Adoption Note: Dropped Brian off at the airport an hour ago. Cried. I like hellos much better than goodbyes! They’ve been rerouted already due to overbooking. Sadly, that puts them on a much less comfortable airline. Happily, they still get everywhere on time and will get one extra meal. whee.
Ok – you know already that I like to cut little corners, right? So if you don’t have time to mess with little things… skip this post! I worry about things like paper towels when I can. I am not a supermom. There are days… not infrequent, when all I can do is keep up with the kids. No dishes get washed. No laundry gets done. No food gets cooked. But the times when I have energy, I try to set new things in place… things that save me money without having to do much more work.
How much is the convenience of paper towels worth for you?
What does a paper towel do? Why don’t we use a regular towel?
1. We may be wiping up something gross
2. We don’t like to walk a towel to the laundry
3. We don’t want our towel to get sour/stained because it has juice/milk/whatever on it.
Solution
1. Use paper towels for grease, but nothing else
2. Put a pail in your kitchen for kitchen laundry
3. Have special “rag” towels that you don’t care if they get stained. And having your kitchen laundry separate means it won’t mix with the rest of you laundry. Well, not until it’s in some nice warm sudsy water. 🙂
Cost of paper towels. I don’t know. Really. It’s been so long since I bought them! I need to pick some up soon, because I’ve run out of the few I keep on hand for bacon grease issues and visitors. But I know they cost more than a napkin (more than a penny each square). I also know the squares are way too big if you’re using them as personal napkins, so lots goes to waste. Somebody using them a lot? How much do they cost? Each? Per month? Just… when I’m going to buy paper towels, I at least try to get the kind that are divided into smaller sections. 😉
How much are cloth paper towels? Depends! Do you already have a bunch of old washrags laying around? They make great “paper towels.” My husband got me a great rag dispenser for my counter, but most of my rags are just in a drawer in a handy spot.
Happy saving! What do you do to keep as much money as possible?
Are you going to do a penny-pincher topic on floss?? I remember as kids us arguing over how long you should pull your floss. I believe I pulled mine extra long just to irk you. And I do remember you had in your head even a number to tell me how much that piece of floss cost! Lol. Penny-pinching even as kids. 😉 Keep it up. A few pennies saved on paper towels and put towards gooder-ness, is a few pennies earned!
We have a rag drawer in the kitchen and the laundry room is right off the kitchen. We keep a laundry basket on top of the washing machine and throw all dirty rags in the basket. When the basket is full, we dump them in the washer and wash.
We do keep a roll of paper towels on the counter. Usually a roll will last a week or two. Slowly we are getting ourselves weaned off paper towels too.
Thanks Rachel!