I Stopped Doing Laundry for 6 Months — Here's What Happened
Last September, I made a decision that my friends thought was ridiculous, my mom thought was lazy, and my therapist thought was “a healthy boundary.” I completely stopped doing my own laundry.
Not partially. Not “I'll still do towels.” I mean fully, completely, 100% outsourced every piece of fabric that touched my body to a pickup-and-delivery laundry service. For six months straight.
Here's what happened.
The Before: My Laundry Situation Was a Disaster
Context: I'm a 28-year-old working in consulting in Manhattan. I live alone in a one-bedroom in Midtown. There's a laundromat two blocks from my apartment. And I still couldn't keep up.
My typical laundry cycle looked like this:
- Pile grows for 2-3 weeks
- Run out of something critical (socks, usually)
- Panic on Sunday morning
- Haul two overstuffed bags to the laundromat
- Spend 2.5 hours washing, drying, folding
- Lose at least one sock to the void
- Repeat
I calculated that I was spending roughly 6-8 hours per month on laundry. That includes the actual washing, plus the mental overhead of planning around it, plus the walks, plus the folding, plus the “ugh, I should really do laundry” guilt that occupies background brain cycles all week.
The Switch: What $29 a Week Buys You
In September, I tried Foldly after seeing someone mention it in a group chat. The pitch was simple: order online, they pick up same-day, clothes back by 8am the next morning. First bag was $29.
I figured I'd try it once. That was 26 weeks ago. I haven't touched a washing machine since.
Here's what my laundry routine looks like now:
- Dirty clothes go in the Foldly bag
- When it's full, I order a pickup (takes 30 seconds)
- I leave the bag with my doorman
- Clean, folded clothes appear by 8am the next day
Total active time per week: about 2 minutes.
The Numbers: 6 Months of Outsourced Laundry
I tracked everything because, well, I'm a consultant and we can't help ourselves. Here are the real numbers:
To be fair, doing my own laundry cost about $20-30/month at the laundromat, so the real incremental cost is maybe $150-160/month. For me, that's completely worth 7 hours and a lot of mental bandwidth.
The Unexpected Benefits
The time savings were obvious. But some things surprised me:
My clothes last longer
Turns out, professional wash & fold is gentler than my “throw everything in on hot and hope for the best” method. Colors are brighter. No more shrinkage incidents.
Sunday anxiety disappeared
I didn't realize how much background stress laundry was creating. That low-level “I should be doing laundry right now” feeling on weekends? Gone. Completely gone.
My apartment is cleaner
No more laundry pile in the corner. No more clean-but-unfolded clothes living on the chair. When laundry comes back, it's already folded and ready to put away.
I'm better dressed
When all your clothes are always clean and folded, you actually wear your full wardrobe instead of whatever's least wrinkled on top of the pile.
The One Downside
Honestly? My friends judge me a little. “You don't do your own laundry?” they say, like I've hired a butler. But then I show them the math and most of them end up trying it. Three of them are now Foldly customers too.
The other thing: it does cost real money. If you're on a tight budget, this probably isn't the first thing to outsource. But if you value your time at anything close to what Manhattan professionals earn, the economics are a no-brainer.
Would I Go Back?
Not a chance. Outsourcing laundry is now in my “non-negotiable life infrastructure” category, right next to having a good mattress and not cooking on weeknights. Some things are worth paying for, and 7 hours of your month is one of them.
If you're on the fence, just try one bag. That's what I did. One bag turned into six months and I'm never going back.
Try Foldly — first bag $29
Same-day pickup, delivered by 8am. See what 7 extra hours a month feels like. No-questions-asked refund if it's not for you.
Get Started — $29