Drying Clothes, Saving Money

Since we live in a village, we have sewer and water. We get a bill quarterly for our usage and it's typically only within dollars of the month prior. We had a bit of a surprise this past bill as it was almost $20 more than usual. Since in the past three months we had baby on the way, we were doing a lot of laundry. All the clothes we received used or new were washed, all bedding, etc. Lots of wash! And, now that Flora is here, I'm still doing just as much laundry. It's amazing how many clothing changes this little gal will have in one day! The bummer about being hooked up to the village sewer and water is that you pay for the water that comes in AND the water that goes out. At this point, I don't see any decline in our water bill.

The good news is that we have a process that helps offset this new cost! This past summer, we purchased an outdoor clothes hanging dryer for under $40. We successfully hung about every load of laundry on it to dry in the warm sun and fresh breeze. Now that the weather has quickly turned from summer to fall, the opportunity to dry laundry outside has pretty much disappeared. Time to move clothes drying inside...without using the dryer. For our baby shower, we registered for a drying rack for drying Flora's cloth diapers. Air drying is supposed to help them last longer. We actually received two racks and were happy to keep both. We can hang more than just diapers! Then, we received another, larger drying rack for Flora - so we have three. I am so happy we do! We have a perfect space for these drying racks right by the patio door where they can get sunlight to help dry. We have enough drying racks to hang 2 loads of laundry. Although you need some patience for the drying process, it saves the cost of 2 - 60+ minutes drying cycles in the electric dryer.

It feels good to offset costs, and be good to the environment. In the process, we are also putting some free humidity into our home now that the heat is on and drying things out. Here's a shot of our drying set up.