[Scroll all the way to the bottom for giveaway info]

New Year, new me? Not really. While I’m optimistic about the prospect of big things in 2021, I’m focusing on what I can influence. One of those things is making a more calm, tidy house. I know the impact inertia plays on us (especially me) so I work to create habits and systems that will get me where I want to go without having to make additional decisions, which leads me to my Top 6 Laundry Tips.

Why laundry? For a long time, laundry was the albatross around my neck, I would have epic laundry days (that would turn into three or four days) and my systems just didn’t work for me. I’m certainly still working on fine tuning it but I feel like I’m in a good place with it for now. I hope you’ll be able to use one (or more) of these tips.

Tip 1: One Load a Day

This tip is free (which is always good) and it came to me from my sister. She shared that rather than spending a whole mess of time doing laundry on one or two days, just do one load every day. At first, I remember thinking, ‘I don’t want to do laundry every day, I don’t even like it!’ but it turns out that doing a little bit each day is far superior to doing hours of it once a week. Added bonus: we don’t ‘run out of clothes’. At this point, I generally avoid doing laundry on the weekends, I can usually keep in under control only doing M-F, which is nice. BONUS TIP: One slight exception is that I use the delay wash button on my washer to ‘schedule’ the Monday morning kitchen laundry on Sunday night.

We don’t use paper towels (and use cloth napkins, too) so we have a fair bit of kitchen laundry. All of that gets washed on Monday mornings and I love having it automatically start in the morning, so I don’t have to think about it when I wake up (Mondays are hard enough).

This is a tip you can put into practice today, if you’re interested.

Tip 2: Pre-Sorting

I know what you might be thinking, ‘I don’t have space for one of those giant laundry sorter things on wheels!’ Neither do we. I don’t have one of those because we don’t have space in our bathroom (which is where dirty laundry lurks). I don’t sort the general laundry, mostly because it’s easy for me to grab out what I’m washing, when I’m getting ready to wash it. I do sort out dirty undies & dirty socks. It has made such a difference to not have to hunt around for those and I can take the whole bag of each and wash them separately. They each have a small bag (that I made) and just hung with loops to our laundry hamper. I read about not cleaning underwear with regular clothes, which definitely spoke to me. I always wondered how sanitary it might be to wash underwear with the rest of our clothes…news flash: it’s not. So now, we wash those items separately, after other laundry so there is a chance for the washer to get cleaned/sanitized/dried afterward.

Tip 3: Detergent

Speaking of getting things cleaned, we’ve been trying out the TruEarth laundry detergent (full disclosure: they sent it to me to try and share), which is PLASTIC-FREE. Y’all, these things are great. They do a good job getting our clothing clean but my favorite part (aside from the lack of plastic) is that the packet takes up almost no space. No more lugging around bulky plastic containers for this lady.

Enter on Instagram to have a chance to win some TruEarth for yourself (see details below)! We used the fragrance free variety (I’m pretty sensitive to scents) and I haven’t had any adverse reactions. My clothes feel very clean and I’m certainly a fan of that. I’m so thankful to my friend, Nicole for recommending this detergent. We’re not going back to the giant plastic containers (sorry, Costco).

Tip 4: Cora Balls

In addition to laundry detergent, we also put the Cora Balls in our washer (I bought these myself). I was initially skeptical about these…they’re not cheap, but the Cora Balls ended up being an extremely welcome add-on primarily because they catch my long hair in the wash. There’s nothing worse than having old hair stuck all over you and the Cora Ball does a great job ‘collecting’ it. It’s main function is not to grab my hair (this is a happy side effect). The point of it is to grab and prevent synthetic fibers from shedding off your clothes and going down the drain into our water system, which is a goal I can get behind. The Cora Balls are a little expensive but they’re worth it and they 100% work. I tried to get the people at Cora Ball to send me one to give away to y’all but it didn’t happen. I’d say it’s still worth the money to add these to your washer! Find out more here.

Tip 5: Drying Rack 2.0

Once our laundry comes out of the wash, there are decisions to be made. As a tall lady, I know the risks with putting most of my clothes in the dryer, so I avoid it for anything I enjoy the fit of. In the past, I’ve had clothes hanging all over the place, which isn’t optimal (and tricky in ‘before times’ when people might be coming by). I have one of those clothes racks that stand on the floor but that takes up space and I’m not a huge fan of getting it out and putting it up.

Enter the wall-mounted accordion clothes drying rack! It was the perfect addition to our downstairs shower (which we never really use). It folds mostly flat to the wall. I bought this from Wayfair (link here).

Tip 6: Better Baskets

I typically fold laundry once it’s dry before I put it in the basket (which helps me to get it all put away a lot faster than I have in the past) but that’s not tip 6. Tip 6 is about my laundry basket switch out. I had the same baskets y’all probably do, those huge plastic things. They’re unsightly, loud, and take up a ton of space. In trying to rethink my laundry situation, I found some lovely cotton baskets and haven’t turned back. They collapse down to fit in a cabinet (shown in photo), they’re quiet, soft, washable, and pretty. Most importantly, they don’t hurt when I run into them and/or trip over them. I didn’t know what I was missing without these (in case you’re wondering, I sold our old ones on FB Marketplace rather than putting them in the landfill).

We have two types: these grey ones (they’re bigger, traditional sized baskets) and these white ones. The white ones came in a set and I use the two largest ones for laundry baskets and the rest as storage baskets for the robot mop, face masks, and other items around the house.

I’d love to hear your laundry tips and if any of these speak to you!

To enter to win one of two TruEarth detergent packs complete all three steps:

• Follow @acrunchypeach on Instagram
• Share a laundry tip with a friend: tag a them on Instagram in the giveaway post (it has the same image as the top one on this page)
• Complete this form