Save Money and Be Nice to your Clothes so they Last Longer

Some aspects of cheap home living require just a little attention and common sense to save time and money.  Taking care of your clothes is one of those common sense actions that can save consumers money over time by making clothes last longer.

Constantly washing and drying clothes over time puts a tremendous amount of wear and tear on the garments and shortens their useful life.  There are several clothes care techniques that can help extend the life of your clothing and in turn save money and save resources.

A big contributor to clothing damage is the dryer.  One easy trick to avoid the damage caused by the dryer is to either limit the use of the dryer or not dry clothes completely through the use of the dryer.  Using a clothes line or drying racks to dry clothes can reduce the damage done by the hot dryer.  For those consumers that have limited space for drying racks or a clothes line, spreading the clothes out to do the last 10% of the drying will not only help reduce the wear and tear but also reduces static clean.  Less dryer use also means less electricity or gas use which saves even more money.

When damage on a garment is spotted, it should be repaired as soon as possible.  The longer the clothes are used, the bigger the tear is likely to become and the harder it will be to repair.  Patching up the damaged clothes is certainly cheaper than buying new ones.  Mending torn or ripped clothes can also turn into a fun process by altering the look or material in the damaged garment.  Try repairing ripped jeans with a different fabric, such as fleece or leather, where the tear was.

Turning clothing inside out and washing them in cold water is a good way to avoid fading colors.  This process may be especially important with jeans.  Hot water is tougher on both the clothes and their colors.  Cold water for washing has many benefits including, lengthening the life of garments and lower electric bills.  There is some debate that warmer water helps release dirt particles better but the cost appears to make hot water washing unwarranted.  The clothes washer consumes over 75% of its energy for heating the water.

Be careful about using fabric softeners.  Fabric softeners, contain petrochemicals that can damage clothing.  Fabric softeners add a film to the fabric which can spoil the colors as well as leave spots on the clothes.  Fabric softeners are also not terribly environmentally friendly. 

Be careful when hanging and separating your clothes in the closet or in a drawer.  Poor handling causes wrinkles and wrinkles leads to having to iron the garments.  Sweaters and delicates should be folded on a shelf to avoid using hangers, which can damage delicate knits.  Wire hangers should also be avoided since they can harm shirts and blouses. 

Careful clothing care can preserve the clothing longer while saving money and energy use.