…Or can you use what you have, wear it out, make it do, or do without? Have you noticed that we’re surrounded by things that we think we need, but that we could easily live without? Some of those are expensive don’t-needs.
The example that comes to mind is my clothes dryer. The thing has been on the fritz for at least a couple of years now. Its thermostat apparently died: on any of the heated cycles, the machine gets so hot it will burn your hand, clearly creating a fire risk. I’ve never replaced it, mostly because I can’t justify a $300 to $600 hit for a new dryer.
Instead, I strung a few clotheslines from the rafters under the patios, and on laundry day I simply hang my clothes outdoors. Not long after I started doing this, I realized I much prefer drying clothes on the line.
• It frees you from the nagging b-l-a-a-t of a dryer buzzer going off every twenty minutes.
• You get to put your clothes away at your convenience, not at the dryer’s.
• It saves on electricity.
• It’s better for the environment.
• And line-dried sheets smell wonderful!
And it saves the expense of having to buy a big-ticket appliance.
The dryer still works on air-dry, so I occasionally use it to tumble dog hair out of Cassie’s blanket or to whack out the wrinkles in my jeans. But otherwise…it turns out I don’t really need a dryer! All the laundry has to be taken out, hung up, folded up, and put away anyway. So why not take it off a clothesline at my convenience, rather than hurry to haul it out of a machine every time a buzzer goes off?
Not too long ago, Sierra Black ruminated on the same topic at Get Rich Slowly, when she reported that instead of fixing a showerhead whose temperature control device quit working, she simply turned down the thermostat on the water heater. She reflects that frugality is about making choices—in this case, between taking weekend time to fix the plumbing instead of spending the time with the kids, or between paying a plumber to fix it instead of using the money on yoga classes or a family camping trip.
I wonder how many amenities that we’ve come to take for granted are really things we could do without? And to what extent do some of those “conveniences” actually represent more hassle than we realize?
There are many things I use that I do take for granted. And yup, they all take electricity. I LOVE camping. I wonder how much we would save if we pretended we were camping?
You would save a lot, but feel really uncomfortable, especially in really hot weather! I can’t live without A/C.
Where I live it’s not possible to hang clothes outside in the winter (unless you want them frozen, that is). But I have clotheslines strung in my basement that I use all the time. I much prefer to line dry my clothes; it helps them last longer, too! I do use the dryer for sheets and towels, though. Line space is a bit tight for sheets, and I don’t care for “crispy” towels. Another thing I’ve learned to eliminate is fabric softener. I don’t use the liquid or the dryer sheets even on towels. For whatever reason I don’t notice any static (even in the dry air during winter) and the clothes/sheets/towels are soft enough on their own. I’m sure eliminating fabric softener also contributes to longer clothes life, too.
I love line drying, but it’s usually too humid here.
@ frugalscholar: Line drying in a humid climate is a challenge. Where we lived when I was growing up — on the beach of the Persian Gulf — water would puddle under the eaves just from the dewfall. One day it started to rain out of a clear blue sky: the humidity had reached 100% and water just condensed out of the air. There were no dryers in those days, so women had to hang out the clothes anyway. It would take all day for the stuff to dry…and many’s the time I can remember running out with my mother to haul wet clothes and sheets off the line as a rainstorm came barreling in!
@ Linda: Same is true in homeowner’s associations, where the neighbors look down their collective nose at white-trash habits like hanging out the laundry. You can hang a line or two inside your garage (which must remain closed at all times anyway, right?) and no one will know how low-class you are. 😉 In our part of the country, where people build stockades around every yard, it may be possible to put up a short line or two under a patio overhang, where it can’t be seen by neighbors. None of mine are visible to anyone outside the yard, and most are in the shade, protecting clothing from fading.
@ Annie: Camping’s fun when you know there’ll be an end to it. Personally, I really dislike having to do housework (which is what cooking and cleaning are) and personal hygiene tasks with no running water. There’s a limit to how far back to the good ole days I’ll willingly go! 😀
P.S. I learned two ways to de-crisp your towels. One is to shake them hard before you hang them up — snap the ends sharply in the air several times. The other is to add a cup or so of vinegar to the rinse water. If a lot of soap suds appear after the clothes have sloshed around for a minute or two, then run the rinse cycle a second time. Too much detergent that can’t rinse out easily will give you stiff terrycloth and jeans.
With the time constraints you have on a regular basis, I think the time you’d save by drying your clothes in a dryer could be worth it. There is an element of time saving involved with things we might not necessarily NEED that has to come in play. I mean, you could save more by running your clothes through a ringer versus the washing machine, but would this even be considered feasible? Of course not! 🙂
@ Money Beagle: Actually, I find running clothes through a dryer to be more time-consuming, and certainly more annoying, than hanging things on a line.
Consider: You have to put the stuff away, no matter what. One way or another, you’re hauling stuff out of a machine and hanging it up or folding it up. With plastic coathangers, you have no concern about rust, and so there’s no reason not to put most of the clothing directly on a hanger, wet. As soon as it’s dry, you just lift the hanger off the line and carry it to the closet. The rest of the stuff would have to be folded up anyway; what’s the difference whether you fold it after you’ve taken it off a line or whether you fold it after you’ve dragged it out of a dryer?
What’s happening is you’re hauling stuff out of only one machine instead of two. AND, the best part: you’re not being interrupted every 15 or 20 minutes by buzzing machines!
The clothes hang on the line until you get around to putting them away, not until some machine interrupts your train of thought, makes you drop the task you’re doing, and demands that you substitute menial work for paying skilled work. Thus the time when you’re on task is never interrupted and wasted by trivial unpaid labor.