Planning a luxury vacation (while living in poverty)

[Sola]

socks?

now, that's just a mental disorder of some sort.

Socks? Ha.

That's my mother. Mental disorder, 'nuff said.

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

I always throw my towels in the dryer because if I line-dry them, they end up being so rough and uncomfortable to use. I might have to try the ironing thing, actually.

[Mama Mia]

Same here ! I'm not poor at all and I bought my first dryer last fall (I have a family of 5), never had the idea of buying one before. I used it last winter for things like sheets, towels and jeans, now I'm back to my clothe-line and will only use the dryer again next fall !

Dryers put a lot of wear on clothes so I don't see the point of using it for the clothes and year round.

This Abigaïl is an idiot :angry-banghead:

Every apartment complex, mobile home community or condo I have every lived in expressly forbids line drying anything outside ! Isn't that the stupidest, most environmentally backward thing you've ever heard of ??? And I live in a presumably far left hippie section of California, where presumably they would be trying to get you to do things like line dry. :angry-banghead: So here, it would be a sine of relative wealth if you can line dry your clothes, since you would have to have a private yard in a single family home, and those are more costly.

Recycling is mandatory though, with fines if you put recyclebals in with garbage.

[JMarie]

Oh my gosh!!! She has to hang her clothes to dry?!?! How horrific. How utterly horrific. I can't even imagine. Poverty is truly shocking. No working dryer... God save her.

Raise your hand if you remember Our Favorite Fundie, the one who drip dries everything in her freezing-cold Maine apartment!

under1000permonth.blogspot.com/2009/11/xxv-laundry-and-carrot-cake.html

[amydamy]

It may seem sad to Abigail but I can't wait for the day that I can finally have a washing line to dry clothes outside even though our main weather type here is wet or wetter lol. Our garden is basically the side of a mountain and every time we save enough money to sort it out life gets in the way and it has to be spent elsewhere, because you know, a boiler for heating and hot water is kinda more important!

I have had a tumble dryer for about 7 years but it is really expensive to run so clothes still tend to go on radiators and the clothes horse just like they did for the first 7 years we lived here. Purely out of curiosity but do you not have radiators in the US?

My nana didn't even have a washing machine up until the day she died a few years ago, she thought she was in the lap of luxury when my uncle bought her a spin dryer a few years before - this still requires the clothes to be hung out to dry just meant she didn't have to wring them.

Older home have radiators, the house I grew up had been converted from traditional to base board radiators at some point. My house has forced air/radiant floor heating.

I have a fancy washer and dryer and still hang dry a lot of stuff. I just put them on hangers and hang them on the shower curtain rod in the extra bathroom. I live near Abigail and did this over the last couple of days while it was raining and my laundry still go done.

[Burris]

This...

...is poverty - and it doesn't look like fun at all.

I don’t see anything wrong with people who have low incomes take advantage of the occasional windfall to just have fun. There’s something unseemly about doing this when one has five children, however, and it’s even more improper to brag about good fortune while targeting readers who are themselves poor.

ETA:

I had a broken dryer a couple of years ago and no yard to line dry (and no drying rack at that time, either). I hung my clothes over the backs of chairs and tops of doors, and when I ran out of those I started opening up cabinets. It looked funny, sure, but it got my clothes dry.

The only problems here are that wet clothes can cause water damage, and that too much concentrated dampness can encourage the growth of mold. It’s better to use only a few outfits for daily wear, hanging them outside to dry (for example, from the ceiling of an apartment balcony).

We lined dried all the time I was growing up. Pretty much everyone else did, too. It never even occurred to me that someone, somewhere would confuse that with a sign of poverty.

[Rowan]

It's been 15+ years since my grandma moved from the house she and my grandpa raised 4 children in. She line-dried clothes for everyone in the basement and the garage and those lines were still up long after the kids all moved out and they had a dryer.

Abigail, this is *nothing.* Please stop trying to act like you are in the worst situation ever - when so many of us have knowledge or experience of similar and worse situations (and not because a kid needed something to feel better about a skinned knee), you have no credibility. Just stop.

[Koala]

All of these posts remind me of wash day at my Nana's house. She had a line outside, but if it was raining she would hang clothes anywhere she could think of. Light fixtures, doorways, shower curtains...no place was safe :lol:

They were poor in the early days, but by the time I came along they had plenty. They were frugal though and didn't buy a dryer until Nana started having mobility issues. I think my Papa was worried that she would fall, so he put a dryer in.

I have an idea...maybe Abby could hang her clothes in one of their newly remodeled rooms. Gah, it must suck to be poor! :roll:

[DarkAnts]

I like to line dry my clothes in the summer time. Its hot and dry here so it only takes a maximum of 30 min. It keeps the house from getting hot and helps cut the electricity bill. The clothes always smell nice after being on the line. The bugs are easy to fix. You simply give the clothes a good shake before you take them inside. I do finish up jeans in the dryer for 5 min on fluff.

The monsoons come in in July. I am careful with placing clothes outside during that time. You watch the weather and are ready to dash outside if you see one coming.

[Lillybee]

My exMIL was a member of the third order of Carmelites. She was a very nasty woman who cheated myself and my ex out of a great deal of money. But that is another story.

She would brag that she would be buried in the Carmelite habit. The funny thing is that she informed anyone who would listen that the habit had no back for poverty's sake.

[Sola]

I always throw my towels in the dryer because if I line-dry them, they end up being so rough and uncomfortable to use. I might have to try the ironing thing, actually.

I like that roughness to them. I don't fabric soften them either as it makes them less absorbant.

[OkToBeTakei]

I like that roughness to them. I don't fabric soften them either as it makes them less absorbant.

YES! Soft towels are awful.

When I buy new towels I wash and line dry them before use :lol:

[ari_belle]

Dear Abigail,

In my young life, I have figured out that people who routinely CALL THEMSELVES "poor" are not actually poor. People who ARE actually poor do not speak about it with such casualty. People who are actually poor go to the laundromat and have most likely never had a drier. People who are poor don't have two pennies to rub together.

It has always bothered me when people say this shit when they're not truly poor. People who are poor sometimes don't have the internet to blog on. UGHGHHH

[miffy]

I don't really bother to use my dyer anymore. It uses SO much electricity, most the the electricity supplied to Melbourne is from brown coal, so I don't like to waste. Also the timer on mine broke so I worry that i'll forget about it & start a fire.

I put airers (or clothes horses as we call them) over a couple of central heating vents. Everything dries quickly using the (natural gas) heat that is being sent into the house anyway.

[miffy]

Also if you want your line dried clothes to smell amazing in spring & early summer. Plant some jasmine at the base of your washing line.

Edited to add another use for a washing line:

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Goon is cask wine. Its popular with teenagers & impoverished uni students.

[LucySnowe]

I just remembered, YLCF/Little Pink House/Kindred Grace Gretchen frequently waxes rhapsodic about hanging her clothing out to dry - Abigail should absorb some of the obsession!

[Talitha Cumi]

Pfffft, this seems to be a day where I see people all over claiming they are something when indeed, they freaking AREN'T. They. Just. Aren't and they demand respect from other people and want to be credited as... nice folks or whatever it is that they are after just by saying, oh, I am a - whatwuzdat - mighty carmelite and you are not.

Bitterday... :disgust:

I can't find it now, but does anyone remember the article (blog post?) from a guy who is at the bottom of the 1%, but claims that he's poor, because they send their kids to private schools and they drink lots of expensive wine, so they don't have money left at the end of the month? Because that was just :cray-cray: . Abigail on a larger scale.

[Fenchurch]

Hi,

Long-time lurker, and this is the first time I have been so outraged to actually comment.

I'm from South Africa, and we have real poverty, as do so many other third world countries. This woman pisses me off something chronic. How about no running water and having to walk 5ks with a bucket to fetch clean water? Or having all your children die in your shack because the only source of heat is a fire in a pit in the ground because there is no electricity in your village?

I would love for her to live for 1 day in any rural village or township in South Africa and experience real poverty.

Your drier broke. Boo fricken Hoo. Try washing your donated clothes in the river with a bar of soap.

Poverty, my African Ass. Being selfish and irresponsible is not poverty, its stupidity.

[quinoa]

My grandmother irons socks, underwear, tea towels, face washers, pretty much anything she can get her hands on. She's the one who taught me how to iron - my mother doesn't iron. Ever. We didn't own an iron growing up, Mum would press out school uniforms between mattresses to keep the pleats in, and that was it.

One time we went to visit my brother-in-law and I was putting something in his laundry room. My five-year old son was with me and spotted BIL's iron. He exclaimed "Hey! My grandma has one of those!"

[NurseNell]

I wish I could hang my laundry outside to dry. It would save electricity, and the clothes smell better. But I have no yard at my apartment.

My parents never had a dryer. We hung laundry outside or, in the winter, in the basement. We weren't poor, just lived in a very old house that would have needed rewiring to handle a dryer.

[JesusFightClub]

YES! Soft towels are awful.

When I buy new towels I wash and line dry them before use :lol:

Totally! Towels are supposed to be rough to get the water off you. If they're not, they're probably putting grease ON you. :pink-shock:

[Sola]

Perhaps we're just tougher this side of the pond JFC :D

[countressrascal]

She is a stupid bitch, OK I said it. If she has a basement put up cloth lines there and dry your clothing there during rain storms. Problem solved :cracking-up:

[singsingsing]

I live in a 600 square foot apartment. I have two drying racks that I hang clothes on. I set them up in my living room and just leave them overnight. Sometimes I hang clothes to dry in the closet if I don't have enough room on the racks.

[FJismyheadship]

Abigail is poor because she has to hang her clothes outside immediately after they come out of the washer?

Until recently I didn't have a dryer. I still rarely use itcause I like my 15 dollar electric bill. I used to not have a washer. I couldnt afford to go to the laundramat and then wheb I could I couldn't get them there unless I managed to find something to drag them a mile down the road in. Most of the time I washed my clothes in my bathtub.

I am exceedingly abundantly GRATEFUL I have a washer. I don't need a dryer so much.