2. Personal Care: I cloth diapered this week (like always), which saves between $9.60 and $11.20 per week depending on if I use disposables on Sunday. Sometimes I do this because we spend a lot of time away from home and it's cumbersome to carry four or five cloth diapers in the diaper bag. Since I was running short on clean diapers this week, I decided to take Sunday off. Technically I still have half a box of baby shower diapers left though, so I'm not "saving" on disposables by using cloth. On top of that, I still haven't saved enough money using cloth to break even with the $200.00 initial investment. I still have another month** to go- then I'll *actually* be saving money by using cloth diapers.
Last week Esther suggested making reusable tissues to save money on toilet paper and Kleenex. This I did! I found some flannel shirts headed to Goodwill and cut them into squares. You can see my squares at the top of this post. I also used pinking shears around each square, in hopes that it would take longer to unravel. This turned out to be a real waste of time because the first tissue I ran through the wash unraveled right away. With the others I think I will do a serged or other stitched edge to keep it from unraveling.
I also said last week that I would be looking for "almost free" disposable Kleenex to keep in handy for illnesses. With some Kroger digital coupons and an Ibotta rebate, I was able to get two boxes of specialty Kleenex for $0.25 each. The jury is out on whether or not this is really a better deal than a roll of Scott toilet paper ($0.48 per roll). However, the disposable tissues are "enriched with aloe and coconut oil", so... there's that.
4. Household: I used a coupon on Ajax dish soap this week. I am not a brand loyal person most of the time, but there are certain items we've found that are worth the few extra cents (dish soap, toilet paper, deodorant, etc.). Typically this is not the MOST expensive brand, but just one step above the "cheapest of the cheap" brand. Sometimes I can get a smashing deal on these specific items, but most of the time I just wait for a coupon and purchase the item, when needed, with the small discount that a coupon offers.
That is really about all for the week. I'm sure there are probably things I missed because I didn't keep track of accomplishments very well.
Til next time,
-Bethany
**I calculate diaper savings by the amount of disposable diapers used per day (about eight) multiplied by the cost of a Luvs diaper purchased with a coupon (around $0.20 per diaper).