The Cost of Laundry Service: Was It Worth It?
Posted on September 17, 2007 by Him and tagged finances, laundry
photo: Melissa Gupta
We blogged a few weeks ago about how busy we were with guests, with our modest apartment being occupied for 11 days in a row. During the time leading up to the arrival of our first guests, both Her and I were busy at work, so any plans of getting our house in order were well-intentioned but difficult to accomplish.
Finally, it came down to the last night before our guests arrived. The house was a mess. There was a heaping pile of laundry that needed to be done. We were feeling quite overwhelmed at the task ahead of us, so we decided that outsourcing either cleaning the house or laundry would be the best method of getting everything done. After a minute or two of deliberation, we decided that we would send out our laundry and tag team cleaning the house.
So we carried our laundry over to the laundromat and had them weighed, and were told it was going to be 80 cents/pound. We had 48 pounds of laundry, so a little simple arithmetic reveals...
80 cents/pound X 48 pounds of laundry = $38.40
So was it worth it? Would we do this again? Absolutely NOT.
First off, the cost of having them do our laundry was higher than I thought in my previous post where I merely pondered this idea. Paying almost $40 every 2.5 weeks to do laundry would cost us
52 weeks/2.5 weeks per laundry event X $40 = $798.72 per year
...almost $150 more than what I previously estimated. By doing laundry ourselves at $16 every two weeks, we spend $332.80, potentially saving $465.92. I don't think I have to explain they benefits of having that money go towards something more useful.
Also, when we got our clothes back, they weren't sorted into piles for each owner of the clothes. The supposed time saved was reduced by the time we had to sort through everything and then put away the clothes.
This is definitely something that we're going to try to avoid. Hopefully we won't have to think about this too much in the future, as we'll be looking for a washer and dryer in the next place that we live.
Comments/Trackbacks
Trackback URL: http://www.makelovenotdebt.com/MT/mlnd-trackbacks.cgi/1149
Wow, great experiment, and thanks for sharing the results. I take it that you normally do your wash at a laundromat, and thus would lose the time while doing laundry? I have laundry in my building and can put a load in the wash and then come back and clean until it's time to put it in the dryer, etc. Anyway, your results are instructive, and your sharing them is appreciated.
maryanna | Sep 17, 2007
I've always wondered if it would be worth it to do this - I've had a few similar situations where I've just run out of time or had a family emergency. Thanks for sharing your results!
Illiya | Sep 17, 2007
My husband and I both work more than 40hours a week. And we only have Saturdays to share with one another. Because of this, we do outsource our laundry out and it is expensive, however, it is better way better than spending our only day off together at the laundry.
lindsey | Sep 18, 2007
Hear, hear. After never having my own washer/dryer, we moved into an apt. that had one. That became a requirement for all subsequent housing. The time savings is worth it - not having to sit around at the laundramat and wait for the laundry to be done!
Ironic that you tried this days after I found that old blog and wrote a post saying I thought it was a bad idea. ;)
I hate going down to the laundry room in our apartment and paying *$1.25* for a wash, and another *$1.25* for a dry (not to mention the towels usually need to go through it twice).
I also hate the fact that you can't just wash one or two things without paying the same price even if you only need those specific items.
Man, I can't wait until I have a house or apartment with hook-ups :-/
Adam | Sep 23, 2007
I drop my laundry off. It's the one thing I hate doing. It's worth the money for me. It is much better than spending 90 minutes a week at the laundromat.
Rue | Sep 17, 2007
The one thing you don't take into account is the cost of your TIME to do the laundry yourself. Yes, you can go and do it yourself for less money out of pocket, but that $40 was FAR less expensive than 2 people spending 2 hours cleaning your house.
Reply to this comment