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Paper products can be down right expensive and wasteful. Last year I challenged my family to switch to cloth napkins and towels. This might not seem like a big deal but you have no idea how many paper towels we used to go through! My hubby would use several paper towels to clean up a small spill. Plus the kids would go through several paper napkins in one meal.
It took some convincing to get my husband on board with this idea. I decided that we should start off small. I put all of the paper napkins in the pantry and set the cloth napkins out in a basket. No turning back! Surprisingly, the cloth napkins were actually nice to use! They were soft and held up much better than the paper napkins. Plus when the kids spilled their drinks we had an absorbent cloth napkin in hand.
The second week into our challenge I took away the paper towels. I made sure that there were plenty of hand towels available for drying hands and cleaning up messes. After several days of using no paper towels, I did discover that there are a few instances that paper towels are a must. I will spare the details but paper towels are needed when kids and pets are sick. Enough said!
We came to the conclusion that for most messes hand towels work wonders. However, we would keep paper towels on hand for those really yucky messes. A year later and we can make a roll of paper towels last a month or two. I recently stocked up on Bounty paper towels for about $0.50 a roll and these will probably last us a year.
I bought a few sets of cloth napkins on clearance and the rest were given to us. When I started telling people we were switching to cloth, the towels and cloth napkins started rolling in. We have so many cloth napkins at this point that we could go several weeks without washing them (not speaking from experience or anything!). If you sew, it is easy to make cloth napkins too!
Switching to cloth napkins and towels has been wonderful. Not only is it more cost effective, but the cloth is just nicer to use. I encourage you to give it a try! I think you will like the results!
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I’ve been doing this for so long! It just seemed like the right thing to do (I’m eternally frugal)
Another thing I do is keep old tee shirts and cut them for rags, and old ‘burp’ cloths are fantastic for cleaning.
I also use cloth towels for steaming vegatables….Since loosing 60 lbs on Weight Watchers (and keeping it off 3 years) I exclusively steam vegges (even for recipes that call for saute). I wrap the veges in the cloth, place on a plate or pie dish and cover with the towel…then run water over the folded towel, just to completely soak the towel, then micro for about 5 minutes +/-. Now I save on the expensive steam -fresh bags! (And while I smell the bleach smell a little when cooking, it doesn’t effect the taste of food at all)
Hi Debi,
Thanks so much for sharing! My mom made me a potato steaming bag out of fabric awhile back. It worked well in the microwave and I am certain other veggies can be placed in there. Great idea!
I love my cloth napkins!! Thanks for sharing!