The Cheap and Lazy Girl’s Guide to Line Drying Clothing

Anyone remember a mom or grandmother using a clothes line? I do. My mom had one at the edge of our yard and used it daily.
As I shared in my last post, at the end of August, my personal income will decrease by 50%. I need to implement what I can, as fast as I can, to curtail my household spending. A very simple thing to do is limit using my dryer for clothing.
Let’s get the negative out of the way first:
1. I don’t know how to do it. No sweat, I’ll teach you in this post.
2. I don’t have time. Yeah, you do. My way is not really much
longer.
3. I can’t/don’t want my clothing
outside (pollen, modesty,etc.). No problem.
4. Will my clothes feel stiff? We can fix that!

Now for the positives:
• No worries about laundry fires. Please see this post from the US Consumer Product Safety Comission http://www.cpsc.gov/CPSCPUB/PUBS/5022.html for more information on this subject.
• You don’t have to worry about babysitting your dryer for fear of wrinkled clothing.
• You clothing lasts longer. Ever heard of dryer lint? Where do you thing that comes from? Yup, your clothes. I sure hope you ladies are already hanging out your undies – hot clothes dryers are the staunch enemy of lycra.
• Your house stays cooler. Here in the deep south, we do anything we can to stay cool.
It saves money. According to http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/appliances/dryers.html

OK, here we go……
I don’t use a clothesline. I don’t hang my laundry outside. My set up is like me – cheap and simple. I bought clothespins (stored in a recycled metal can) and I use my regular clothes hangers.
Step One: Take freshly washed clothing and put them in your clothes dryer for 5 to 12 minutes. Using the dryer for this short time will help with stiffness of clothing. You will need to experiment to see the minimum amount of time that works for you. I use my kitchen timer because I am easily distracted.
Step Two: This is how I hang; clothes, that is J Remove a few garments at a time. I usually remove hubby’s work clothes first. I shake each garment sharply – make sure it makes a “snap” sound to shake out all the wrinkles. I hang all shirts directly on a hanger as if they were already dry. I hang pants from the hem (careful with the clothes pins, you don’t want a dent or wrinkle here). The weight of the pants will pull the other wrinkles out of the pant. I hang several socks or underwear on a single hanger, one clothes pin per item. Towels go two per hanger, one on each side, one clothes pin on each corner. I hang washcloths the same way – I want them to stay square so that they are easier to fold and put away.
Step Three: Letting the clothing dry. Many people make or buy a drying rack, I want to do this without spending any extra money. The easiest spot in my home is the shower curtain rod. I also use any other spot I can find; the ledge of a storage cabinet trim, doorknobs, over a picture frame, etc. I have the same modesty/allergy issues as most people. Also, I don’t want my neighbors to think I am destitute because I made a proactive decision to reduce my spending.
Step Four: Do a load every day. That way you don’t get behind.
According to http://www.laundrylist.org
, in the United States, 92% of single family homes had a dryer in 2005. Less than 4% of Italian households own a dryer. This organization estimates that 8% of American households line-dry their laundry during 5 months of the year. If all Americans who currently do not use a clothesline started to use one for ten months of the year, we could avoid 12 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, annually.
I make my own laundry detergent (that is another post) and I’m using a a Bounce dryer bar I got for free from couponing (also another post).

I hope this works for you, it is certainly working for me!