DRY CLEANING

Before kids my husband would iron his own shirts and I would wash almost all my clothes except silks and nice work suits. (Activities left over from the “poor after college just starting out years” – you remember those). But, last year we spent on average $100 per month on dry cleaning. Our excuse was “We have kids now and don’t have time for laundry or ironing.” The reality was we had just gotten lazy.

Step One: Have the ironing board & iron set up ready to go.
Step Two: Pull out of the dryer while it is hot (many items won’t need ironing).
Step Three: Iron as you need (then it is 5 minutes or less and not another major hour long job that needs to be done). The night before after the kids have gone to sleep or in the morning.

Step Four: Started reading the labels; wash what is washable. For me that was almost every sweater, blouse and slacks that I had been dry cleaning.

Step Five: Stop throwing everything in the dry cleaning pile before checking to see if it is even dirty.

And, when you do dry clean, do price checking and go where you get the best price for those items you do the most; i.e. men’s shirts.

We added 5 minutes every day to iron one shirt and/or blouse and then one extra load of laundry each week. We are saving $80 monthly and $960 annually.