Fresh Idea Friday - Laundry Advice

This week, my friend Lisa's Fresh Idea Friday (although I'm a couple days late!) topic is how to deal more effectively with laundry...one of the never ending duties in a household! Lisa suggested writing about good products, efficient routines, money saving tips, or really anything that deals with doing laundry and doing it well! I am by no means a laundry expert and when we were first married I actually bought a book called "Betty's Book of Laundry Secrets" by Betty Faust and Maria Rodale, which is a very helpful little book that I just keep on the dryer if I need to look up how to remove a certain kind of stain, although honestly I think I've looked at it maybe 2x since buying it! But here are my laundry thoughts:

*** I always try to do all our laundry (wash and fold) on Mondays for 2 reasons:
1) My least favorite chore ever to do is IRON so if I keep loads running constantly, I am very aware to get to the dryer right away when the clothes are done and pull things out before they get wrinkled (or at least what I consider wrinkled) rather than forgetting clothes are in the dryer and then they need to be ironed!
2) I would rather have laundry "done" in my mind then try to remember what still needs to be washed (I prefer to clean all in one day too...I'm a checklist kind of person!)

*** I've tried to start washing only things that NEED to be washed and wearing clothes, as long as they're clean, longer. Until recently I always put anything the boys especially wore into the wash and so each Caleb and Noah always had a full load. Now I try to spot clean in the sink some things that aren't a big deal and save other cleanish clothes to be worn again that week, and I can usually always get both boys clothes and other laundry in one load.

*** Like I said before, I'm not a laundry expert, so I do more to keep things organized than laundered correctly. So usually each week I do 4 loads of laundry, our whites, our darks, the boys clothes, and towels/sheets. It used to take me forever to separate all their clothes from ours and have space to spread it all out to fold before Noah crawled on everything, so now I just do it that way and it helps me stay more organized, and I have yet to have a problem with color bleeding.

*** Money saving-wise, I always use cold water for everything and try to only have full loads if possible. I do have a line outback that I have tried to use on occasion, but I think if I were to use the line regularly I would have to switch to doing laundry almost every day which I really don't want to do at this point. Also since Caleb and Noah are still so little it can take me forever just to either get them outside with me or somewhere safe that I can go hang laundry that I just haven't done that much recently but maybe again someday! Also, since I try to keep laundry going on Mondays, the dryer is running almost continuously and therefore stays pretty hot and doesn't waste as much electricity heating up each time.

*** I try to get stains immediately, usually just with water and handsoap which works fine, although I do have a bottle of Totally Toddler in our bathroom upstairs which also works wonders, especially on kids clothes!

My laundry motto is basically to stay organized and NOT IRON!! Hope this helps!