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Recently I moved into a new home. Overall I am pretty pleased with my apartment selection. It is much different than most of the places I have lived--new construction (and by this I mean built since 1960), designed to be an apartment (rather than a cute old house oddly divided into multiple apartments), devoid of character but rich in space and storage. I even have off-street parking! The one thing this place is missing is a laundry room. And a certain je ne sais quoi. I may have rented some crazy, poorly designed and horrifically inefficient places in the past but for at least a decade I have had an in-house washer and dryer. And personality. No longer. My baskets of soiled garments and I are back to schlepping to the laundrymat, and I just want to call foul. Laundrymats, I tell you, are a very bad idea. While I would rather have a laundrymat than scrub my unnerwears on a rock down by the river, the laundrymat only wins out by a sliver.
Let's talk a little, my friends, about the costs of laundry. For in-home laundry, you've got the initial investment in the machines. This can be a pretty hefty expense, but it doesn't have to be. There's always deals to be had. Then there's the energy expense. 
If you look at this handy chart you will note that annual energy costs for a washer and dryer hovers around $80/year (washer + dryer = $160ish every year). According to the DOE, these numbers can be improved by washing in cold, using less water, cleaning that dratted lint trap, and investing in Energy Star appliances. Wise words, DOE, wise words. Okay, let's recap. The annual expense of running your own washer and dryer is about $160 a year, plus an initial expense of whatever you paid for the machines (let's say $350 for some used but still Energy Star certified units). Total expense for the first year? $510. Every year after that? $160. Over a 5 year period (60 months), that works out to just under $20 a month for clean clothes galore, with the added bonus of no schlepping. Instead, all this laundry can be done while you are comfortably ensconced on the sofa knitting and watching reruns of Trading Spaces on TLC. (Not that I would ever be found doing just that, not me.)
There is a sizable portion of the population that does not have the opportunity to have an in-home laundry experience. While the 'rents house is often a good choice, some people's mothers feel that by the time her kids have reached their 30's, schlepping laundry home just isn't appropriate. More importantly, some people's fathers feel that by the time his kids have reached age 18 they should be 100% self-sufficient. If the kids can't take care of themselves, the armed forces are always an option. Uncle Sam is a great caregiver! The aforementioned rock down by the river remains an option, but even with some Dr. Bronner's, I feel that environmentally this isn't the way ahead--not to mention the labor involved! The remaining option seems to be to visit a local laundrymat, which is what I did last weekend after reaching the bottom of my underpants pile. Near my home is a perfectly serviceable neighborhood laundrymat, the 12th Street Laundry. Also, this is the place I regularly did my laundry 10+ years ago when I last had no washer and lived a block away. I have to say, the 12th Street Laundry has quite a racket going on.
I walked in with two baskets of washing, a jug of Tide, a box of Bounce, and a roll of quarters. In the recent past, my washing would have been divided into 4-5 medium loads separated by color and fabric weight. After discovering that the cost to run each washer through one load would take $1.50, I quickly dumped my stuff into 3 washers, filling them to the brim. The cost for the dryers was even more horrifying. At a steep 25ยข for each 7 minutes, my quarters rapidly filled the laundry's coffers. By the time my roll was empty, my towels were still damp and even a couple tee shirts yearned for another hot-aired spin. If I don't find a better option soon, I'm going to have to reintroduce another decade-old trend--ramen noodles as a diet staple. Even if I keep my laundry to a minimum and push my love of hot fluffy towels into a deep and dark forgotten place, that is still $10/week for laundry. That's $40/month, double the cost of laundry at home! Over a 5 year period, that's an additional $1200. I don't know about you, but I feel like I would like to spend that $1200 on something other than LAUNDRY!
In summation I am going to attempt to make this laundrymat assessment not all about me, even though it really is all about how I want to sit on the sofa and knit and watch something off the Tivo while the laundry does its thing in the other room. And I want my twenty bucks a month back. [Insert rant about The Man and The Poor and Who Has A Washing Machine and Distribution of Wealth.] Thank you and goodnight. I've got to go scrub my socks in the sink. Somebody needs lunch money.
I wonder if, in becoming used to having your own laundarying appliances, you have also become used to laundered clothing and linens... As someone who hasn't ever had her own laundering appliances, except at the parents', I am accustomed to being choosy about my insertion of items into my laundry basket. For example, rather than do all of my laundry at once, I select those items which are more important to be clean than others. What is more, I own an abundance of things like socks and underwear so that I can go several weeks without needing launder them. Additionally, most of the time I am unable to dry my laundry, so I drape my wet items around my apartment to dry. I hope that these ideas assist you in your efforts.
Annndd... there is always the option of coming to a friend's house to do laundry on the weekends (esp when she's away and you're watching the kitty!). Plus, you can totally pretend that you actually like this friend enough to hang out for the amount of time needed to do 3 loads. ^_^
I see a big bottle of Febreze in your future!
Just maybe, Devlyn, sometimes one feels that popping over to a friend's house to hang out for hours to do one's laundry might be something of an impostion. (Though, obviously, when one is baby kitty watching, laundry is included.)
