Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Saving $25 and 3 hours

My lovely neighbors are going on vacation today. They are headed off on their first vacation in about 2 plus years. It's just the hubby and the wife and they are going cross country to visit an old friend. I think they deserve it and I know they need it.

In their absence, I'll be keeping an eye on the cats and the smelly ferrets. I'll also get use of their washer and dryer. I can't wait. I spent $25 the last time I went to the laundry. My local laundromat has gone up in price. It's now $2 per washer, $4 for the "triple loader" (laundromat rip off speak for normal sized washing machine load if you did it at home) and the dryers are now 25c for 7 minutes, it used to be 25c for 8 minutes. My clothes line needs to be repaired (it's on the house to do list) and I can't air dry a lot of clothes at the moment. The tumble dryer is what I need to use.

The last time I did a large pile of laundry I had about 1o loads of laundry: sheets, towels, bedding, clothes, dog laundry, bath mats. Took what seemed like forever to wash and dry it all. I have a small machine I can hook up to my kitchen sink, but it can't handle the big loads. Sometimes I have to bite the bullet and go to the laundromat.

My next house is so going to have a washer and a dryer.....

2 comments:

Shevy said...

Yes, I tend to think of a washer and dryer as indispensible, especially as I've had to use laundromats or apartment laundry rooms in the past.

The only good thing about a laundromat is that you can get it all done in one shot over a period of a couple of hours, no matter how much you have to get through.

Doing 10 loads, one load at a time at home really takes about 2 days of pretty much full time attention. Even though it only needs about 5 to 15 minutes of actual work per hour, you have to be paying attention all the time or a load will be just sitting there.

It may sound silly, but the washer/dryer we share with ED and family is busy so often (2 little kids and son-in-law's work clothes) that sometimes we take a load or 2 to our rural home and do it there!

Jon said...

Wow... that sounds really expensive. I pay $1.25 for a washer and $0.75 for a dryer.

With the outrageous profits your laundromat must be making, maybe you should quit the horse job and open a laundromat!