If your budget is anything like mine, utilities is one of your top five expenses.  In my neck of the woods, it tends to be the electric bill that is the largest.  With temperatures soaring into the hundreds every summer, those air conditioners are churning 24 hours a day.  While a new, more efficient AC is still on the to do list, I do try to reduce our electric consumption as best I can.

I’ve taken several steps to accomplish this and one is to line dry our clothes.  Now, let me be very honest, I am less than dedicated to the effort.  The excruciating heat of last summer took me out of the habit of line drying one load of clothes every day, and I have just now started to get back to it almost a year later.  I am setting a goal for myself for June to only use the dryer one day a week for whites and anything else that I don’t want to be on the line.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate, but it is Oklahoma, so I doubt it.

As far as equipment goes, I purchased two of these retractable clothes lines from Amazon.  Hubby attached them to our porch and screwed a hook on the back fence.  Once installed, just buy some clothespins and you are all set.  I like the retractable ones because they don’t take up any permanent space, but they really cannot hold up to a lot of weight.  Don’t try to hang up a dozen pairs of jeans on these.

My Clothes Line Set-Up

When I consistently line dry, I estimate that is saves me anywhere from $5-10 a month off of the electric bill.  Not a huge amount, but combined with other efforts can lead to a significant reduction in use and expense.  Line drying means that I immediately don’t consume the electricity needed to run the dryer, but also the extra air conditioning used when I heat up the house because of the dryer.  It also puts less wear on our clothes, making them last longer. And, I just find that the five minutes I spend outside with the laundry is surprisingly peaceful.

~ Catie

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