Tips for Keeping a Clean House: The Laundry Monster

Laundry. *eye twitch*

It's pretty safe to say I HATE doing laundry. I mean.... I hate it. I hate laundry like I hate getting teeth pulled without Novocain. Like spinach in my teeth on picture day. I hate doing laundry like I hate running into my husband's ex-girlfriend and seeing that she looks way hotter than me.... ya know? I loathe doing laundry. I hate it. Did I mention I hate laundry? Yeah. I hate laundry.

But, it's a thing. It's a real deal, big girl, grown up, congrats-you've-got-your-own-life thing and there's no getting around it.

I don't have an Earth shattering, end all, be all set of "rules" to go by when it comes to doing laundry, only that it gets done regularly. I started doing my own laundry when I still lived at home with my parents, and it hasn't gotten easier over these past...... over these many years... let's not talk about how long it's been.

I have a little bit of a routine when it comes to doing my laundry, and so I thought I'd share it with you all today.

I love y'all. You know that? Right? The title of this blog is the "SIMPLE" life, not the "PERFECT" life. There is no such-a-thing in this world, so don't judge me on account of my super full closet, or my power cords hanging haphazardly underneath my shelf... I'm not perfect, and I certainly hope that you don't think I am trying to pretend I am.



With that being said, let's hop into it! (And you'll get a mini tour of my laundry room too!!)


Laundry for us starts in our closet. All of our dirty clothes get dumped here.

I keep our basket small, so that I don't overwhelm myself with clothes. When the basket (the one pictured was from Family Dollar about 4 years ago.) gets to this point (full) I know it's time to wash clothes. (When it's still filling up I like to wash my towels, rugs etc...) It fills up about every 3 days or so. This basket equals one "large" load of laundry, to me it's more like a medium though.


Here is our washer & dryer. It's a Kenmore Elite set that we bought in the fall of 2009 at Sears -right before we got married. They've held up so so well and I am super pleased with them.

I decided, when we started working on the house pre-wedding, that I wanted my utility room/laundry space painted a happy clean color, and so I chose this blue from Sherwin Williams - I'm sorry, I can't remember the name - because of how pretty the blue and white looked together, and it's the one room in the house that I haven't reconsidered the color on. We took this room from NASTY brown paneling to this and I love it. My ironing board cover is from Wal-Mart and I liked that it had the EXACT same color blue as the walls! ;) Again it's from Fall 2009, so I doubt that it's still available.


Organization is KEY and it's a huge part of keeping your laundry monster at bay. I have STRUGGLED SO HARD in this space with organization, and if you were to be standing in the room with me, you would know that on the opposite side of the room, it's all cray-cray. But the laundry side of this room has finally come around. I used these four white stacking bins (Dollar General circa 1997) to hold my stain removers (I don't need those a lot, so they go on top), lost socks, laundry bags (like for delicates) and then the top bin on the right holds extra mouse traps and D-Con packs.... old house, people. It maximizes all that vertical space we have in this room. The ceilings are easily 12ft tall in this room, as it used to be part of the carport, but it was closed in to make this room.

I LOVE this system, and I loved that thinking outside of the box helped me create this space using the bins that I already had. They had been in my Dad's workshop before he passed away, and when my Mom moved from that house, I laid claim to them.

Just because it's a laundry room does not mean that it can't be cute. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that this room is Pinterest Perfect (are those really peoples homes??? Like really really? Who lives that perfect?) But I wanted a little decoration in here so that I didn't go crazy.

This home has endless love and laundry.

So true. So so true.

I found this free printable on Pinterest and it's from a website called 247moms.com. I will link it for you HERE. And the lamp and lampshade I got from Dollar General a couple of years ago. Unfortunately I haven't seen the shade again there, but they still have the base (although now it looks more green than blue...) I framed the printable in an old black Dollar Tree frame and then using some red hemp cord from my jewelry making stash hung it on the wall and think it's super cute!


Ok, so back to laundry itself. I have this handy dandy little step down into my laundry room, and so to save my back (which isn't happy at all today as I type, idk what I did but it's mad at me) I set my basket on this step and load my washer.

I don't sort anything. Except towels. Lights, darks, whites, reds, they all get thrown in together. I wash everything on the "Tap Cold" setting and I haven't had a problem with color running, ever. This is a time saver/lazy girl thing that I do. If you are a sorter, sort. Sometimes, just for the heck of it, I'll sort out a white load and use a little bleach on them, but just to say that I sorted laundry and did a whites load that day.

I have a very small arsenal of products that I use in my laundry. I use ALL with Oxi Clean detergent. I buy the one in the blue bottle with the orange top because Aaron says it smells like candy and he likes it better than the regular ALL in the white bottle. Whatever. It's not a huge price difference, if any at all, so I do that. I alternate these days between using Downy and Vinegar as my fabric softener. Now, wait a second before you start throwing things at me. Missy, I thought you were an exclusive vinegar user in your laundry..... Y'all remember my Save Money, Skip Fabric Softener post from a few months ago?? In my defense, I did not buy the Downey. My Mom bought it and didn't like it, so she gave it to me. I haven't noticed a difference in my clothes, so I'm using it up, and I use the vinegar on my bedsheets, towels and rugs. And I throw in some Downey Unstoppables for extra smell goods.


After my clothes have washed, I throw the clothes in the dryer and let them dry. When that loud, annoying, wonderful buzzer goes off, I rush into the laundry room and immediately start folding and hanging. (And you see, I'm not a faker, whites and all are in that dryer!)

The basket that you see on top of the dryer came from Dollar General and that's what everything gets folded into. The rug was a TJ Maxx find when I re-did my bedroom at my parents house in 2008, just before I met Aaron. It's an oldie.  I have a hook hanging behind the door that I put my hanging things onto, and then when I'm ready to put it all away I grab the basket and the hanging things and off to the bedroom I go!



It's simple, it's lazy, but it keeps my clothes clean. Rarely does my laundry ever pile up. But my washer is always running. This is how I stay on top of the craziness. It's not groundbreaking, but it works for me, and that's what is important. Find a system that works FOR YOU and for YOUR FAMILY. Us wives/moms have the hardest jobs of all, whether you are a full time working mom or if you stay home like I do, and if you find a system that works, that doesn't overwhelm you and drag you down, stick with it. For me, that means not sorting laundry and only doing small loads every day. Am I perfect? Nope. Is my home perfect? Far from it. Perfect doesn't exist people. Remember that. Perfect isn't a real thing. I didn't say my laundry "never" piles up. I said it "rarely" piles up. "Whatever is good for your soul, do that."



Thank you all for hanging out and doing laundry with me today! I'll chat with you all again very soon!  Love y'all chickens! See ya later Alligator!

Downey Unstoppables in Your Wax Warmer!

My Wax Warmer. The Simple Life © Please excuse the brightness.

Why didn't we, as the human race, think of this before??

A lot of you are probably familiar with my post on my Better Homes & Garden's Wax Warmer (See the post here) and in that post I raved about how much I loved my warmer.

The warmer I was raving about had been a gift from an old girlfriend of mine for my birthday and was the white version of the warmer shown in the blog post.

Sadness struck not too long after that post was published. The warmer got knocked off the shelf and broke into two pieces. Because I loved it so much, I glued it back together and continued to use it.

 One afternoon I was in Wal-Mart with my Mom and we wandered over to the warmer isle and I saw one I just had to have, on sale for $10, $5 off the original price. It now lives on my piano, next to a picture of me and my Dad when I was a baby. (My big brother had dressed me up like a wild Indian at Cracker Barrel one afternoon and thought it was hilarious. Brothers.)


Here's the tip! And it's been going around for a while now, but I thought I'd mention it because it really does work and I love it! You can find lots of pins on Pinterest in regards to putting Unstoppables in your warmers, so you may want to check some of those out as well.

Instead of spending the $2.00 for a package of the warmer wax, use some of your Downy Unstoppables in your warmer!

Downy Unstoppables.

I use the kind with the blue top, in the"Fresh" scent. It fills my house with the smell of cleanness and I love it. I just pour out a cap full and dump it into my warmer and in a few minutes the little blue dots melt together and the smell starts floating through my home.

I find that I don't have to change the wax out hardly at all, because the Unstoppables have such a good staying power to them... if that makes sense.  This is a great trick that everyone should try! I haven't used a single square of my wax since I started using this tip! 



Ok, now for a funny story!

On occasion I will ask my Aaron to run by the store on his way home from work and pick up some household items that we need. Paper towels, toilet paper, laundry detergent etc. Whenever I ask him to get Downy Unstoppables, I ask him to pick up the one with the blue top. It's easy enough for him to understand and we have no problems with it. He always gets the right one.

Well back in December I was laid up (for the entire month it felt like, I'd be sick a week and better a week and sick a week and so on...) with the stomach bug that swept through our community. I was vomiting a lot and making a general mess out of my clothes, so I was washing a lot of nasty clothing and I ran through my "try me size" bottle of Unstoppables (the only size offered at Dollar General at the time) within a couple of days. One Friday afternoon my Mom was heading to our house after work and stopped by the store to get me a few things to try and eat. She asked if I needed anything household wise and I told her yes, I needed some Downy Unstoppables, the kind with the blue top, like I always tell Aaron. "Ok, no problem," she says. A few minutes later I get a text message from Mom with a picture of the Downy Unstoppables shelf, with the blue top one front and center, and it says:

"They don't have one with a blue top, They have Light Pink, Dark Pink, Purple and this Aqua type color. Which do you want instead?"

I start laughing and tell her that the Aqua is the one with the blue top and she starts laughing and grabs me a bottle. When she gets to our house about 10 minutes later, we are still laughing and I tell her that next time I'll be more specific with her, and that just saying "blue" usually does it for Aaron. I'm not used to having to state the specific shade of blue! That's the difference between men and women folks. Blue works for my hubby, however I have to specify that it is Aqua for my Mom to understand it! HA!

We laugh about it every time we are in a store together and see the Unstoppables. "No blue!" she'll say.


Ok, so there's your tip (and funny story) for today!


Hope you have as much success with this as I do!! Have a great rest of the day!

*I am not being perked by Better Homes & Gardens, or Downy for mentioning their products, I just love them!

Save Money; Skip Fabric Softener

*gasp!* But Missy, I like my fabric softener. I like for my clothes to smell nice.

And I don't??? (that's sarcasm, by the way:)

 Seriously, is there any body out there reading this that DOESN'T like for their clothes to smell nice?

What I'm about to share with you may ruffle some feathers, and may not be well received by some, but trust me on this, it works, and every dollar you save adds up.

This post required a little online research on my part, because I haven't purchased fabric softener in years, and today is Monday, clothes laundry day (who am I kidding, every day is laundry day) at my house, so I figured today would be a good day to share!


So, here's my tip. Ready? Ok. Take a breath, it'll all be fine.

Heinz White Distilled Vinegar

Skip your fabric softener. USE VINEGAR.

Yes. Vinegar. White, distilled vinegar.

Eeeew! I don't want my clothes to smell like vinegar!  It's a valid argument. You would think, as strong a smell as vinegar has on its own, that washing your clothes with it would cause your clothes to smell like a deviled egg. But it doesn't.



I use the same amount of vinegar as I would fabric softener, and add it in at the beginning of my wash cycle, in the same place I would put my fabric softener. The smell is completely rinsed away, my clothes are softer, my towels are out of this world fluffy -even my cheap dollar store towels. I do use the Downey Unstoppables in my laundry, but I am in love with the smell of those wonderful little things, and I buy them (and my laundry detergent, couldn't get the knack of making it myself) in bulk at Sam's Club. So I'm saving some more cash there!

It seems that the vinegar helps keep my white clothes whiter (I don't sort anything, everything gets washed on the cold water cycle and I've only had an issue with color bleeding twice in the 10 years since I was 15 and started doing my own laundry), and my colorful clothes brighter. Reds are redder, blues are bluer... you get what I'm sayin'.

 Vinegar gives you the same effect as fabric softener, and is greener, and cheaper (but I'll get to that. Hang on a titch). I'm not a "green" freak. I'm not into all the environmentally friendly stuff, I probably should be, but I'm not, sorry. 

Vinegar -as some of my coming posts will tell you- is a household necessity in my home. I clean something or wash something using vinegar EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. And it works better than anything I can buy at the store.


So let's do a little price comparison, shall we?

A 51 oz bottle of fabric softener (about 61 loads) costs $3.99 at Target. I do at least 1 load of laundry a day, most of the time two. So 51 oz would last me around a month, maybe a month and a half. In my online research I found up to a 170 oz. bottle for $15.31 on eBay. They say it will last up to 197 loads, doing a load a day that will last you about 6 1/2 months. Or like me, two loads a day, around 4 months.  WOW, that's a deal! Let me go to eBay right now!!! I'll buy it in bulk!

STOP! Wait! I'm not done! I purchase a 128 oz bottle of white distilled vinegar for $2.37 at Save a Lot (typically the big bottles of vinegar are on the bottom shelf at the grocery store, I buy one every time I'm at the store, whether I need it or not, I'm hoarding vinegar.) And how many loads of laundry does it do? Well, as I do around 2 loads of laundry per day, every day, without fail (I wash something every day, clothes, rugs, bedding, curtains, dog beds... my washer runs constantly. I'm a clean freak, what can I say?) my 128 oz bottle that I purchased for less than $3 lasts me 8 months. Yes. 8 months.

(I'd like to add a disclaimer here. I use one bottle of vinegar for laundry and laundry only, and use another bottle to mix my DIY household cleaners etc.)

I saved $12.94 cents and have enough product to add to every single load of laundry for 2 months longer than the 170 oz bottle of fabric softener. $12.94 is a huge amount of money to save, to me anyway! Even if you buy the 51 oz bottle of fabric softener at $3.99, buying the vinegar still saves you $1.62. Either way, you are saving money! And we all know how HAPPY that makes me!!

The best part of this, to me, is that it's hypoallergenic. I have eczema and dry skin so badly on my shoulders and arms and so when I was growing up my Mom was only ever able to use certain kinds of laundry products (I use ALL detergent, because it, too, is hypoallergenic. My husband likes the kind in the blue bottle with the orange top because he says it smells like candy. I say he needs to see a head-shrinker.), or otherwise deal with me scratching my arms and back until I bled. When I started doing my own laundry at 15, we had settled on a brand of detergents from Amway. I used them up until Aaron and I had been married about 2 years, and after a while, with money being tight, I chose to stop using the Amway products because of their expense. I fiddled with different kinds of detergents for a few months until my mom suggested I start using ALL and Vinegar. BOOM! I haven't had an issue with my detergent or fabric softener making my eczema worse in the 2 years that I've been using these products together.


So whether you want to save $13 or $2, whether you have eczema, or whether you just wanna see if it'll work, give the vinegar a try. It WILL save you money and it WILL NOT smell up or hurt your clothes, towels, rugs, bedding etc.


I swear by this method. I will continue to use vinegar as my fabric softener for the rest of my life. It is wonderful, and inexpensive. And who could ask for more?


Thanks for stopping by today!
Happy Laundry Day! (I'm headed back to my mountain of laundry right now!!)

In posting this, I mean no ill will toward any company that produces a fabric softener. I simply have learned to adapt to what I need in order to not itch like a crazy woman, and look like Baloo from "The Jungle Book" scratching up against a tree. The ALL Laundry Detergent company is not perking me for mentioning their product, and neither is Heinz, or Amway. I pulled the photograph of the vinegar jug from Google. Thanks Google. I use whatever off brand of vinegar I can find, because it is cheaper and vinegar is vinegar. Also, vinegar does not expire or go bad. So stock up on it!