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Comment by jmduke | Hacker News Reader

Let's say I'm an entry-level freelancer who bills out at $100/hr.

It's 5PM on a Wednesday. I need to do the laundry because I have a client meeting tomorrow and they usually look at me funny when I wear crumpled tee shirts that smell kinda funky. I could do one of two things:

1. Work for an hour, generating $100, and spend 20% of that getting someone else to do my laundry. (Plus, I get to drink beer when I'm working at my desk, and I don't get to drink beer at the laundromat.)

2. Do the laundry.

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The whole concept crystalizes what I never liked about living in big cities. The tiny apartments with no amenities and the endless expenses to get basic stuff done.

My scenario, since I own a house with a washer and dryer: It's 5PM, I realize I need clean clothes for the next day. I spend 2 minutes gathering them up and putting them in the washer, then go back to my beer, or whatever else I'm working on. An hour later, I spend 60 seconds loading the clean clothes into the dryer. 30 minutes after that, give or take, I spend 5 minutes folding them and putting them away.

No scheduling. No waiting for SMSs and pickups. No giving strangers keys to my home. $25 still in my pocket (and given the time I spent, I paid myself a $180/hr rate in that savings).

But hey, if they can make a business out of it, more power to them. Doesn't hurt my feelings any.

It may surprise you to learn that people in cities were able to get laundry done before Prim started.

Also, it costs me about $2.50 to do a load of laundry (washer + dryer), which is basically what it costs you (see: http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/laundry.html). And it's in my building.

So I'm not sure which concept crystalizes this notion for you, but it's not one based in reality.

"I'm not sure which concept crystalizes this notion for you"

Because the parent commenter implied it takes an hour of full time work to do laundry, which implies having to go to a laundromat.

But yeah, plenty of apartments in cities have washer/dryers.

Using national averages for electricity and water, it only costs $0.76 to complete a load of laundry (washing & drying).

What figures were you using? I'd like to put the current New South Wales, Australia electricity price into the equation.

My calculations are here[1].

Basically, $2/1000 gallons of water & $0.10/kWh for electricity (I did not bother calculating for gas dryers) were the most recent US averages I could find, and that was rounding up (e.g., electricity was actually > $0.09 but < $0.10).

I used this calculator[2], and plugged in appropriate values where I could find most current data.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6107020 [2] http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/laundry.html

Sorry, I missed your initial comment.

Even with lowball estimates, my cost for washing is double yours - 30+c/kWh... sigh.

There are actually some nice 2L washers, which you don't even need to install, just plug in. jmduke might prefer the laundromat, but it's not needed even if you live in a big city.

Dude, it doesn't take an hour to do the laundry, that's like arguing that you could pay someone to wash you at your desk instead of taking a shower.

For a single guy (which means probably everything is cotton and colorfast) it's maybe 10 minutes because nobody expects you to actually iron anything. For women (who actually think about their clothes and whose clothes are more complicated in terms of mixed fabrics, special handling) it's still only 25 minutes or so. That's the whole point of having a washing machine, it's a time-saving appliance. If you do go to the laundromat you may not be able to drink a beer, but on the other hand you can kick back and read.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with using a laundry service, which is why most laundromats offer wash and fold. But then again if it's 5pm on a Wednesday you have loads of time to just buy a new t-shirt on the way home from work.

> it doesn't take an hour to do the laundry

Context switches are expensive. Moreso for some of us than others. Laundry can easily kill an hour of my productivity.

Let's say I'm an entry-level freelancer who bills out at $100/hr. ...

1. Work for an hour, generating $100, and spend 20% of that getting someone else to do my laundry.

I know you're just an entry level freelancer, but $25 is actually 25% of $100.

This is what I get for trying to make cogent points about articles an hour after I've read them. Leaving my comment unedited to better bask in my own shame.

You're only right if he would be doing laundry every hour.

Let's say he works 8 hours a day for $100/hour. That's $800 a day. For 5 days a week, that's $4000.

Let's say he does 2 laundry a week, that's $50 which is 1.25% of his salary.

No brainer.

rdouble: thanks. I hope I can learn from your "expertise".

If you have your own washer/dryer, you could also just spend a few minutes doing the laundry while you still work or play or do whatever you want.

Also, there's more to life than money, although I understand how one could become obsessed with it if people making $100+/hour can't afford a place with their own washer/dryer in-unit.

>> Let's say I'm an entry-level freelancer who bills out at $100/hr.

Where is $100 an hour entry level? Wowsers...

It's 5PM on a Wednesday. You need to do the laundry because you have a client meeting tomorrow, but you decide to use Prim. They have an average return time of one day, so you end up going to the client meeting naked, since they didn't get your clothes back in time.

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