Washing Our Clothes By Hand

I love hanging my clothes outside on the line. Well, let me clarify that. I like the amount of money I'm saving by not using the dryer. I hate crispy clothes. When I got to studying and asking people how to keep clothes soft on the line, the most popular answer was that too much soap left in the clothing is what made them stiff. Washing machines are just not good at getting out all the soap. So the kiddos and I decided to try washing out clothing by hand.

I didn't want to get really financially invested in equipment so I'm just using what I have on hand. I've got a 5 gallon bucket to do the washing, a large Rubbermaid tub for rising and a clean, never used toilet plunger to agitate. I put very little soap in the bucket the first time and ended up with WAY too much suds. Now I use maybe a tablespoon of laundry soap and a splash of vinegar.

One thing I hadn't counted on is how much the kids LOVE doing laundry this way. They love using the plunger to agitate the clothes and then stirring them around in the clean water afterward. I think their most favorite is being able to play in the rinse water when all the laundry is hung up. I vote this counts as a bath.

So far I've done this twice and I'm really liking the results. My laundry is drying on the line and staying dryer soft. The only things that are proving difficult is that its really hard to get all the water out without some type of wringer. Ideally I would like to get 2 of those commercial mop buckets (these) and use one for soap and one for rinse. I think the kids would really like to pull the handle for the wringer too. I'm gonna keep doing this for a few weeks before I decide to invest in something more permanent.