Time poverty and Laundromats

I’m looking at getting a washer and dryer this afternoon.  My wife and I got lucky and found a repairman that sells them for cheap, so we’re aiming at getting a set for $350.  Though that would require breaking into our emergency fund to get, we’ll get it.  Why?  Because it deals with an issue we have as being married parents.  I work a lot Monday through Friday.  If I get home before 6 PM, it’s a good day.  With that, we have to cram everything we have to do into the weekends.

The weekend ends up being a non-stop run from thing to thing, working on the stuff that wasn’t done during the week and has to be done.  Grocery shopping, laundry, church, and anything else that you can think of gets crammed into two days that are supposed to be relaxing.  So that creates our biggest problem: time poverty.  Time poverty is when you simply do not have enough time to do the things that need to be done.  And really, a washer and dryer would solve part of the problem. 

Thinking of all this in a general time component, it takes 30 minutes to wash and 40 minutes to properly dry clothes at the laundromat.  That’s 70 minutes of sitting.  There are probably another 10 minutes in there of loading and unloading clothes.  I move pretty quickly, so five to load and five to unload or move isn’t unrealistic.  Beyond that, you have 20 minutes to load everything into the car for laundry.  That includes the laundry itself, kids, and supplies.  At least 30 minutes of driving need to be thrown in.  So we’re looking at about 130 minutes of laundry wasted time, or 2 hours and 10 minutes.  Crammed into one day, that creates a giant problem. 

The goal with the washer and dryer is to spread that 2 hours and 10 minutes over the work week.  See, it’s not really about the time spent.  It’s about the accomplishment of the task.  Because that time can be broken down in five minute intervals throughout the week, and laundry becomes much like doing the dishes.  So, hooray for a washer and dryer.