Friday, January 8, 2010

Laundry Tip #1 Saving the Socks




  Over the years I have become somewhat of a laundry queen.  With two small kids as well as my husband and myself there is a lot of laundry but when you add my Ebay laundry to the mix it can really get crazy.  In order to keep it under control both cost and time wise I have developed quite a few helpful techniques and tips that I'm happy to share.  I plan on sharing several laundry tips over the next few days.

  The first tip is primarily for those who have little ones at home but certainly applies to everyone.  For the longest time I was daunted by the mystery of where the other sock went?  You know what I mean.  You're pretty sure both socks went into the wash so why is it now there is only one?  I've always hated throwing away stray socks and lets face it I don't always remember to re-use them as dust cloths.

  When my first child was born five years ago I was swimming in laundry ( or so I thought then).  Thinking I would get something accomplished I put in a full load late one night only to go to the washer the next morning to see an error message.  Blast that thing.  I followed the manual to the tee to no avail.  Ready to give up I called the pricey service tech.  Thankfully he was able to come out that same day as we were running low on available clothing.  Many dollars later the culprit was found.  BABY SOCKS!! O yeah!!  There were at least three of my infant sons socks stuck in the hoses of the washer and one in some other random place.  Those were the most expensive socks I had over owned. 

  So on to the good part of the story.  The wonderful service tech gave me some great sock advice (and some other laundry tips I will share in another post this week) never put loose socks in the laundry.  For a second I scratched my head thinking what and I supposed to do tie them together?  The answer he said was lingerie bags!  You can get them super cheap just about anywhere and you can use them for your gentle items but also use them to defeat the sock monster.

 I have also found that buying a ton of the same socks is a great time and money saver.  It is much easier to pair up the socks and you don't have to go out and buy new ones every time someone looses one or it gets a hole.  I find great deals on socks for kids at Kohls.  I just ordered my son 16 pairs of identical socks for $8 and change shipped.

Stay tuned for more laundry tips and be sure to check out lifasmom for some great Frugal Friday ideas.

2 comments:

  1. Great idea! I will have to remember that if we have anymore little ones.

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  2. I love laundry bags! My mom sometimes pinned them together but this is such a hassle with my large family - definatly laundry bags!

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