I remember reading about how some people save money by cutting up old t shirts and using them as napkins instead of buying the paper versions because it’s better for the environment. I’m not much of a tree hugger which I’m sure violates some kind of law here in Austin but I am always looking for ways to save a dollar or two. I didn’t like the idea of using old t shirts because what happens when you have guests over and someone gets the armpit of the shirt or a sweat stain?! Okay so I guess you could avoid those but it still grosses me out.
For our family, I bought a 36 pack of Zwipes from Amazon for about $20. These are primarily used for cleaning. For eating, we received 4 cloth napkins as a wedding gift and I recently bought this 6 pack for $9.99 at Cost Plus (of course, I went through Ebates and used a coupon).
I calculated that cutting out paper towels would save us $144 a year – not a ton but a decent amount. I did have to spend about $30 for the Zwipes & cloth napkins but that is much less compared to the price of paper products. If we do have occasions where it makes sense to buy napkins, we’ll just grab a pack from the Dollar Tree (we’ve only done this once this year).
I once bought generic TP from our local grocery store because it was on sale and I had a coupon but my husband told me I may as well have bought sand paper – #wifefail.
