Doing the washing every week is literally my idea of housework hell. With three of us in the house plus all the linen and other odds and ends, by the end of the week there’s a pile of laundry as high as the heavens that needs to be done. Over the last year or so of doing all of our laundry, I’ve learnt a few laundry hacks that I have implemented that have made my life so much easier. I was also recently sent the new LG Smart Inverter Top Loader which has changed the way that I do our laundry big time! So while I share my laundry hacks that absolutely anyone can implement into their routine, I’m also going to tell you a little bit about my new laundry buddy and it’s best bits.

#1: Set a day to do ALL the laundry: So many people say that it’s easier for them to do a load of laundry every day, but that just doesn’t work for me. When I use that method, it just means that there is a constant pile of clothing on the kitchen table that needs to be put away, and I am not about that life. I do all of my washing, drying, folding and putting away on a Monday. I chuck the first load in as soon as we wake up (or the night before), hang it up an hour or so later, and put on the next load, hang it up and hour later, and carry on like that until every last dirty sock has been washed and hung up to dry. By the time the evening rolls around, I can take all of it down, fold it while supper cooks and then pack everything away while Dan baths Aria. Then I pour myself a glass of wine and cheers to no more washing for the rest of the week!

The LG Smart Inverter Top Loader has been a game changer when it comes to the amount of washing loads that I have to do. Previously I did about 4 loads to get all of the clothing, linen and rugs done, now I only do one and a half, maximum two loads! I have the 17kg machine and it’s possibly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

#2: Don’t sort your clothes by colour, sort them by stains: Look, if you have kids in the house, stain removal is inevitable, they really are dirty little buggers. I find that if I put all the heavily soiled items into a load of their own, it saves me a ton of time which means that my coffee isn’t completely cold by the time that I’m done. Instead of me picking up each and every piece of clothing in the basket to check if has a stain or not, I can chuck the non stained clothes straight into the machine, and once I’ve put that on, I give all the stained clothes that are in another pile a quick spritz of stain remover so that when it’s their turn to go into the machine, I just throw them all in.

One of my favourite features of the LG Smart Inverter Top Loader is that it is built to get rid of stains. First off you can select on the menu, how heavily soiled the clothing are: light, medium or heavy (three  guesses which one is most commonly used in our home). Secondly, the Turbo Drum™ gives your clothing the most intense wash, with a strong water stream and pulsating movements in all directions, literally shaking the stain out of the clothing.

#3 Keep your delicates in tact: I’m not super precious about most of my underwear but there are a few pieces that I would hate to get ruined by the washing machine, the same goes for one or two pieces of clothing. This is probably the oldest trick in the book but I thought I would tell you anyway: put your delicate items inside of a pillow case before throwing them into the machine, to keep them safe from harm.

Smart Motion is one of the stand out features of the LG Smart Inverter Top Loader. It has  3 kinds of motions created by the Smart Inverter. This means that this washing machine is optimised for all different types of fabrics, from delicate lace undies to “throw anything at ’em” towels.

#4 Put your laundry on last thing at night: I’ve been doing this over the past few weeks and it’s a total game changer! By putting on a load of washing before we go to sleep at night, I give myself a bit of a head start in the morning because all I have to do is hang the load up, I don’t have to wait a good hour for it to be washed first. Another bonus is that I don’t have toddler fingers wanting to push all the buttons, anyone else have kids that are obsessed with the washing machine?

How cool is this, the LG Smart Inverter has a kiddie lock, now Aria can’t randomly change the wash cycle, hooray! Another reason why doing my laundry at night is such a pleasure is the LoDecibel™ feature. This fab addition minimises noise and vibration when you select the night mode.

In case you’re warming up to the idea of the LG Smart Inverter Top Loader, here are a few more reasons why I love it:

• It controls how much energy it uses and can save you up to 36% of your energy consumption – that’s a decent whack off of your electricity bill if you do a ton of laundry like we do!
• This smart machine senses how full your load is and only uses enough water for what you’ve put in. This is such an important feature for me; we aren’t experiencing a drought here in Johannesburg but we are still so conscious of how much water we use and save where ever we can.
• The pre-wash option is absolutely amazing for when you do your “soiled” load of washing, and it only takes 8 extra minutes!
• If something should go wrong with you machine, the smart diagnosis feature comes in so handy. Basically it’s an app that you download to your smartphone and will save you an unnecessary trip to the store for your machine to be serviced.

What did you think of these laundry tips? Will you be putting any of them into practice? If you have any laundry hacks that work in your home, leave them in the comments!

If you would like to learn more about the LG Smart Inverter Top Loader, click here, and if you would like to read my review on the LG NeoChef Microwave plus get some fab toddler meal ideas, click here.