Did you know that the way you iron can save you money? It is true. No, it won’t save you tons and tons, but one thing I learned from reading that old encyclopedia of frugal, The Tightwad Gazette, is that every little thing counts. Every little change you make that can help you save your pennies can contribute to your frugal lifestyle. And pennies get together and grow up to be dollars, someday.
So here is just another area where you can keep more of your pennies for yourself instead of spending them.
Have you heard of the organizational guru called FlyLady? She helps the organizationally challenged to find ways of keeping a neat and clean home. One thing that she advocates is to do things in little spurts of 15 minutes, so that household jobs will never get to large and overwhelming. Sometimes, though, it is better to do things in bulk, at least from a saving money perspective. Ironing is one of these things. If you can set the time aside to do it, ironing in bulk can save you money.
How?
Well the biggest reason has to do with your iron, which is an energy hog. It takes a lot of electricity to heat it up and keep it hot. In general, anything that generates heats needs a good deal of energy to keep it going. That is why your oven and dryer are two of the more expensive appliances in your home. So the key to saving on that heat is to conserve it. If you bulk iron everything all at once and quickly, you save on the energy it would take to keep reheating that iron, over and over again. If it is already hot, you aren’t expending more energy. In fact, you can usually shut it off right before you iron my last piece of clothing. There is still enough heat left in the iron to perform the job needed, and you’re putting that heat to good use.
Another reason to bulk iron is that it encourages the even wearing of clothes. You know how you have your favorite pieces of clothing that you wear over and over again? Well if you wash and iron the same three items over and over again, they will soon wear out. Performing your ironing task in bulk forces you to wait until you have a build up of ironing to do, so you’ll have to wear more of a selection of your clothing. (And if you just can’t stand the thought of wearing some of the pieces in your closet no matter what, then you know it is time to clean them out and get pieces you will wear.)
Mary Ann Romans also writes for the Computing Blog here at Families.com where she shares everything from the latest news on technology to cool downloads and fun websites.
Related Articles: