Frugal laundry and personal hygiene in winter

At this time of year, winter, it is harder to be frugal with laundry in the UK.  Things can rarely be dried on a line outside for almost 6 months of the year.  Even in summer it can rain for weeks. The cost of energy and water bills continues to rapidly rise.  This blog will therefore talk about how we keep the costs of laundry down, but also how we reduce the cost of personal hygiene.  I just want to say that we are extremely frugal due to being on a very low income, but still wanting breaks away, and so these ideas will not suit everyone.  However, just doing a few of these things each month will lower your outgoings.  Even just cutting down one lot of washing a month adds up to a saving on the water and energy bill.

Washing clothes

When Mr S moved in, I used to have to wash nearly every other day.  This cost a lot in water and energy.  Besides that, drying all the clothes in winter made my house very damp.  Mould started to appear in the corners of ceilings and behind furniture.  Over the years we have slowly reduced it and for the past couple of years we have had washing clothes down to 3 times every 2 weeks, or 4 or 5 times a month.  Sometimes we will wash some things by hand in the summer like curtains, cushion covers or coats, on top of this.

How we reduced our washing

We stopped washing things after every wear.  I didn’t do this any way. When I worked I would wear two or three outfits all week but mix and match the trousers, shirts, and jumpers or jackets.  They would air on a chair to wear another day.  Obviously if they smelt, they would go in the laundry bin, but especially in winter, the shirts and trousers would last two or 3 days, and the jumpers a week.  I often wore navy blue or black, with lighter coloured shirts or T shirts.  Obviously I wore clean underwear and socks every day.

Now I no longer work, I wear a pair of trousers and sweat shirt in the house all week, but if I am going out anywhere nice, I have another set of clothes that I will change in to.  When they are dirty or start to smell they go in the laundry.  I wear a T shirt underneath for 2 or 3 days.  A PJ top lasts all week, but I change the bottoms mid week.

I can hear a lot of people saying “Eeew that is dirty!”.  It might be by today’s standards but it is only in the last 40 or 50 years that people have changed their clothes regularly, and is not different from wearing school uniform all week, or a suit, and changing the shirt during the week.

We also have reduced the times that we change the bedding.  Obviously if it is hot and we are sweaty in summer we will change it more often, but in winter we change the bed once a fortnight, but sometimes change the pillows once a week.  Each day we pull the covers back so that the bed can air. The extra bed change in the summer does not add to the laundry as we often do not wear jumpers, or  we wear lighter clothing.  We only wash when we have a full load.  I only do one white wash every month.  The rest are dark or colour washes.

Reducing the washing of towels is another things that we do.  We do not throw them in the laundry every time that we use them.  We have a separate towel each and it is aired after use.  In winter it will go outside on the line, in winter it will air over the banister at the top of the stairs.  They go in the laundry once a week unless they become smelly or dirty.  We are clean when we use them as we have been washed.

It you have a family, it is harder and you have to train them into new habits over time!  Despite me mentioning it, Mr S used to put his sweatshirts in the laundry every time he used them.  I would take them out, fold them up, and put them on his chair.  He got the message in the end!

Frugal Detergents

We make our own laundry soap from horse chestnuts or Ivy, though I still use bought detergent for white clothing.  When I use detergent from the supermarket I only use half of the amount that it says on the box.  It washes fine and is actually  better for the clothes.  I don’t use fabric conditioner, but use white vinegar sometimes if washing towels.  The boxes of  powdered detergent work out a lot cheaper than the bottles of liquid detergent.  I must admit that I do prefer the liquid ones.  I inherited 2 when my mum died, and so was able to compare them.

Drying laundry

We tend to only wash in summer if it is a fine day and we know that we will get it dried on the clothes line.  In winter drying clothes is more of a problem. Some days they will get nearly dry on a windy day.  A lot of people dry them on their radiators, but we can only afford the heating on 2 or 3 hours a day. We can finish them off if part dried on there. We do have a wood burning fire, but do not light it every day as it is in the kitchen. I tend to dry stuff on those days and finish it off on the radiators. I have hooks above my fire that I hang socks and underwear when it is lit.   I also put T shirts on the hooks when it is dying down.  I have a large clothes horse that I can put in front of it, or at the side of it if I want to.  I also put my clothes horse in there if I am using the oven, which I do a couple of times a month.

There are all sorts of devices that you can buy now to dry clothes, for instance, heated clothes dryers, but I have not tried them.  I did used to have a ceiling rack that was above the fire in my old house, but the ceilings are not tall enough here and it would look cluttered.  That worked really well as heat rises.  On sunny days I will put my laundry in the conservatory which warms up quickly, and put the dehumidifier on in there. That dries the clothes even more quickly.  I have made sure that we have enough under clothes to only have to wash when we have prolonged heat, or it is a sunny, dry day.

Stopping mould

Drying clothes inside often causes condensation and so it is important to stay on top of any extra moisture if drying clothes inside.  I have 2 dehumidifiers.  I checked with my smart meter that they do not cost a lot to run.  I run them 3 times a week at this time of year.  I also open the windows for 15 minutes on fine days (in the middle of the day when the heating has not just been on).  I used to use those little boxes with crystals in before I got the dehumidifiers.  I remember as a child that my gran would have strips of absorbent material on the window ledges, and she would ring them out into a bucket each morning.  We now have a Karcher window vacuum, and that is always my first job on a winter’s morning if we have condensation on the windows.

Having a shower or bath can also cause mould. In the summer I open the window if having a bath or a shower.  In winter I open it for 10 minutes after having a bath or shower (with the door shut to stop the rest of the house getting cold).  This gets rid of the majority of the steam and wet air.  I will then close the window, open the door, and run the dehumidifier on the upstairs landing.

Keeping ourselves clean

This is probably another area that a lot of younger people will go Eeeew!  We only get a bath or shower once a week (unless we have been doing a dirty job in the garden, or are particularly sweaty in summer from exercise). I coincide this with when the heating is already on in the winter. The rest of the time we have  what I call a bird bath, or a stand up wash using the sink.  It was common to only have a bath once a week when I was a child.  All 4 of us would use the same bath water.  My father would go first, then my Mum, then my younger brother, then me.  The bath water was only about 6 inches deep to save water.  My parents would boil a kettle and add a bit more water when it started to get cold.

I remember the first time that I had a proper, deep bath, was when I was in the WRNs and a friend ran it for me as I was freezing and had just come off guard duty.  I couldn’t believe it as it came up to my chin when I got in.  I still have deep baths now but they do not need as much water now due to my larger body mass, lol.  If we have a shower in the summer we save the water, and use it later to flush the loo. I don’t do this in winter as it causes more condensation. I will also wet myself, turn the shower off to soap myself, and then turn the shower back on to rinse myself.  This saves water.

When we had gym membership, up to 4 years ago, we rarely had a bath or shower at home but would take advantage of the free hot water at the gym, and the free toiletries.  Our gym was at a hotel and so we even got fresh, laundered towels to use. This is a lot different from what I saw in my childhood. My gran’s bath was in the scullery (kitchen) and under the working surface.  It was a lot of messing about and so they rarely had baths. Lots of people did not have bathrooms in their houses, and the toilet was outside, in those days.  There were public baths which were lines of baths in little cubicles that people could use.

Cutting the cost of toiletries

To cut down the expenses of toiletries we often receive some as stocking fillers, and, if we stay in any hotels, we take advantage of the free toiletries.  A lot of them are on the wall in big bottles now and so I take a small bottle with me to fill up. At home we use a bar of soap (which I season and dry out before it’s first use as it makes it last longer) rather than shower gel.  I also dry it out after every use. Rather than  liquid hand soap we also use a bar of soap.  I often get bought expensive ones from TK Max as a stocking filler and they tend to last me a whole year.  If I haven’t been bought any, then they tend to be on sale for £2.99 after Christmas.

To wash my hair I use a bar of shampoo and a bar of conditioner.  These last almost a year as I only wash my hair once a week as it  doesn’t need it anymore now that the hormones have changed since menopause.  This works out better for the environment, and better for my purse. Last time I paid about £4 for each of them.   If we have stayed in a hotel, which is rare, the toiletries from there do supplement them sometimes, though we usually use those for our breaks away in static caravans. If I am using toiletries out of a bottle, I will only use a blob the size of a 2p coin, and never do the second wash as many bottles say.  I believe if you use too much it strips away the essential oils in your hair.

Before I started using shampoo and conditioner bars, I used to buy my products from discount stores, like Home Bargains.  They same brands were cheaper than in the supermarkets or chemists. I wasn’t precious about makes and actually found some of the cheaper ones felt less heavy on my hair. Some times I bought them in bulk on the internet, but I found that Mr S used more then, as he knew there was lots left.  Some brands will send you  free sachets to try from their websites, and so it is worth checking.  I save these and use them when travelling, or when we have run out.  Other times when money has been really tight, we have made our own toiletries with kitchen ingredients like white vinegar, coconut oil, olive oil etc.

How do you cut down the costs of your laundry and personal hygiene?  You might also be interested in this blog about saving water