When I was in Thailand on vacation a few years ago I had no idea that it would be a clean laundry paradise. For around $1.50 or 50 bhat I could drop off a bag of laundry at a local black market laundromat. It would be available for pick up the next morning. It was nicely folded and smelled great. Talk about luxury, I truly felt like a prince. If it was that cheap to have my laundry here in America I would never do it myself again. Sadly that is not the case. Did I have any guarantees that I would ever see my clothes again after dropping them off? I did not, but that is what made it exciting.
I do my laundry every three days. It adds up quickly. I exercise every other day which produces a steady inventory of sweaty gym clothes that I do not want to leave unwashed for too long. I am constantly sweating just walking around in the growing Texas heat so I often change into a dry shirt in the afternoon. I have a mesh bag that I use to hold all the dirty clothes so I can easily see when it is time to do a load.
The problem comes in when I have more than one load to do at a time.
We have a laundry facility in our building that is inexpensive. $1 to wash and $1 to dry. Let us say I have enough laundry that it really will not fit into one load. I would have to spend another $1 to get this partial load cleaned. The dryers are bigger than the washers so I could combine the separate groups into one. On the surface this seems like no big deal but it adds up. That is $3 extra a week and $156 a year. I could just jam the excess clothing into a single load but I am not sure everything would get clean. There are also cameras in the facility so if the machine was to break from overfilling, I would become a prime suspect. Although unlikely, I could be held financially liable which would erase any gains from the overstuffed strategy. I could also just hold back a small portion of laundry for the next wash but then I might end up doing laundry more frequently which would also increase the expense and time commitment.
Then it hit like a chilled pint glass of Sailor Jerry spiced rum. Each time I work out, I need to bring my own towel. In order to keep costs low, Planet Fitness does not provide towels. I was formally bringing in these huge beach towels which I had to wash constantly. I estimated that the two towels alone were taking up about 30% of the space of each load of laundry. Initially I thought about just not bringing a towel at all and just air drying myself. I tried it once but it just took too long. I also felt odd just standing around waiting to dry.
After much brainstorming, research, consultation and consideration an idea formed. I proceeded to my local Walmart (I always buy local) and bought two crisp thin new towels for $6 + tax. These towels were at least a forth of the weight and still long enough to wrap around my waist. I can finally fit all my laundry into a single load. Crisis Averted.
Now I just need to figure out what I am going to do with that theoretical extra $150 each year. Just like the laundry, the problems keep coming. Hopefully I can retain my steady stream of innovative solutions for these pressing issues.
Someday.