I am consumed with jealousy. Yes, oh, so jealous. Why? Because on a walk today, I realized that almost every one of the houses in my neighborhood has something glorious in their back yard. Today’s experiment: Line Drying.
There is a little plot of grass nearby our home that I assume used to have a house on it. It is a empty plot, but alone in the middle of it stands two metal T-shaped poles. I would not be Miss Thrifty if, on every walk, I had not considered seeing if I could get permission to dig those suckers up and replant them behind my apartment building. Either that or drive my wet clothing down there every weekend.
I read something recently that said that if you line dry three loads of laundry a week, you will save $10. Umm, can you say “awesome?” That is seriously not a lot of effort for $10.
We often did line drying outside when I was a kid. Also, I used to live in Europe and we did line drying inside on racks. From my experience, I can tell you that there are three drawbacks to line drying.
Number one, your towels will be hard and scratchy, not soft and fluffy. Really, this annoyed me a lot when I was a kid, but I can tell you that I would do it in a heartbeat now, no looking back.
Secondly, it does take a little time and effort. But seriously, $10 a week plus you get a little added exercise, not to mention some Vitamin D and fresh air.
Lastly, winter. We did not line dry in winter in my household growing up because it is cold where I grew up and I bet the laundry wouldn’t dry very quickly. Or they might have turned to ice. In Europe, we had to line dry out of necessity and that included the winter. The laundry dried very quickly when we had it in front of the wood-burning stove. The laundry that was relegated to hallway took several days to dry and then smelled like mold and still felt moist. This is assuming you are living in a location that gets cold in the winter.
Here is a line drying tip that I have not yet had the opportunity to try out. I once read that if you place your whites on some grass in the sunshine, it’ll bleach them whiter. Isn’t that crazy? The combination of the sun’s rays and the oxygen being emitted from grass does this for you.
Go ahead, get out there, make me jealous, and line dry your laundry.