To not separate my colours

My washing gets seperated into four loads

Bedding
Towels
Whites/creams
Everything else

Cloths and tea towels get put in a little bucket once they are used and washed with either the bedding and towels as they are done at 60 or 90 so I'm not worried about cross contamination! I was both whited and everything else with a colour catcher.

I don’t separate and just use colour catcher sheets.
I do wash anything that I suspect might have dye run on its own for a bit eg some
jeans and DD had a red Xmas outfit that saturated a colour catcher sheet that was banished from the main washing.

But I don’t own much white deliberately.

Either use a colour catcher to try and protect your whites, or use laundry products for white clothes and accept that your colours will fade.

Washing isn’t too expensive. It’s the tumble dry that’s the killer.

We've been doing my adult daughter's washing for the past couple of weeks (family of 4) while she is waiting to get a new machine plumber in. I can really tell that she doesn't separate out her whites!

Greyish or beigish 'white' shirts, socks and t-shirts. I have separated them out and washed them on their own with a whitener powder, some things I have washed twice, and although they are a bit brighter they still aren't white.

if you want to keep things white you really need to wash them separately. If you're not going to do that use a colour catcher sheet, or two, and try not to put your whites with things that are likely to bleed dye.

I always used to separate whites and colours because that's the way my mum taught me to do laundry. I do remember when new coloured clothes used to leak colour for the first few washes.

When I started going on longer holidays as an adult and needing to take clothes to laundries (backpacking for a month in the summer, no way I was going to carry a month's worth of clothes), I realised that clothes weren't being separated and were fine.

I haven't separated whites and colours for years and my (few) whites still look white. Now that dd has grown up and I don't have school shirts to wash, it would take weeks and weeks to have enough whites to make up a load.

It isn’t just washing, it’s tumble drying. The fibres of coloured clothes shed into white items. Like a PP I separate whites, lights, brights and darks. I don’t do a separate blacks wash although now I’m thinking I should!

Do two half loads? What about bedding, towels, tea towels and all your clothes? I’d imagine it would be two even for one person?

No. Washing whites separately, not allowing them to get too dirty in the first place, and using bleach/brightener as well as detergent is the only way to keep them good. Just stop buying white clothes.

Ime either separate whites/colours/darks or only buy colours (avoid red, and deeper purple and blues)

Our camper van clothes are all colours, so I can bung a wash on easily on a road trip. Unfortunately at home school uniforms scupper my brilliant strategy.

edited to add:
Synthetic fibres won’t take colour as easily as natural fabrics so that’s another thing you can look for when you buy clothes.

I only have two categories, lights and darks. Everything seems to stay the colour it started off as!

I just chuck everything in together. Nothing goes grey apart from knickers when they get a bit old, but no-one sees them so who cares?!

I live alone too, and have neither the time nor the inclination to sort, do and hang multiple loads of washing. Fuck that.

How do you mean “not end well”

I have washed everything together for decades
my clothes last decades looking smart
I don’t suffer from mysterious ailments caused by lurking boagies in my clothes

perhaps it’s the type of clothes that you buy ?

Whites go in with the bedding once a week, as my bedding is white/cream.

You can’t wash a pair of jeans or towel and a wool sweater together unless you want to ruin the sweater with too much agitation or wash your jeans/towel on a wool programme
The latter is what I do. If I have something wool to wash, which isn't often, then the next wash I do will be a wool one with a low spin. Then I take the wool item out and put the rest on another quick spin to get them dryer.

Apart from whites, which are only school tops, I wash everything together whenever I have enough for a load.

I'm a single person and I do several loads:

darks
colours (which are all fairly light)
towels
white sheets and clothing

Carry on doing one load a week if you want to, they are your clothes, but it isn't going to end well

So stop buying white clothes. I have none. Its only kids school shirts that are white and sheets which I could have any colour.

I'm single. I do a fortnightly white wash.

I live along but do more than one wash a week! I separate black, coloured, whites, towels and bedding. Light and white clothing go dull and dingy looking very quickly if washed in a mixed load. Colour catches are useless.
I just wait until I have enough for a load. I very occasionally chuck them in with my white bedding and some laundry bleach. It’s a pain having them languishing in the wash basket for a week or more but better than dingy whites.

Just wash less stuff at once. Our machine accounts for small loads and it takes less long. You don’t have to have a full load - just wash your small amounts of whites when you need them to be clean.

You can. Mixed load button on the machine. Pretty much every wash I do is this setting.

Your OP is AIBU not to separate my colours, and the answer is YANBU as long as you don’t mind all your stuff going dingy. However YABU if you think you can stick it all in together and keep it looking good. I don’t know how people wash everything on the same temperature and programme for a start. You can’t wash a pair of jeans or towel and a wool sweater together unless you want to ruin the sweater with too much agitation or wash your jeans/towel on a wool programme.

I do :

Lights (whites and pastels)
Darks
Towels
Bedding

I do whites with towels.

Just have two categories

whites and colours

I hate laundry, it’s exhausting 😂