Comments

Posted by gokings13

We have 5 in our family (3 teens).

My kids do not have a lot of clothes (my son has 4 pair of shorts) so I have to do laundry daily, or they would run out of things to wear!

If you feel it is because you are washing 'clean clothes', I would remove all excess from the closets and drawers, and maybe that will cut down on the wash!

HTH
Laura

Edited by gokings13 on Jul. 15, 2008 at 07:45 AM

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Posted by gabbie427

We are a family of 3 (two parents and a 2 year old), and we do laundry 3 days a week, and it is only one load. We do not have tons of extra sheets and pillowcases, so we usually wash what we have in the morning and put it back on that same day.

As for clothing, we have clothing for 5 days definately, maybe more. Matthew has enough work clothes for 5 days and then when he is home and doing chores, he changes into bluejeans and tshirts. So he almost has 2 wardrobes. Noah and I have enough clothes to wear for the week, but we are in the process of cleaning out the extras.

We do buy most of our clothing (except for under garments, and hubbys work pants), at Thrift shops, so most we haven't paid more than a dollar or two for, but why keep buying more when they either are not worn, or they make too much laundry to handle in a week.

Hope this helps.

God's Blessings,
Amy Jo

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Posted by Jonash2004

I guess I would try to determine what you need the most of.

It's me, dh, and a 2yo and a 9mo. My 2yo needs shirts more than he does pants. Usually his pants stay pretty clean - in particular jeans - and can be worn at least twice and if I pop a clean t-shirt on him before we go out he looks sharp.

I keep a dozen outfits for my 9mo, but I do two loads of laundry a week (3 if I wash towels or sheets) and often he's only worn a handful of outfits from one wash to another. He is super messy, though, so two onesies in a day isn't unusual.

Dh is white collar, and often wears his work shirts multiple times with a clean white tee underneath each day. He also wears his work slacks multiple times. Whatever goes on in the evening goes into the hamper that night - he gets more laundry dirty from 4pm-9pm than the rest of the day! LOL

I try to wear skirts more than once, but unless it's denim it's sometimes too difficult to hide the dirty hands that grab my skirt all day. :) I still probably only wash 2-3 skirts a week, though, just lots of shirts!

I do hope you find something that works for you! :)

Ashley

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Posted by seventhheaven

I have experienced the same problem. We have 5 children and lots of friends giving us clothes. I try to keep only 5 outfits for outside play, about 4 outfits for church, and around three or four each for when you need nice clothes on but not church clothes. They each have three pairs of shoes: play shoes, church shoes, and then a pair of shoes to wear when we go places. If I see Im getting too much clothing I try to find someone who needs it or give it to goodwill.

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Posted by GrandmaRosie

Wow, I know I have to many clothes! I have been trying to give a lot away to family, friends and charity. But I still have to many!!

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Posted by glenda

Like many of the other readers we to are blessed with others giving us clothing. With Five teenagers it seems like they are growing out of thing before they even break them in.
For us we have 1 work clothing outfit- something that can be worn to work in the garden, lawn, on a tractor, on a car etc.. We also have 1 pair of work shoes. For the boys it is boots for us girls it is flip flops...
We have 2 nice church outfits with a pair of dress shoes.. I have two pairs of dress shoes.. white ones and black ones...I love high heels.. :-)
From there I try to keep everything else weeded out. We have at least 6 pairs of daily clothes that we can wear out and about or just for daily clothing. We also have flip flops to wear out and about and the kids have boots... I have boots, flip flops, and high heels to wear with jeans...
I try to keep No more than 10 total outfits for each of us.. Right now i have got to go over my clothes as I was given clothes the other day and well my clothes are just to packed in my closet.
Honestly i think we have toooo many clothes. However like this week where three of my children are off on a mission trip they needed that many clothes.
I do have a rule in my house if i see the same clothes being worn day after day they loose those outfits. period. It really helped me with the issue of my boys not wanting to put there clothes away,..
I pray this helps..
glenda

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Posted by jesusbmylight

We're a family of 10 and we wash our laundry by hand outside. We wash 3 loads twice a week. My sisters and I rotate the chore, so I only have 'laundry day' once a week. It takes about a half hour a load (not bad).

We don't change our clothes everyday, and yes, they're dirty when they're done. :-) Usually, we'll wear the same pair of jeans for one week and possibly the same shirt, unless we sweat in it or something. Those are our work/around the farm clothes so they have their share of stains and rips.

We all have our 'town clothes' too, for the occasions that we go out, but for the majority of our week we're working on the farm so changing those clothes everyday would be insane. (Woe to whoever gets the men's dirty work jeans in their load though! ;-)

I really like doing the laundry by hand, personally. You acquire more of an appreciation for your things when you carefully wash them individually.

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Posted by Livingonaprayer

I've taken some steps to help myself cope, especially now that we are starting our own business added to not being unpacked yet, and homeschooling. I asked my closest friend if she would come help me once a week until the end of the summer. That way she could help me to catch up, and whatever I didn't get done that week she would help plus help me do unpack. She is also a mom of four so she doesn't make me feel bad, and I can stop getting behind. I do pay her $50, but it is well worth it. She works really hard and constant for 5 hours straight, and we work side by side. Hopefully, by the end of summer I will be on track to handle it on my own better and the kids will me more trained. The oldest is 14 and I still have to beg and plead for him sometimes to finish his jobs. Next week we will be having a yardsale. I can't wait! That is less I have to try and keep organized for kids that really don't need it all anyway.

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Posted by ZookeeperCat

At FLYlady.net, I encountered the advice to allow each person a total of 7 outfits. Because my kids don't change their home/farm clothes every day, and because we don't go to town every day (nor do they dirty their "town" clothes so quickly), I'm paring down to 4 "play clothes" outfits and 3 "town" outfits. Add a couple of pairs of shorts and a couple of more formal dresses for each of the girls, and they're good to go.

Likewise, with fewer clothes, it doesn't feel guilty to get rid of everything on a seasonal basis. They outgrow, they wear things out. With secondhand shopping and hand-me-downs, it's okay with me if they get a fresh wardrobe each fall and spring.

Add to that one assigned laundry day for each person (this includes their bedsheets), and it's all becoming manageable.

Cat, Lazy Creek Zookeeper

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