How Laziness Has Made Me Rich Part IV - Laundry and Cooking

Since I am so lazy, and since a three-day weekend is looking me in the face, I decided to compress the last two parts of my series into one, and start fresh on Monday (even though it’s a holiday). Yesterday, I took a Lazy look at two areas of shopping and how my Lazy-self saves money by shopping quickly, knowledgeably, purposefully, or not at all (due to extreme laziness). Today we head back to the house and look at two chores that can cost a lot, but by tapping on that old lazy-bone, can be done economically.

Laundry and Ironing: Even with modern conveniences, this is quite a chore (especially for a big lazy like me). But if I don’t stay on top of it, it quickly becomes an even bigger chore. In fact, even though I’m lazy, I don’t save up laundry for a once-week job. Even in my small two-person household, to do it this way makes a too-huge pile of laundry for me than I like to deal with at once. I will do a load almost everyday. My energy-star washing machine uses a very efficient amount of water for even the smallest load sizes. It spins really super fast, getting a lot of the water out, so drying time is greatly reduced. Except, I don’t much use my dryer because I like to save money on electricity. So, these smaller daily loads are not as much work to hang and air-dry.

I use Charlie’s Soap (www.charliesoap.com) laundry detrgent. Charlie’s Soap is so concentrated that only 1 tablespoon per full load (or less, for smaller loads) will suffice to get your laundry very clean. I purchased the 5 gallon container for $121.00 (shipping included) at the end of March 2008. This amount of detergent will wash 1280 loads, which works out to a per load price (not including water costs, of course) of about .09. Charlie’s Soap is very environmentally friendly (from their website): “our Laundry Powder is a revolutionary approach to laundry care. It does not cover up stains and odors with scents and brighteners - it really cleans. It is made with a unique blend of biodegradable coconut-based detergents and high-grade, completely soluble, Green River washing soda”. This is the best deal I’ve found for “green” laundry detergent. Grocery store options (Seventh Generation et. al.,) are very expensive, even with coupons.

Since my purchase in late March, I see that, like everything else, the price of Charlie’s Soap has gone up. It is now $137.32 per 5 gallon bucket. This works out to a per load price of about .11. Still very reasonable. Since I do an average of 1 load per day, this bucket of detergent will last me approximately 3.5 years. Hooray! That’s 3.5 years that I won’t have to run to the grocery store for emergency detergent! Also, it is delivered right to your door, so very convenient -great news for a big lazy such as myself.

Charlie’s Soap works great in my high efficiency machine, because it is so concentrated. However, when you read the reviews, it seems that this is really a love it or hate it type of product. This seems to have a lot to do with the degree of hardness of your water. I don’t know how hard my water is, but all I can say is that I am a satisfied customer. Here is another instance (like powdered milk) where I think it would be wise to try before you buy. You can buy a smaller (more expensive) package to try out before you decide whether or not you’re willing to invest in the big 5 gallon monster. Or, maybe someone who already uses this product would be willing to “lend” you some for a try-out. A cup or two of it would be a sufficient amount to decide whether you like it or not. I sent some to my sister in California, but I haven’t heard yet how she likes it. I know she will be completely honest in her assessment, so I will let you know what she thinks as soon as she tells me. I hope she does; she has three kids (I don’t have any) so her laundry experiences are naturally quite different than mine.

The least expensive option is to make your own, mixing borax, washing soda , and 2/3 grated bar of Fels Naptha Soap. Borax is easy to find, washing soda not so much. Here in Dallas, however, I have found it at Kroger Supermarket for $2.69 a box (55 oz), Borax for $3.29 a box (76 oz), and Fels Naptha bar soap for $1.19. Making a 2 cup mixture using these ingredients ( 1/2 cup Borax, 1/2 cup washing soda, 2/3 cup grated Fels Naptha, all mixed together makes 2 cups; 1 tablespoon per load = 32 loads) equals about .04 per load which is great. This reportedly also works well in high efficiency machines. But since I’m lazy, I’m going to stick with my delivered, reasonably priced Charlie’s Soap. However, in the interests of furthering Frugal Studies, I will probably make this up some day and try it. I will let you know how it goes. (I didn’t come up with this recipe on my own, it is all over the Web; I don’t know who to give credit for it since many, many Frugals seem to use this exact recipe - I only can say that the credit doesn’t belong to me. The math, however, is mine - I take responsibility for it.)

Ironing: Even when I use my dryer (and I don’t, that much) this is something I still need to do. I figured way back when, that since this was true, I might as well skip the costs of using my dryer and air dry, since I still had to iron anyway. I don’t know how much electricity an iron uses, but I don’t think an hour with an iron can possibly be as much as an hour using my electric dryer.

Ironing is not much fun, especially when I’m eyeballing a huge pile of it. Here again, frequent “smaller” sessions make this dismal chore bearable for me. Also, I only iron things that are going public, like the clothes my husband wears to work. I want to do my part to help my husband to keep his good job (so I can keep being lazy at home) without having to spend a lot on drycleaning so I make sure to make an extra good job of this. I never iron sheets, tablecloths, or underwear! (All items I use daily, but am way too lazy to iron). This is a good time to watch favorite secret-vice tv shows (like Cops on TruTv).

Cooking: It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I don’t view cooking as a fun-filled hobby. Still, I do it because cooking from scratch saves money over eating out. (A lot!). My kitchen, fridge, freezer, and pantry are pretty organized, so I don’t spend a lot of time hunting for what I need. I keep my kitchen clean, so I have the tools I need ready-at-hand. Organization also goes a long way toward taking the sting out of jobs you really don’t like to do (because it helps save time better spent on being lazy). I gravitate toward easy, spicy recipes that I can get on the table in one hour from start to finish. This is almost always how it works: 1. My husband calls me from his office to tell me he is leaving for the day. I know that, with traffic, it will take him an hour to get home. 2. After I get off the phone, I quickly riffle through one of my cookbooks (I’m very familiar with them after all these years) to find something tasty 3. I make it 4. My husband gets home just as it is finished cooking (I almost always time this pretty well) 5. We eat it. Crock pots are also great lazy-tightwad tools.

Dogs don’t care about cooking. They will just eat your favorite cow slippers. Bad doggies!

It turns out that I only usually cook 4 evenings a week, anyway, so this is bearable -Chazz plays poker on Thursday nights (he’s responsible for his own dinner, out of his weekly allowance; I’ll most likely have left-overs), Friday night is date night (we go out to dinner), and Saturdays he barbecues (weather permitting). Breakfast is every man for himself, and I make Chazz lunch to take to work (lunch on the weekends is also every man for himself).

At one time, I became enamored of the Once a Month Cooking system. I really do think that this is a great way to save time and money. However, I had to be realistic about my lazy nature. If I spent three whole days shopping and cooking a month’s worth of meals, (and that is breakfast, lunch, and dinner) I would soon, VERY soon, come to completely loathe grocery shopping and cooking (two things I’m not overly fond of to begin with). This loathing would end up costing me more in the long run - the very idea of an upcoming OAMC session would spur me to go out to eat every day, because I just couldn’t face that much work all at once. Jill Bond estimates she spends 20 hours all-at-once Mega Cooking. She has reached this level of proficiency after many years of OAMC. How long would it take me to achieve this? Nevertheless, even twenty hours cooking over two days is about 18 hours too much for me. I do spend more hours than this cooking and shopping in one month, but it is spread out, and thus more bearable for me. However, if you are interested in finding out more about this I can recommend these books: Mega Cooking by Jill Bond; Frozen Assets by Deborah Taylor-Hough; Once-A-Month Cooking by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg; and The Freezer Cooking Manual by Tara Wohlenhaus and Nanci Slagle. I bought and read all these books during my OAMC phase, and I think that they are all very good. The recipes are very tasty and easy, the instructions are clear, and the results are worthwhile (just not for me). I believe Jill Bond even runs seminars on how to do this.

Well, I hope by now that you have gotten the sense that this has been a very tongue-in-cheek series. Even so, it is quite truthful (my dog really is my low-cost personal trainer in the manner I described). I like my life to be comfortable and stress-free, so I am willing to stay on top of the things that threaten that serenity. The return on my investment of time and effort in pursuits I personally do not greatly enjoy pays handsome dividends in the long run. This keeps me motivated when I’m right in the middle of doing some (to me) boring job.