Laundromat math: $874 you'll never see again

I lived in a 320-square-foot studio in Crown Heights for two years. The shared laundry room ate three socks in the first month. By month four, I was schlepping a duffel bag four blocks to the laundromat on Nostrand. By month six, I started doing the math.

The number that came out the other end is the reason Ceenor exists.

The sticker price is just the start

A wash cycle at most NYC laundromats runs $4–5. A dryer cycle is another $1.50–2.50. Detergent pods, fabric softener, the quarters tax (when the change machine eats $5). One trip rounds to $6–8 of cash out of pocket.

Multiply by one trip per week:

$364/yr

Pure cash spent · 52 trips × $7

That's the easy number. It's also the wrong number.

Time is the silent line item

One full laundromat trip takes:

• 10 minutes walking each way (Brooklyn-walking, in February, with a duffel)
• 30 minutes wash cycle
• 40 minutes dry cycle (if you don't get the broken dryer)
• 10 minutes folding while waiting for the second load

That's 90 minutes per trip. 52 weeks × 90 minutes = 78 hours/year. Two full work weeks of your life, dedicated to a coin-op Speed Queen.

If you value your time at $20/hour (modest), that's another $1,560/year.

Now we're at $1,924/year. And we haven't talked about the Lyft.

The 11 PM Lyft

Some weeks the duffel is too big. Some weeks it's raining. Some weeks the laundromat closes at 9 and you're getting home from work at 8:45. The Lyft to and from a laundromat in Brooklyn is rarely under $24 round trip.

If you do this once a month — most renters in our customer interviews said yes — that's another $288/year.

"I treated laundromat Sundays like a tax. Now I treat my Tide as the refund."

The grand total a Brooklyn renter actually pays per year for laundry, all-in:

$2,212/yr

Cash + time at $20/hr + occasional Lyft

What changes when you own a Tide

Ceenor Tide costs $79. Detergent: $0.10/load if you buy a 96-pod jug. Water + electricity: $0.02/load. Total cost per load: $0.12.

Cash spent in year one: $79 + ($0.12 × 52) = $85.24.

Time spent per load: 15-minute wash + 3-minute spin while you do something else in the apartment. Hands-on time = roughly 5 minutes per load. Annual time cost = 4.3 hours.

Year-one savings, conservative: $2,127 + 73 hours of your Sundays back.

The Tide pays itself off in under 12 weeks of normal use. Everything after that is profit + sock dignity.

One caveat

If you have a dishwasher hookup, in-unit washer, building washer that's actually clean, or you genuinely enjoy the laundromat as a third place — none of this math applies. Keep doing what works.

This post is for the rest of us. The renters who counted out 14 quarters last Sunday and thought: there has to be a better way.