from a MM post..
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Well, really, my husband's, but I came around to the idea once we did the math.
We're super cheap, in case you can't tell from previous posts in which I made almost everything from my wedding bouquets to my wall art for this apartment, to my own cloth bags for grocery shopping.
However, I have a deep down frugal secret. It is one that I felt was too radical to really share outside of my immediate family. But I used to read that crazy blog, you know, under1000permonth.blogspot.com.
Emily truly did some radical frugal things that I would never do. She has since pulled her blog down, but I was inspired to share my biggest frugal tip.
Here goes: We don't use much toilet paper.
Sorry it isn't more exciting. I don't ration it either. But I grew up in a house with five people, including one sister who liked to use a ton of it. It can be very expensive.
Here's how we save on this aspect of our lives and maybe save the earth a bit too. (The advice also pertains to paper towels, paper napkins, and tissues, which we have never bought in an entire year of marriage.)
1. S. has actually purposely trained his body to go #2 at work. I have written about this before as the epitome of his cheapness. It saves on water and toilet paper. Also, he prefers their flushing action to ours.
2. I have embraced family cloth.
3. We roll our own...not cigarettes, but TP rolls.
Family cloth seemed disgusting to me when I first read about it. It is basically using cloths instead of toilet paper.
I was seriously grossed out by this. But we took the leap to using handkerchiefs instead of tissues, so this was only the next step. I use reusable/washable wipes when I pee. Are you disgusted yet?
The best way to do this is to use those wipes for the bathroom and the bathroom only. And I only do it for #1 because I want to go green and save money, but I'm not crazy enough to use them for #2. That's just beyond my comfort zone.
Anyway, not using TP for pee saves a ton of TP.
But you still need toilet paper in the house. We have 3 "real" rolls still left for guests. The rest is hand-rolled.
We bought the industrial size toilet paper rolls used in work bathrooms, dorms, and restaurants. I wanted to just use the giant roll and tear off as we go, but S. said that was tacky.
I just roll it any old way to get it on the tube. ^^^ My husband will spend an hour rolling it, perfectly neatly, as though it was made in a factory. So we roll it onto our old cardboard tubes for a huge savings over traditional Charmin and even the Great Value brand. Each giant roll is 1000 linear feet. We spent $19.00 and some odd cents on a big box at our warehouse club and estimate that it will last us for at least three years, as there are 6000 linear feet of paper in the box. It comes out to be less than $.004/linear foot.
Check out this here:
http://www.amazon.com/Charmin-Ultra-Large-Rolls-Sheets/dp/B002KHNL1Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1267571784&sr=8-2Using quick math, I estimate that each roll has 47.6 linear feet. There are nine rolls in a package. You are getting approximately 429 linear feet in the package and getting 4 packages for a total of 1716 linear feet. And this costs about $29.98.
I'm getting 3.5 times as much for $10 less. I'll save my $10, plus the cost of buying that package 3.5 more times for a total savings of $114.93.
I have since found the big rolls to be much cheaper online, and will try that next as far as industrial toilet paper is concerned.
I also step on the cardboard tubes and flatten them ^^^^ so they don't spin around as easily, therefore, reducing the amount of toilet paper you take. (Haven't we all just grabbed the end of the paper and gave it a huge spin at one time?)
It is a great solution for us. I realize this may be taking frugality too far. And if that's the case, you may want to skip over the upcoming post where we buy a lifetime's supply of aluminum foil.
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What differentiates an average host and a great host is anticipating unexpressed needs and wants of their guests. Just because the want/need is not expressed, doesn't mean it wouldn't be appreciated.