No washing machines

One of my goals when I eventually have my own land and live off grid is to live with as minimal electricity as possible. This means forgoing high amperage appliances like a washing machine and dryer. Being able to do your own wash at home is great if you have a family but as a single guy it seems like visiting the laundromat once a week is a fairly small price to pay for never having to worry about machines breaking down or having a big power and water supply.

People warn you that you should always stick around the laundromat to watch your clothes and make sure nobody steals them. But honestly most of my clothes are inexpensive and non fancy. I buy a lot of my casual clothes from Walmart. In most small towns people are honest and who is going to interrupt your wash at any rate? I make sure not to leave wash unattended when it’s not going, planning time accordingly.

That gives me time to go to the grocery store while I’m in town and also catch up on things that require wifi like uploading photos or videos to the blog. Most laundromats have free wifi at this point, so that means you can kill two stones at once. It beats having to pay to have high-speed internet at home, especially when most other things don’t require much bandwidth, and you can do them on your phone.

On a per wash basis laundromats are more expensive. But as a single guy I do maybe two loads a week, less in the summer, especially when I’m wearing shorts. Without the cost of utility bills via being connected to the grid though I think I would come out ahead just using the laundromat. There are options for home washing by hand or lower power solutions but honestly I think I prefer the traditional modern laundry methods because I get my clothes quite dirty and machines make them quite clean.