Never Buy Laundry Detergent Again

I don’t know about you, but I can think of about 15 things off the top of my head that I would rather spend my money on than laundry detergent. That said, did you know that the average American household spends between $190-$600 per year. SAY WHAT NOW??? That’s insane. I was one of those households and when I saw that number in an article, I just about fell off my damn chair. I started thinking, “Not this girl. Not this house.” So, I got to work.

I began my quest by hitting up ole faithful, which y’all just know is Amazon. A few hours later, a combination of products had surfaced to solve this little problem and help me maintain custody of more of my hard earned money. Oh yeah, side note, this was all part of a year long quest that I am on to reduce our overall monthly spend and energy bills, so subscribe to my blog at the end of the article to stay with me on this ride.

It should be noted here that my children have eczema, so reducing skin irritants was also on my radar. My goals were simple; reduce allergens and save money. You just know that Amazon delivered the goods. Here’s what I found.

1. Magnetic Laundry System (About $60 for the system)

Ok, I am not going to lie, at first I thought, Bull. There is no way this works, but, I sit corrected as I am typing this blog post. This system really works. There are tons of articles and videos that explain ‘the science’, but here’s the short version.

-The magnets, just like laundry detergent, reduce the surface tension of the water, making it easier for water to penetrate the fibers of your clothing and break away dirt and stains.

-Because there are no chemicals, just the plastic coated magnets, you get to skip the rinse cycle. Hello money savings.

-You don’t need to add anything like detergent, scent boosters, bleach, etc, but the magnets work with all of those things if you want to throw them in.

-Magnets do not disinfect clothing. Then again, neither does detergent. Only things like vinegar, bleach and other disinfectants kill viruses, etc. I know, I thought laundry detergent killed viruses too. Oops.

-Don’t worry, the high temps in the dryer will send those viruses and germs packing. That said, if you really need to disinfect something, just add bleach to your wash when using the magnets. The exact same thing would be true even if you were using laundry detergent.

-If you really want to kill viruses on something that you can not throw in the dryer, just hang it outside in the sunlight on a clothesline.

-As there are no chemicals (like in laundry detergent), you may skip the rinse cycle, because there is nothing to rinse away. OMG, I am just finding money everywhere. No rinse cycle, means reduced energy bills. 🤓

-Your clothing comes out clean, with no scent, no residue, no chemicals, no allergens and no irritants. Since we began using these magnets, their skin issue have definitely calmed down. I guess it never occurred to me that the detergent was causing problems. Duh Raphaela. Oh well, I know now.

-These things save you tons of money. I have read various accounts of people who want to replace this system once every two years. Ok, even still, that’s $60 every other year, not every two months like I was spending before. So, this magnetic laundry system basically costs you $30 per year. Insert happy dance here.

2. Wool Dryer Balls (Roughly $8 for a set of 4)

Yeah, yeah, I said balls. Snicker about it and then let’s get back to business. These things are amazing. They are inexpensive, work like a dream and they are fun to throw at your kids when they won’t put their laundry away 🤓.

We are only a family of three, so our laundry loads are not huge. We use four of them at a time and it works like a charm. You literally just throw these in your dryer when you first open them and that’s it. You don’t need dryer sheets ever again.

Here are some tips;

-They will get lost in your laundry load, so make the kids hunt them down. We make it a game.

-They will reduce your drying time by around 30-50%, so you save money on energy, because your dryer doesn’t run for as long. Bonus, because the dryer is done faster, my home does not get as heated up by running the dryer, win again.

-Static in your laundry, not anymore. This absolutely zaps static in your laundry.

-Wrinkles? Are there little elves with irons in my dryer, because the clothing comes out as wrinkle free as I have ever seen it.

-Scent? Nope, nothing. There is nothing to irritate skin or lungs, just wrinkle and static free laundry, dried in half the time. If you want a scent, just add essential oil to your wool dryer balls and you are all set.

3. Pre Treating Stains  (Around $15 for both)

When it comes to pretreating stains, I always have a bottle of homemade laundry stain spray. I just mix equal parts Dawn Soap and Hydrogen Peroxide with water. I spray it on anything that I think will try to hang on to the piece of clothing and toss it in the wash. However, sometimes, you get those stains that you just know are going to give you a run for your money and that’s where these two products really shine. The stain bar is vegan, cruelty free and all of the good stuff, but it works like it was made in some evil factory. I don’t know what kind of magic that they jam packed into this little bar, but it takes stains out of clothing like bouncers eject a stumbling drunk man at a bar. Stains, you out this club..bye.

This little brush is very densely packed and just gets into the fibers on another level and helps you to break the stains apart. Personally, I just put water on the brush, scrub the brush on the bar and then scrub the garment. Boom, bye stains, bye.

Well, that’s it. That’s how I spend only $38 on our laundry every year. That’s a savings of over $500 per year, um hello family vacay to the beach. 😍

If saving money happens to be your thing too, check out my other post about how we cut our energy bill by 30%, but didn’t change our lifestyle. I love saving money and if you do too, here is the list of items that I have used to cut those costs.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that I have a YouTube video about this whole set up if you want to watch that.

I hope you found this helpful. Please share it with a friend if you know someone who could save some money, so basically everyone with a pulse :-). See you in the next one!