05/02/2017
Nilesh Agarwal - XWash Customer
One of the smartest things I've ever done was paying someone else to do my Laundry
When I first moved to Hyderabad in 2015, one thing I just couldn't understand was why people used "wash-and-press" laundry services, where you drop off your dirty clothes and pick them up in two days, neatly folded and pressed.
I'd been doing my own laundry for as long as I could remember, and this service just seemed like the pinnacle of laziness to me.
So for one year I was staying in Hostel, I dutifully lugged my laundry down and up three floors of stairs to my building's basement, hoping to find a machine that was a) functional and b) not filled with someone else's clothing.
As time passed, my friends and I switched jobs, got promoted, and found ourselves with a little more disposable income. They all embraced wash-and-press, and I finally decided to give it a try.
I haven't looked back since.
Why it's worth it
It's not too expensive. In fact, I was surprised by just how cheap it ended up being.
I am using XWash Laundry Service from past 6 months, they charge Rs. 20 per piece for Shirt/T-Shirt and Rs. 22 per piece for Jeans/Trouser (Wash & Press). I recently dropped off a rather large bag that had 20 pieces Shirt/T-Shirt and 15 pieces Jeans/Trouser (around 14 Kgs), which came to Rs. 730.
It's not like doing laundry myself is free, so I decided to crunch some numbers. To wash this amount of laundry in a washing machine would cost Rs. 250 for a wash cycle. To press the clothes, it would cost at least an additional Rs. 50. That's Rs. 300 total – Rs. 430 less than I'd pay to have someone else do it.
The real value in this situation comes from time saved. If I did laundry myself, I would have to carve out another chunk of my precious free time for life admin.
• 90 minutes for a wash cycle (for washing 35 clothes)
• 60 minutes (at best) for a dry cycle
• 175 minutes for pressing and folding (approx. 5 minutes per piece)
Conservatively, that's 5 and a half hours of time that I could be doing something fun or otherwise productive. And the Rs. 430 in savings from doing my laundry myself is just not worth it. My free time is definitely worth more than Rs. 80 per hour.