I have a friend in Utah who is a stay-at-home mom of seven (yes, 7!) kids, whose hubby is an elementary school teacher (he may be a principal by now, but the point is, he works in public education). She is far more qualified to write this blog than I am, I'm sure! But, since she is not a blogger, from time to time, I'll share some of her frugality tips. Today, it's using a clothesline in the summertime. She writes:
One more thing we did...now that it is finally summer...I had [hubby] tie a rope across our backyard. After I do the laundry the loads (minus socks and underclothes) go out to dry. It's amazing how quicky they are dry...I do throw them in the dryer for about 10-20 minutes to soften them up...saving on the power bill so we can have some air conditioning. And once again, with 7 kids...we have a lot of laundry!
Fortunately, she lives in an area where using a clothesline is feasible; I just don't know how often I would be able to confidently put a load of laundry out on the clothesline without worrying about it getting rained on before it was dry.
Getting back, though, to the title of this post: they air-dry the majority of their laundry in the summertime so they can afford to run their air-conditioning. Is there some energy use you can "trade" for some savings? It might be air-drying your clothes; it might be not running a TV in the background just for the noise. The options are endless!
