How to Save Money on Laundry: 5 Frugal Tips You Need to Know

1. Check for peak and non-peak times

Ask your local energy company for the times of peak and non-peak hours. Peak hours are generally during the most inconvenient time of the day, probably between 4pm to 9pm when everyone is home and you need to use electricity to run the AC or heater, do laundry, and cook. Peak hours are going to be when electricity costs the most so take note of the non-peak times so you can lower your electricity cost.

2. Do laundry during non-peak hours

The best time to do laundry to save energy is during non-peak hours. I know you're thinking that's inconvenient, but here are some tips that I highly suggest:

• Presort your clothes the night before into laundry baskets and first thing in the morning throw a load into the machine using the quick cycle. Once done, throw it into the dryer. Then, when you come home from work you can fold.
• Do your laundry at night once peak time ends. If you're going to be up anyway, might as well get the most bang for your buck.
• Do the majority of your laundry during the weekend so you can take advantage of the non-peak hours. 

3. Air-dry clothes

Give your dryer a break and lower your electricity costs by air-drying clothes. This is what I do as dryers can shrink clothes anyway. Buy a cheap clothes horse and hang your clothes outside.

Fun fact: the sun actually gets rid of tough stains, so if you have something with a tough or yellow stain, especially on white clothes, the sun will get it out if you leave it there long enough. 

You can also air-dry your clothes inside. It does take a good two days for them to fully dry. To prevent a smell you can either spray the clothes with an odor eliminator or put them in the dryer for 10 minutes before hanging. Odor eliminators keep your clothes smelling fresh.

4. Stop buying fabric softener

Fabric softener can irritate your skin, leaves a residue on clothes, makes your towels less absorbent, and it locks in odor and bacteria instead of getting rid of them.

Instead, you can use vinegar, which gets rid of odors and bacteria. Don’t worry, your clothes are not going to smell like vinegar, and it makes your towels nice and fluffy! So, instead of fabric softener buy a huge bottle of vinegar and save money. 

5. Use bleach and vinegar to clean your washing machine

My next tip on how to save money on laundry is to wash your washing machine frequently. If you think about it, you're putting dirty clothes, towels, and linens in there, so you want to be sure to clean your machine on a regular basis.

Buying washing machine cleaners from the shop adds up quickly, but you can use bleach and vinegar; these are cheap and go a long way. Run your washing machine with hot water and then add a quarter cup of bleach in there, run it by itself, and then once it's done, you want to wipe the inside and the outside making sure to get any residue of bleach off.

Once the bleach is rinsed off you can then run the machine with hot water again and add a quarter cup of vinegar. Bleach will disinfect your machine and vinegar will eliminate odors and get rid of bacteria.

One thing I do want to point out is to never mix bleach and vinegar together as combined they create a toxic chemical. Make sure you wipe the machine well between the bleach and vinegar cycles to remove any remnants of the bleach. 

Switching over to this method has saved me a lot of money. Using bleach and good old vinegar instead of store-bought washing machine cleaners is going to be a lot cheaper in the long run. 

How to save money on laundry

Those are my five tips on how to save money on laundry, let me know in the comment box down below if any of these tips are helpful. I can definitely do a part two. I have a lot more tips to share!