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lemon_balm_squad t1_ja0pw6w wrote

You should be already clean when you're using towels, so as long as you have sufficient towel bars that let them get dry after use you can use them for at least one week - we do two weeks because the towels dry very quickly, my husband and I have four bath sheets for the month so there's always two already clean in case of guests or issues.

I use jumbo flour sack towels for drying my hair and housecleaning, I also use washcloths for bathing and cleaning, but having 40 of each takes up barely any space in the towel wash - I have a small mesh hamper where they get draped over the side for a day or two and then I push them in when they're dry so there's not a pile of them getting moldy in there. I do have "nice" hand towels for if there's guests, but we mostly use the flour sacks as bathroom hand towels.

Sheets will depend on use and showering. If you put a towel down before special use, they stay cleaner longer. But I'd suggest if you want to wash every two weeks have three sets, so you can change weekly and have an emergency clean set, otherwise you can change to the third set the day you take the other two to be washed (if you change them right then you don't have to do that chore after you're tired from all the folding and putting away).

Clothing is up to you and your jobs and what you do. I work from home, so I only have a minimal wardrobe of "nice" clothes and basically ~14 sets of WFH Uniforms that are sturdy but fairly lightweight and I can do pretty much all of them in one large load. If you work in public, I would say really critically go through your work wardrobes to make sure everything you've got is really working for you, ditch and replace anything that isn't, and consider just using wash-and-fold services for work clothes if you don't want to do it all that way.

But honestly, consider the value of your time when doing the math here, and the efficiency/expertise of people who can do it for you. Include the costs of tipping well, or paying fairly if you want to pay someone to do it privately, because honestly it's a valuable service that has a lot of quiet costs if you do it yourself.

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