Works for Me Wednesday: I Retired My Dryer

If you've read my blog for any length of time,

you know that I am a clothesline fanatic.

My mom always used a clothesline,

so I came by it naturally, I suppose. :)

It also just makes good sense (in my opinion)

to use the wind and fresh air to dry the laundry than to 

spend money using electricity to do it.

But what do you do when it's rainy?

Or so cold the clothes will freeze?

Or the snow is just too deep for you to reach the line?

You can still hang up your clothes--inside.

I asked Dennis last winter how much he figured we spend per month just to run the dryer.  He figured at least $50.

(We have a front-load HE washer, but still our original dryer that we got when we were first married.  The washer has room for 3x what I used to be able to fit in our old washer, but the dryer couldn't keep up very well with 3x the amount of clothes in it.  I was constantly running that thing because I had to split loads, which held up the laundry process.  With this many people and dirty clothes--that laundry train has gotta keep movin'!)

I'm all about spending less when I can,

so I opted to quit using the dryer as much as possible.

I know that some people string a clothesline in their basement,

but this was not an option for me

so I spent about $3 on hangers at Wal-Mart and I hang the

clothes in closet doorways and bedroom doorways.

I also spent $20 on this rack (again at Wal-Mart)

for additional hanging space.

One can get a lot of little shirts on small hangers

hung onto one big hanger, as you can see.

This drying rack I've had for about 10 years.

Up until the "retirement" I'd used it for things that couldn't go in the dryer,

like any of the things I didn't want to shrink or fade

or if they were delicate.

I also recently decided to start hanging the diapers, too.

I do run them in the dryer for about 5-10 minutes just to fluff them a bit

and then hang them up. 

For barn clothes,

I hung a shower curtain rod between two hooks in the laundry room

and they hang to dry in there.

The only things I use the dryer for now are towels,

because I simply don't have the space to hang them up inside the house.

Also, if someone desperately needs their jeans or something else dry to wear,

we can toss it in--

I"m not militaristic about it. :)

I just thought of all the other places fifty dollars could go

and decided that I could implement this change in our house.

Even if you decided to run the dryer half the time--

that's still a savings.

Something to think about!