Stop Doing Your Laundry

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:02]:If there is one piece of advice that somebody asked me to give them about how to get more time in their life, I guarantee you, I will tell you this answer. Stop doing your laundry. If I ever write a book someday, it's going to be called stop doing your laundry. Stop doing your laundry. I don't mean stop having clean clothes. I mean you stop doing your laundry. Seriously. So that's what this whole episode is going to be about.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:26]:Cause I've had this conversation with a lot of different people. I'm gonna talk about why I think it's a silly use of your time, and then we're gonna talk about how do you give this job over well, to someone else to do? And what are your options? Okay. I mean, I know a lot of people, and my estimate is 95% of them only have one washer and dryer. A few have two washers and dryers. Sometimes you have two. I get it. Sometimes a big house, and it allows for it. You can get two washers and dryers in there.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:56]:But for the most part, we're all schlepping through life with one washer and dryer. And even the quick cycle takes like, 35 minutes to run on your washing machine, and it takes like an hour to dry. So that is like an hour and a half per load. Clothes, towels, rugs, sheets, like, you know, the kitchen towels, all the little half bath towels. Like, all that stuff has to be washed all the time. It is this never ending conveyor belt of time that has to be expended on something that you are not uniquely qualified to do. So in my house of six, we are doing, I'm saying six to eight loads of laundry a week. We've got a couple athletes.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:39]:We go through towels. We've got all the kinds of things. So six to eight. So let's say, conservatively, if you take an hour and a half times six, let's use that. An hour and a half per load and six loads per week. Well, like, on the conservative side, that is six, seven, eight. That is 9 hours a week of activity that has to be done. And that does not include the amount of time it takes to wash or to fold and put away, which you all know does not happen consistently enough.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:07]:You've got, like, laundry baskets in the laundry room. You've got them in your kids's room. And that's like, actually where they get dressed out of is the laundry basket, not actually their drawers. Or you've got a bunch of socks that have not been matched since, like, the early two thousands you know, like, we don't need to live like this. This is crazy. You don't need to live like this. You should get clean, folded clothes out of your drawers, out of your closet, get your underwear out and have them be folded nicely, like you deserve that. This is crazy.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:36]:So I started outsourcing my laundry, probably, I'm guessing, like, four or five years ago. But we have had nannies in our house. I've always had nannies help me keep laundry going, for sure, especially the kids's. But in the last few years, I've completely outsourced it. And I'm telling you, we can be gone all weekend long. I can be gone every evening for a week. I can be on. It can just be wild.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:02]:I can be a single parent for ten days, and our laundry gets done like a drumbeat. And that consistency is what is a game changer. It's not that I have. I never, ever, ever have capacity to do laundry. Sometimes I do, but I don't consistently have capacity to do laundry. And that is where you get behind, and that is where you get screwed, and then that is where you get mad, and that is when you turn into a crappy version of yourself. And nobody wants to be a crappy version of themselves. And no kid wants their parent to be a crappy version of themselves.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:32]:So stop doing your laundry. Okay, so that's the thing. It is like the biggest household chore. That is the most persistent, consistent, like, it literally, laundry is made every single day. You can't not make laundry. And it takes up so much time. It takes up so much time. So that is my plea to you to stop doing your laundry.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:53]:I think it is silly for two career families to do laundry. So let's talk about how else do you get it done? So, my. There's a lot of different ways. I have a house manager that comes into my house, and she helps us with a lot of stuff. And one of the things that she does is laundry. And that is not a no cost solution. I live in Indianapolis, so. And we.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:14]:She comes in for two half days a week. It's not even that much, and she gets a ton done for us. House manager is certainly, one having somebody come into your home to do it, but the other I'm a very big fan of is this service called Poplan. It's. It's all over the country, it's all over the United States. And it uses individuals like Instacart drivers who take your laundry to their house, which kind of freaky at the beginning, but I'm telling you, once you try it, it's not that weird. What you do is you go to the app, you download it, you put in your profile and like, Instacart or any other kind of like, you know, uber eats or whatever. It shows you, like other, like, washers that are close to you.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:53]:They call them laundry pros. A laundry pro that is close to you. You can see their profiles, that kind of thing. You literally take your laundry and you put it in trash bags, which is kind of satisfying, I'm just going to say, because secretly I want to throw away all dirty clothes. You put all of your laundry into trash bags, and you put the trash bags wherever you want them to be put. I put them outside my back door. So I'll have three, four, five big laundry bags filled with laundry towels, whatever it is. You fill these, and I use the kitchen size laundry bags.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:26]:If you're wondering, that's what I use. You can also get fancy, like laundry bags made on Etsy if you want to, with everybody's name on it. But I'm not interested in managing that. But if you wanted to make it cute, you could do that instead of trash bags. Okay, so you go to the app and you write on there how many bags you have for them to pick up. 1234, whatever it is you can identify. You can say, do I want my laundry on the same day or within 24 hours delivered back to my home. You can specify what kind of detergent you want used, and you can specify if you want things hung or if you want them folded or if there's some things that you want to be left out and air dried.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:06]:You can dictate all of that on the app, and you can communicate directly with your laundry pro. I'm going to be honest, a lot of my hand wash stuff, I'm using air quotes or like delicates. I will just run those on quick with woollight at my house and just kind of lay them to dry because that's pretty quick and easy. But you, there is a way to get all of that done by your laundry pro if you want to send absolutely everything out. So you put it in the app, you say, schedule my laundry pro. Then there's a laundry pro who will say, hey, I'm going to come get your stuff. And once they've kind of, like, claimed the order, you can connect. You can text and message with that laundry pro directly, just like you would as like your Instacart shopper or somebody like that.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:49]:Like, hey, there's a purple sweater in there. I want to be sure that you lay that out to dry. Okay, so send it out, then they bring it back. One of the things that can happen is that they put all, like, you may have, like, my four girls, I may have, like, one bag that's ivy's, one bag that's Quincy's, one bag that's Ainsley's, and one bag that's Aubree's. Well, the laundry pro doesn't know that you've separated your dirty laundry by kid unless you tell them that. So I don't necessarily, when I send my laundry out, and I can tell you when I do that, need them to return it. Where all of Aubrey's stuff is in one bag, all of Ainsley stuff is in one bag. All of ivy, whatever.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:26]:You know what I'm saying? All of mine is. So what I do is I usually get it back and, like, all the undies and shirts are in one bag, and I will, on our island, put it all out into, like, which goes with which kid. And then everybody has ten minutes to come get their stuff and put it away. It's, like, all one motion, and it does not take that long. The whole exercise is probably 20 minutes long. I would say, me getting everything in, sorting it, and then saying, like, hey, people, take your stuff up to your rooms right now and put it in the drawers. Hang it where it goes. Like, we're doing this right now.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:54]:But if you want your laundry pro to return it, like, in your kids or rooms or, you know, your husband's stuff, your stuff, your kids stuff separately, just tell them. But they don't know that. So you have to specify that if that's what you want. My point is, stick with it, and you'll learn what you want, and you'll get better at it. So I don't care if all mine comes back kind of mixed together. I. Obviously they'll put, like, all of Quincy's leggings in a pile. Those are clearly all the same size.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:23]:It's not like, you know, everything is crazy, but not everybody's belongings are necessarily in the same bag. So we just sort it out on the island, and everybody does it that way. So you may wonder what happens if I get my laundry back and it's not the way I want it and it's not. Doesn't smell good, and, like, something's gone wrong. Thanks for asking. So Samantha, my partner in all things life. Well, not life, but, like, all my work and stuff. She's amazing.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:49]:She uses poplar, and she sent her laundry out, and somebody who had a home that had smoking in it did her laundry. So all of her clothes came back smelling like smoke, which is, like, not great if you live in a non smoking household. So what she learned in that is she contacted Poplin, and they said that's. No. I mean, they were very apologetic that laundry pro will no longer have access to pick up your laundry so that you don't accidentally get the same person to do it again. And they will send somebody to your house to, like, verify it, like, smell it, and then they will re launder it for you. So if that happens, don't throw it all in the laundry and, like, do it yourself, which is, candidly, what Sam did. But we learned what you're supposed to do is call them.

Tiffany Sauder [00:09:33]:They'll come to your house, they'll verify it, and then they'll make it right. My guess is they have some special, like, fabric treatment stuff that makes it so that all that smell goes away, so they make it right with a human being. Love that so much. Love that so much. The other thing you can do is you can favorite your laundry pro. So I have two of them that are the ones who come to my house and pick my stuff up. So it's not actually random until. Unless you want it to be.

Tiffany Sauder [00:10:00]:But I will say, you know, pick up laundry pro, and I can specify in the app that I want to wait until my laundry pro is available. So, like, let's say they're not on the app right now or something like that. That's no problem. I can wait for them to be available because maybe I don't need everything back in the next 24 hours. So cost, you may be wondering about cost. There's no sign up fee. Like, there's no monthly fee that you have to pay. Like, it is a.

Tiffany Sauder [00:10:26]:If you use it, you pay for it. It's not a subscription, which I'm a big fan of that it's like, more of. Yeah, like, you use it, then you pay for it. More of the regular kind of buying. I don't know what it's called. So the regular buying kind, where if you use it, then you pay for it. And it's a dollar a pound, if you allow for 24 hours, a dollar a pound. So, I mean, literally, go weigh your laundry for three or four bags of laundry.

Tiffany Sauder [00:10:55]:For us, like, pretty stuffed, is like, $25 to $35 a week. It is not very much money. One of the things to know is it is a dollar 20 minimum. Okay. So if you have only eight pounds, of laundry, it is going to cost you $20. As a business owner and as understanding. Like, these laundry pros have alternatives for their time. I understand they don't want to drive to my house, fold on my laundry, and bring it back for like $8.

Tiffany Sauder [00:11:21]:So it is a $20 minimum. Be aware of that. Like, maybe you use it every other week or, you know, make sure your towels are thrown in there or sheets like those certainly add some bulk if you don't have a big family like mine. It is a $20 minimum. And you do have an opportunity to tip your laundry pro, but it is not required. I look at these people as an extension of my team. And so just like my Instacart drivers, just like my house manager, just like, I take care of them because I want them to be eager to see my name on their app. And I generally tip probably like another $10.

Tiffany Sauder [00:11:58]:I would say on top of it. I can go back and look, but just to give you an estimate, I don't know what normal is, but that's kind of like what I tip. I use, I use, I use. What can I think of it? I use Poplin when my house manager is on vacation, or I want her to be working on other things. So we may have a party that I want her to set up for. And so I don't want her to work as much on laundry. And so I'll send half of it out and get it done that way. And I also like that it's accessible.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:32]:I mean, I think about my freshman in high school, her being on her own in four, five, six years. I mean, $20 a week is accessible even for somebody living on their own. As I think about teaching my girls not only how to do things, but also how to be thoughtful about how do they scale their time. Like, she's going to probably make more than $20 an hour, and it will take her more than an hour to do her laundry, even as a single girl. So I kind of think that's cool that this is like, one of those tools is accessible to everyone. Like, literally everyone. I've thought about even having my girls use, like, I don't know, learn to actually pay for out of their own money so that they can see the return that they're getting because it does take a long time to do laundry. I don't know, it's kind of a tangent.

Tiffany Sauder [00:13:22]:Okay, so, Pablin, I'm a huge, huge fan of it. And I know some of you are like, hey, my kids do their own laundry. So it's not really that big of a deal in our house. I love that for you. I've just chosen, it's one of those things I don't want to manage. And so I send it out. And I know parenting coach Michelle gams kind of thinks I'm crazy, but I think it works for us right now. We'll see.

Tiffany Sauder [00:13:44]:We'll see. Always a work in process, but that's what we're doing right now. So anyway, I want to really encourage you to try this. I do have an affiliate link. I make like $0.03. It's not, this is not how I'm making money. But I do have an affiliate link in this episode that will give you ten or $20 off of your first order. And I encourage you to try it.

Tiffany Sauder [00:14:03]:Try it. Try it for like three weeks. And if it goes wrong or not perfectly the first time, don't just quit and be like, oh, see, I told you, like, this doesn't work. It does work. It's going to give you capacity for other things that you want in your life. Career things you want to pursue, time with your spouse, time with your kids, time to work out, like a peaceful breakfast on Saturday morning. I don't know what you want to do instead of laundry, but I know there is something that you want to do instead of laundry. So try it.

Tiffany Sauder [00:14:32]:And if you're afraid that your husband or whomever is, like, not going to be so on board of spending money on this, have them write down on a piece of paper, what do you want more of my time for? What do you want more of my time for? And you write down on your piece of paper, what do you want more of your time for? And do the math. Is that less than four to 6 hours a week of whatever you were probably spending the time you were spending to do laundry and reallocate those hours you were spending on laundry, on things that drive your priorities forward and drive the person you love their priorities forward. That's the point of this time exchange. It's not about managing all this stuff that can't love us back. It's so silly. Stop doing your laundry if it's the only thing you hear from me, only thing you learn from me, I will be so proud. So anyways, this is me over here not doing my laundry. Try it.

Tiffany Sauder [00:15:28]:All right, that's it. Have a great week. Remember, this is not your practice life. This is the real thing.

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