How do you guys do it?

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sanctamaria17

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I love college life, but I’m overwhelmed by all the laundry that piles up. I did laundry back home, but that’s when my parents, siblings and I would all take turns. Now, I’m only doing my own laundry and it piles up even though I do it at least twice a week and I reuse pants and towels. How do you guys do laundry for yourselves and your kids and still have time to do anything else? It’s driving me nuts! 😉
 
sanctamaria17 said:
I love college life, but I’m overwhelmed by all the laundry that piles up. I did laundry back home, but that’s when my parents, siblings and I would all take turns. Now, I’m only doing my own laundry and it piles up even though I do it at least twice a week and I reuse pants and towels. How do you guys do laundry for yourselves and your kids and still have time to do anything else? It’s driving me nuts! 😉
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Silly, we just throw out our clothes and buy new ones. What else?
 
Get up at the crack of dawn on a weekend morning and do it then. No one else will be up so you’ll be able to snag enough washers in the laundry room to take care of it all at once.

Take your books and notes with you to the laundry room. Study while you’re waiting.

Hoard your quarters. They are now worth more than gold. 😃

Or, you could do what I often did: purchase a couple of big laundry sacks, let it all pile up, and take it home every couple of weeks or so. Once you’re there, hog the washer and dryer for the entire weekend. (Of course this only works if you live close enough to home that you are able to visit frequently.)

It gets easier when you have your own laundry set up in your home. Like you said, it was no big deal to do laundry in your family’s home; the reason it’s a hassle now is because you have to lug everything to the laundry room, sit there and guard your machines so your stuff doesn’t get stolen, and pray that you don’t run out of quarters.
 
Or you could do like me…buy tons of socks and underwear. I think I had more than any human alive.

To this very day I hate hate hate laundry. Despise it in fact.
 
Let me tell you what I learned early on…I forego buying clothes for the kids because it’s in fashion or because “Everyone’s wearing it!” The less clothes I buy, the less clothes I have to wash. Plus, I buy several of the same in different colors so that I don’t have to worry about different wash cycles, etc. The kids are really good now about keeping their used clothes next to the washer and that helps quite a bit too. My oldest now washes and dries her own clothes so that is a big “load” off my shoulders as well. 🙂 Folding clothes is something that all the kids do…when they’re watching t.v. they each fold their own pile of clean clothes.
When I was in college, I would wash late at night with a group for safety purposes and try to do some studying as well (more often than not, it turned into just a bunch of cackling hens but it was fun!)
 
Ahhh you’re a freshman, you haven’t learned from observing the upper classmen yet.

Basically, only the freshmen get up and do any sort of grooming before class. Get up, brush your teeth and go to class. Seriously, don’t even bother getting out of your pajamas. Don’t go to the cafeteria. Just roll out of bed and go to class. Get dressed around 2 in clothes you can wear again later in the week. Buy a bathrobe and a towel. Wash each once a week.

And hoard your quarters. And buy a boatload of undergarments. Live out of jeans and sweat pants. You can wear them each 2-3 times before needing to wash them. Layer. Wear tshirts under your sweatshirts. You can wash more tshirts in one load then you can wash sweatshirts.

Also, utilize your roommates clothes as well. I lived in a triple. We always bought the same clothes. In the end, we’d call each other before buying something, and if someone had it, we wouldn’t buy it, just snag it from them during the year. I had triple the wardrobe for 1/3 the money
 
Reminds me of an old Army joke:

“Men, we’ve been out on this patrol for a week. It’s time to change underwear.”

“Jones, you change with Smith. Gonzalez, you change with Brown. Gette, you change with Jackson…”
 
My daughter pays to have it done. She started doing this in college when she had the same problem you have.

It’s really not that expensive, and it’s worth it. (She was either at school, at the skating rink working, or at the theater working, so she seldom had any free time).

Check out the cost in your town. If it’s reasonable, you might just decide to forego that weekly movie and pizza in favor of having your laundry done!
 
Really? I hardly spent any time on laundry in college at all.

First, get enough clothes to last a week.

Then, when laundry day comes (pick a day early in the week, when the laundry room is less crowded), go down to the laundry room, throw the durable and dark stuff in one washer, throw the delicate and light-colored stuff in the other washer, put in the soap and quarters, turn the machine on, and then go back to your dorm room.

A couple hours later, you’ll realize that you forgot to take the clothes out of the washer. Go back to the laundry room, find the table where someone dumped all your wet clothes, throw it all in a dryer, set the dryer for 75 minutes or so (more if the dryer is old and burnt out), and go back to your room again.

Remember to get the clothes out of the dryer before they start wrinkling.

I probably only spent an hour a week doing laundry. You really don’t need to sit in the laundry room and watch your clothes while they wash. Just set-it-and-forget-it. If someone steals your clothes, then they were too nice for a college student anyway. :eek:
sanctamaria17 said:
I love college life, but I’m overwhelmed by all the laundry that piles up. I did laundry back home, but that’s when my parents, siblings and I would all take turns. Now, I’m only doing my own laundry and it piles up even though I do it at least twice a week and I reuse pants and towels. How do you guys do laundry for yourselves and your kids and still have time to do anything else? It’s driving me nuts! 😉
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Here’s how I do it…

Have enough clothes to last at least 4 weeks. Your going to need lots of socks and undergarmets for this, but they’re pretty cheap and definatly worth it. I actually have a friend that can go a whole semester, but that is probably out of most people’s reach.

Jeans can be worn way more than 2-3 times. Your in college, if they are not visibly dirty, your good to go. Also, your pajamas don’t get dirty while your sleeping, so wear those multiple nights.

When your finally completly out of clothes, they will take some time to wash. Don’t try to do it on the weekend. When I lived in the dorms we had washers in the basement. If you went down at midnight on a Tuesday you could get at least 6 washers all at the same time. When you have lots of washers, it doesn’t take any longer to wash multiple loads.

Don’t get overwhelmed by piled up laundry, everyone has a closet full of it. You have the rest of your life to worry about stuff like that. Now is the time to meet new people, do new things, and have a great time.

MLB
 
Now, having that many clothes would take up a lot of storage space. Dorm rooms are pretty tiny, after all.
mlbrink said:
Here’s how I do it…

Have enough clothes to last at least 4 weeks. Your going to need lots of socks and undergarmets for this, but they’re pretty cheap and definatly worth it. I actually have a friend that can go a whole semester, but that is probably out of most people’s reach.

Jeans can be worn way more than 2-3 times. Your in college, if they are not visibly dirty, your good to go. Also, your pajamas don’t get dirty while your sleeping, so wear those multiple nights.

When your finally completly out of clothes, they will take some time to wash. Don’t try to do it on the weekend. When I lived in the dorms we had washers in the basement. If you went down at midnight on a Tuesday you could get at least 6 washers all at the same time. When you have lots of washers, it doesn’t take any longer to wash multiple loads.

Don’t get overwhelmed by piled up laundry, everyone has a closet full of it. You have the rest of your life to worry about stuff like that. Now is the time to meet new people, do new things, and have a great time.

MLB
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ack said:
Now, having that many clothes would take up a lot of storage space. Dorm rooms are pretty tiny, after all.
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Well, it worked for me. I generally just wear t-shirts though, and you can fit tons of those in a drawer. I guess if you dressed up for class it would be more of a problem.

MLB
 
When I was in college, I asked for underwear for Christmas-- and worked up to about a 30-40 day supply. That way, I didn’t have to do laundry every time I turned around.

Another strategy was to do laundry with other people. That way we could claim multiple washers/dryers and get our laundry done faster and cheaper. We’d have a “whites”, a “lights” and a “darks” and/or “towels” pile and combine our laundry to make a big load. That also made the time pass faster b/c you had someone to talk to/hang out with.
 
two adults + five kids = alot of dirty clothes!

I do two loads a day. Every day! Except Sunday.
 
I must be an exception here, because my clothes never ‘piled up’. :o I did my laundry when I noticed I was low on underwear or socks. End of story, really… And people stealing clothes??? I’ve NEVER heard of that on our campus!!! 0.o Not to say it won’t happen, but it must be extremely rare!!! I don’t know many people in my res who sit in the laundry room, waiting for their clothes to be done… Anyways, week nights or weekend mornings are a great time to do it. ^^
 
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