads on the weekend at my mom’s house. My wardrobe is fairly limited, thus the need to wash every week. The first three loads are lights, darks and whites. The fourth (and sometimes fifth, but not often) is whatever else needs to be washed that particular week: bedsheets (if they don’t fit with the whites or are dark-colored), delicates or reds. I don’t mind doing laundry because there really isn’t much to do - it takes a while for the clothes to wash, but the actual work that I do (sorting, pouring the detergent and fabric softener and folding) doesn’t take too long.
We have a washer, but not a dryer, so I hang everything out on the line. On days I do laundry, I do two loads, because that’s what will fit on our clothesline. Every day that looks like it’s going to be sunny, I do laundry. Sometimes, if it’s sunny all week, I’ll have a couple sunny days without laundry, but I’d say I usually do 2 per day/4 days per week (including sheets, sofa cover, blankets).
This is the first place I’ve ever lived, except the college dorm, that I didn’t have a dryer. I rebelled at first, and we actually bought a dryer for $30 at a yard sale, but predictably, it conked out after a month (no heat at all). It now serves as my laundry table, where all the detergent and stuff sits. I’ve come to be a fan of line-drying stuff. I don’t particularly like the end result (everything always seems a little hard), but I have come to appreciate the Zen of hanging stuff out. I like to get it all perfectly even and neat on the line. I like looking at it when I’m done. And, because I’m the SAHM of a toddler, it’s often the one time during the day that I all by myself in silence.
Well if twickster is going to take the heat first, I’ll admit to doing only one load of laundry a week also. Single gal here, keepin it simple.
Laundry place is about 4 blocks away. Wash cycle is 23 minutes, dry cycle is 33 minutes. They take me for 2.50 to do one load. I never stay and watch my clothes.
SAHM, 2 kids, big washer. I like to do big loads for energy efficiency. Usually 5 loads a week; lights, darks, sheets, towels & underwear, cold water wash. Blankets get washed at the end of the season or if they get peed on.
When my two were little and I was at the washing diapers stage, we lived in an apartment with a basement laundry room. I washed twice a week then, 6 loads at a time. It was great to get it all out of the way in the same amount of time it takes me to do one load now. I had a Little Tykes kitchen and the baby’s ride-on down there to keep the kids busy while I folded clothes. We had two big tables so I could spread everything out and carry it up to the apartment sorted by rooms and get it all put away.
One load a week? That about describes me too. (Why, yes, I am single. Why do you ask?)
The laundry room in my apartment building is on the other side of the bathtub wall. Not only do I have convenient access to it, but I can pause in the bathroom and listen and get a status update on which machines are running, as well! The downside: water temperature varies unpredictably during showers.
Married, two kids, we both work fulltime outside of the home. I’d say we average 6-8 loads per week, the vast majority of it done on the weekends. I am so tired of doing laundry…