PSA: for the love of God send out your laundry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God level option- let DH do the laundry and get him to actually do it WELL.

OMG no. If I were going to pick some tasks for DH to take over it wouldn't be something I can pay $30/week to outsource. Vacation planning maybe...

My husband does both.

My husband does all laundry too. Not vacation planning but I actually enjoy that. I really continue to be annoyed by the infantilization of DHs. They can do stuff!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get this.

Laundry is the easiest thing to do: toss it in, hit a button, walk away.

What am I missing here?

It’s not like scrubbing toilets or floors.

Heck, even my 8 year old knows how to do laundry.

If you're living out of baskets of clean laundry, it's not easier to send out. If you're not, it's a lot more than that.

How?

You still need to put it away if you outsource.

Laundry is easy. Teach your spouse and kids to fold and put clothes away.

#lifeskills

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get this.

Laundry is the easiest thing to do: toss it in, hit a button, walk away.

What am I missing here?

It’s not like scrubbing toilets or floors.

Heck, even my 8 year old knows how to do laundry.

If you're living out of baskets of clean laundry, it's not easier to send out. If you're not, it's a lot more than that.

How?

You still need to put it away if you outsource.

Laundry is easy. Teach your spouse and kids to fold and put clothes away.

#lifeskills

I am not PP but laundry is WAY more than putting it in and pushing a button.

Laundry the overarching house chore is

1) Monitoring kid's clothes to ensure they are done on a schedule
2) Getting everything in and changing (yes this is the button pressing easy part but you still have to do it on a timeline or you end up having to repeat)
3) Folding, something I loathe with the fiery passion of a million suns and would outsource in a second if this wasn't DH's chore. You just like, skim over this like it is nothing when for me this is the problem with laundry
4) Monitoring the sizes of the kid's clothes and pulling out items they have outgrown and also flagging if they are low on a certain type of clothing that needs to be replaced
5) Getting all the respective laundry into all the respective rooms and THEN into the drawers

Sure not all of these are time consuming, but they all need to happen or else there are clothes everywhere. Laundry is a high volume tedious chore.

It is my MOST HATED chore, which is why DH does it haha.

[Anonymous]

I have to send laundry out when traveling. They use shtty detergent and dry on the scalding cycle shrinking and tearing up everything.

In contrast, laundry takes zero time. Everyone folds and puts away their own sht.

Much better things to outsource for the money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God level option- let DH do the laundry and get him to actually do it WELL.

OMG no. If I were going to pick some tasks for DH to take over it wouldn't be something I can pay $30/week to outsource. Vacation planning maybe...

Um what chores fit the cost/benefit calculation for your DH?

Well we're both in biglaw so admittedly not a lot. But if we both had to take much lower paying jobs and re-evaluate the budget, laundry is what would stay before many other things.

Congratulations 🙄

[Anonymous]

I only buy one kind of socks for this reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to send laundry out when traveling. They use shtty detergent and dry on the scalding cycle shrinking and tearing up everything.

In contrast, laundry takes zero time. Everyone folds and puts away their own sht.

Much better things to outsource for the money.

In my experience family members refuse to fold and put away. Stuff just sits there and they use the piles for their closet. Infuriating.

[Anonymous]

I think this is SOOO personal. You make a good, solid argument that it's worth it.

But for me:

1) I don't mind doing laundry. It's warm. There are built in breaks. The result is satisfying. It's not hard. So it's not something I put off, or that even bothers me. I do it religiously, and I'm never behind, so it's not a stressor.
2) I'm VERY finicky about my clothes. What gets hung, how it gets washed, how I deal with stains, how it gets folded. I pull warm clothes out of the dryer really quickly and fold them right away so they don't get wrinkled. So when my washer broke and I had to send my laundry out for about a month, I was very disappointed in the end results.

Whereas for me, the absolute best bang for my buck is a cleaning person. We pay $165 for a monthly clean and I swear it's the best money we spend every month. I feel the way that you do about laundry about the cleaning - everyone should do it! So worth it! But then, I hate cleaning, I always put it off, I don't really care if it's done super super well (or frequently, obviously, lol) and having that tasks just permanently crossed off my list is AMAZING.

[Anonymous]

When/how do you teach your kids to be responsible for themselves? Cleaning is part of responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to send laundry out when traveling. They use shtty detergent and dry on the scalding cycle shrinking and tearing up everything.

In contrast, laundry takes zero time. Everyone folds and puts away their own sht.

Much better things to outsource for the money.

In my experience family members refuse to fold and put away. Stuff just sits there and they use the piles for their closet. Infuriating.

You can't change the actions of your DH too easily, but you can force your kids to do it. Don't raise little slackers- make them do their laundry and put it away! No one is going to want to cohabitate or marry sloppy people, so don't raise them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh I love doing laundry. I can't imagine sending it out. I love ironing too. I watch TV while doing it. There is something very satisfying about those nest stacks of folded laundry.

I always tell my DH that when I retire I am going to work in the Costco clothes section where I can go around and refold clothes all day.

I do have weekly house cleaners. I am not down with that.

PP I could have written this. I love laundry. The neatly folded piles are therapeutic. It gives sense and order to my world.
I worked at the GAP as a teen so I am an expert folder.

During COVID we upped our cleaners from every other to every week. Being home all day we really do seem to generate more mess.

OP, I am with you. I work with outsourcing vendors and contracts all day long, so I feel it is my duty to practice what I preach and outsource.
I outsource the cleaning, the grocery shopping, the driving (to uber .

Laundry sounds like a great choice if do don't like it, which most people don't.

BTW I might also have a bit of laundry outsourcing trauma. Freshman year of college my parents got me laundry service. It wasn't great. A few months in I learned how to wash my own clothes and my roommates and I sent our towels and sheets to the service instead.

[Anonymous]

Too gross for me. Never.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is silly.

It’s much easier for each person to do their own laundry. Now house cleaners are a worthwhile expense!

If you can teach my 2 yr old and newborn to do their own laundry I’ll pay *you* $30/week

But a 2 year old's clothes are small and incredibly simple to wash. Honestly, it's only now that my kids are 5 and 7 that I can see how laundry is going to bog me down long term. The kids clothes are BIGGER and take up more room. They have full sized bedding that needs to be washed. They have sports teams where the uniform needs to be cleaned on a schedule. Their towels are normal size.

Baby and toddler clothes, smaller towels, crib bedding can all go into ONE CYCLE. It's very simple with little ones. I used to even wash some of my stuff mixed in. Now my 7 year old already has a once weekly VERY full load. It will get a bit easier with summer clothing/pajamas which take up less room.

Plus, baby stuff kind of needed to be done frequently. I can’t imagine waiting a week to wash throw up blankets or blowout onesies.

[Anonymous]

Hell no, that would stress me out.

I don't want strangers dealing with my underwear, or throwing expensive activewear in the dryer - costing me much more money if damaged.

It's so much easier for me mentally, to do our own laundry.

[Anonymous]

We send out our laundry too and it was absolutely life changing. I'll happily clean the bathroom and cook dinner, but I *hate* laundry.
I am so impressed and mystified by people who say it's so easy. It's at least 4 different steps, that you have to do at the right time. Invariably I get distracted, forget to move from the washer to the dryer and have to rerun musty clothes, or forget to take them out of the dryer and have wrinkly clothes.