Comments on: Paper Towels and Frugality

By: Georgia

Georgia — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:57:44 +0000

I also use both rags & paper towels. Paper towels are used for doggie doo(have a 3 mo old puppy)& grease. Rags for almost everything else. I cut up old t-shirts, socks & anything else that will make a rag. Great thing to do when you’re watching tv.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:46:07 +0000

For those disputing the “buy rags” aspect, it’s moot, since Trent went through all the trouble to calculate it only to turn around and throw it away by rounding down. If you’re going to calculate stuff down to the penny like this, it seems awfully inaccurate to throw away almost four tenths of a cent, 20% of the cost.

By: Maggie

Maggie — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:52:29 +0000

Tupperware makes a wonderful towel that I use for drying vegetables and other things. It absorbs water faster than a paper towel and can be washed and reused many time, too.
I use one for cooking and one for drying tables and counters and other cleanings.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:03:39 +0000

@Lindsay (#20) – This is something I have looked into a bit. More for environmental reasons than financial reasons, however. I believe the a person’s diet has a major impact on the nausea factor in this situation.

By: Georgia

Georgia — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 02:20:06 +0000

Carol – I have a tall, 13 gallon trash container that I put a liner in and use it as my dirty clothes hamper. I throw the rags in there, but if they are wet, I just hang them around the top edges of the container until dry & then drop into it. Since I live alone, I usually only do washing once every week to week and a half. This works well for me.

By: CArol

CArol — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 01:39:02 +0000

I use rags for plenty of cleaning tasks, but never know what to do with the wet, dirty rag until time to throw in throw wash. Can’t really throw them into a basket since they will get mildew, so it’s almost like you have to wash them immediately, which isn’t always convenient. That is my dilemma. I usually end up throwing the rag over my laundry tub to dry but it is unsightly.

By: Georgia

Georgia — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 18:10:24 +0000

I also use both. A roll of the perforated paper towels lasts me about 3-4 months. I live alone and don’t cook a lot. And I basically get them for free. Our food bank is open one day a month and you get, according to your household, some of the giveaways as long as you have worked for at least 3 hours. I usually do 5-7, or until we are finished. I don’t always get paper towels, but I have 4-5 in the top of my cabinet awaiting use.

The rags I use are old wash cloths and cut up old towels. deRuiter – I am ready to throw out 2 towels I just bought for $6.49 each on sale. I’ve only used them twice. The reason is that I absolutely hate good quality, fluffy towels. Whenever I use them after a shower, it takes ages for me to feel dry. I’ll take a cheap, line dried towel anyday. It is rough and soaks up excess moisture quickly. Guess I’m a weirdo, but at 74 I can be whatever I want to be. Ain’t being old the best thing in the world?!!!

In the summer months I line dry my clothes and in the winter I use a special trick I found on a frugal site – I just throw my stuff in the dryer, throw in a big dry towel and set the timer for 1/2 the time. Then, since most of my stuff is permanent press type, I leave it in the dryer for an hour or two to use up the leftover heat. As I take them out, I just smooth lightly with my hand and it’s all copacetic.

And I reread Trent again and he does buy any rags at yard sales. I think his price is a little high. Here we could get used towels for double that price and get at least 8-10 rags from it or more, depending on the uses.

By: deRuiter

deRuiter — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 10:20:05 +0000

Buy rags? Wow! I do buy bunches of bath towels at yard and especially estate towels. If you’re an early shopper you can get some great towels cheap. If I’m buying fragile items at a sale, the owner will often allow you to take some towels to wrap breakable things, for free, never hurts to ask. Paint your bathroom white and any color towels look fine. When the bath towels start to get a bit thin from use, they’re demoted to kitchen dish towels. When they get thinner and ratty, they’re cut up into rags. Washing cost is negligible as the rags are washed along with similarly colored laundry which would be washed anyway. Everything is line dried, outside in nice weather, inside in inclement weather, so there’s no cost and the tiny bit of exercise helps negate part of the cost of an expensive gym membership. Rags are used for dish washing for the day. Next day they wipe up spills on floor, and are tossed into laundry. Certain really gross messes may require a paper towel, but if I have a dish rag which is really worn, I use that and toss it into the trash with a clear conscience. Since old bath towels are made of cotton, you could even compost them if you mix them in with kitchen waste and have a lot of time for them to decompose. Try not to buy! Recycle, reuse, repurpose! It’s good for your financial bottom line, good for the environment, and good for the people who want to sell things they don’t want. My two favorite towels are two thick, lush orchid colored towels. Arrived at a yard sale on trash day. These two huge, almost brand new towels were on the top of bags of trash. Both had some white paint spots and they were soaking wet from the night’s rain. I took them off the trash, washed them at home. Each had a couple of white paint spots as the previous owner had used them to wipe up a paint spill. Both towels are thick, fluffy, obviously were expensive and work fine. The small dabs of white paint have never come off, and each time I see them when the towel is used, I think of that nice sunny day and snagging two good towels for free. When they eventually wear thin, the towels will give me the same satisfaction as dish towels, and then rags.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 09:32:12 +0000

I use microfiber towels. You can buy a huge bunch of them (36) for under $25 on Amazon, and they last for years. Great for all kinds of cleaning around the house, the car, etc.

By: Jules

Jules — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 06:07:09 +0000

@ almost there: doesn’t the Bible say a man must eat a peck of dirt before he dies, or something like that? :-)

And, if there is any smell coming off the rags, then that means you really need to wash them more often. I use a clean one to clean the kitchen, and then that goes right into the washer. Ones that are just used to swipe crumbs into the sink stay for maybe two days at most. The only ones that do smell are the ones I use to polish the wood furniture with–and they smell (faintly) of the furniture polish.

By: almost there

almost there — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 04:24:11 +0000

Think sanitation and bacteria when using rags. I always hated the smell of dish rags in the kitchen as a child even though they were rinsed out. I later looked into the bacteria that grows on dish rags even after they are rinsed and decided to use rags for non food areas. I don’t wipe counters or tables or use rags in the kitchen. Think about the tables that get bussed in dining establishments. The don’t use paper towels but the dirty old rag that cleans many tables at a time before it gets rinsed unsuccessfully at an attempt freshen it up. Think back to when one is a new parent. Everyting is super sanitized. By the time one is on the next kid, the pacifier is most likely wiped off on a shirt and stuck back into the babes mouth unless it landed in dog drool.

By: Diane

Diane — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:40:28 +0000

I keep a roll of Scott 1000 toilet paper under my kitchen sink. It serves the purpose when I have a smaller mess and don’t want to waste my heavily rationed paper towels. It works very well!

By: BirdDog

BirdDog — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 23:24:10 +0000

I use a combination of rags and paper towels. The cost of my rags are extremely negligible. When my white undershirts start to look a little dingy, it gets cut up into a rag (everything but the pit area, that just seems gross). I don’t factor in the costs of washing them as they get thrown in with a load of light colored towels I would have to wash even if I didn’t use the rags.

Once they get used to wax the truck, they get tossed.

By: LB

LB — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 23:18:51 +0000

I only use clean dish clothes/ rags for counters and the table, then the rag goes above the sink where it can be reused for spills on the floor. After the second use, then I wash it. I don’t have kids, and I’d guess that I wash 4 or 5 rags a week. We also use cloth napkins about half the time. I would guess that napkins and rags only make up 5% or less of our laundry so the cost of washing them is negligible.

By: Larabara

Larabara — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:35:18 +0000

I bought several packs of cheap terrycloth washcloths and use them whenenver I can instead of paper towels.

One novel use I found is for the Swiffer mop head. Instead of buying those Swiffer refills, one washcloth will secure by pushing the cloth through those slits on the corner of the mop head. I can rinse the cloth in a vinegar & water solution for cleaning, or use a spray bottle for spot cleaning the kitchen floor. This saves having to buy those refills for the Swiffer mop.

By: Jules

Jules — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:34:06 +0000

We use a combination of microfiber cloths, old t-shirts, cut-up towels, and toilet paper for the truly icky jobs. The rags go into the washer after a few uses, so they never have a chance to get too gross, and every few days (we have a small machine) I empty the hamper and run a load.

I’m also rather puzzled as to why you’d buy rags. It makes sense to purchase microfiber cloths, because they really are a godsend and I use them every day, and chamois if you’re that fussy about your glass, but surely there must be some old t-shirts lying around that could be cut up.

By: Kai

Kai — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:57:59 +0000

Why on earth would you *purchase* rags?
Isn’t the entire point of the existence of rags that you use other bits of cloth which no longer serve their original purpose?

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:41:01 +0000

I’ve heard some people go as far as to use rags/cut up old bed sheets instead of toilet paper, laundering them the same way one would launder disposable diapers.

Want to run those numbers? I think there’s much more of a nausea factor with that choice!

By: Telephus44

Telephus44 — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:27:55 +0000

I generally choose rags over paper towels for environmental reasons, though I have noticed my DS and MIL use a LOT of paper towels. I am considering buying some cloth napkins and hiding my paper towels under the sink!

I also really like math posts like this. I know its the same idea as TWG, but it never hurts to update with accurate costs.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:52:51 +0000

Anyone who gets water from a well or other no-cost source will of course have lesser cost to wash the rags than Trent. Also if you line dry then there would be no cost for the drying. Either of these would make the argument for using rags even more convincing. Of course there are other reasons to choose rags over paper towels, including environmental concerns or an aversion to waste.