10 Money-Saving Laundry Tips and Some Last Words on Our Electricity Experiment

We got our electric bill today and I am happy to report that it was $69 (down from $112 last month).  After keeping track of our electricity use each day for a month we came to the conclusion that the biggest use of electricity in our home is doing laundry--mostly using the dryer.  So here's how we have managed to keep control of our laundry costs and save money:

1. We switched from warm wash/warm rinse to cold wash/cold rinse.  This saves us the cost of heating the water and I haven't even noticed a difference in the cleanliness of the clothes.
2. I use bleach on the whites so it kills the germs that most people use hot water wash to accomplish.
3. I only use half of the recommended amount of laundry soap in each load of laundry because our clothes really aren't that dirty.
4. I have considered making my own laundry soap (like this) but haven't got around to it yet.  This may help us save even more money.
5. I clean the lint filer in the dryer after each load (I don't want the dryer to work any harder than necessary!).
6. I used to just turn the dryer on for 60-70 minutes but now I turn it on for 30 minutes and add time in increments of 10 minutes if needed (usually our clothes only need about 40 minutes in the dryer to dry completely).
7. I shake out the clothes before I put them into the dryer.  It seems like this makes the clothes easier to dry than leaving them in a clump.
8. I cut our dryer sheets in half (this gives me twice as many dryer sheets per box while cutting down on the chemicals that are spinning around with my clothes).
9. Ideally I would like to hang our clothes to dry since the weather here is perfect nearly year round but the condo association would frown on this.  When we move I am definitely getting a drying rack or clothes line.
10. I try to wear my clothes twice and use my bath towels twice before throwing them into the dirty laundry hamper.  I have never done this before but hubby always does so I thought I would give it a try.  It does decrease the amount of laundry I need to wash each week.