Cloth vs paper towels

[leeann]

okay, my dh does not like cloth napkins, in fact he won't use them unless we are at someone else's home. I know the frugal code is to use cloth but I also have to admit I like paper towels as well.
So....................what do ya'll think?

[Deleted]

My wife uses too many paper towels. I am always reminding her to use a cloth.

[naturallyfrugal]

I love paper towels! I am brand specific - Bounty Select-a-Size. I like being able to use the 1/2 sheet if it's a small job or to dry my hands. I do have dish towels, but I'm always afraid that they have a ton of germs, despite rare use and frequent washings. I have accepted that this is one of my non-frugal expenses and always buy them when they're on sale and I have a coupon.

[leeann]

I love Bounty as well. It really is soooooooo much better than other brands.

[bobbysgirl]

Both you and your DH have to be satisfied with the frugal benefit. If he doesn't like them, don't use them and save somewhere else, where it doesn't effect him or you.

I know we have been inodated with 'germ free' everything, but the fact is every day germs make us stronger. Using a towel only for hands and one only for dishes and changing them every day is sanitary. Bleach them when they are washed and you're good to go.

[kadee]

I know we have been undated with 'germ free' everything, but the fact is every day germs make us stronger. Using a towel only for hands and one only for dishes and changing them every day is sanitary. Bleach them when they are washed and you're good to go.

We NEED to get over the germ free and quit using antibacterial stuff! This is just causing germs to mutate and NONE of it will be effective soon! If you have paid attention, you've seen that most antibiotics have been over-used and aren't nearly as effective any more...same principal! Most folks were much healthier back when we didn't worry about it. If your body isn't exposed to germs your immune system can't build up barriers against them!

BTW, my paper napkins & towels go into my compost as long as they don't have grease or blood on them!

[naturallyfrugal]

I'm not a germophobe (as is proven by the amount of dust I probably have around the house), it's mainly just dish towels that I'm weird about. I let bath towels air-dry and use them more than once.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

We use paper towels here ... in amazing quantities. And we HATE the select-a-size!!! LOL!

[cronewitch]

I only use paper towels for draining fried foods or picking up awful messes like cat upchuck. I hate the waste and they are expensive. I have rags for cleaning and use dish towels for the kitchen stuff unless it would harm the towels. A single roll of paper towels might last me a year, I don't understand why they are so expensive and it seems so wasteful to dry your hands and toss them..

I don't mind paper napkins since your fingers are dirty and they are much cheaper. I got a nice dispenser and hundreds of paper napkins for the price of a roll or two of towels. I like facial tissue they are very cheap per sheet and when you have a cold they are nice to throw away as many as you like instead of washing cloth handkerchiefs after reusing the same one.

My dad always carried a big red or blue handkerchief but worked construction so wasn't near waste baskets anyhow. He thought tissues were a waste of money until he got old and sat in one place with a box of tissues and waste basket and saw why people liked them.

[kadee]

My first hubby used bandanna handkerchiefs! As far as I'm concerned, there is NOTHING as nasty as those things in the wash! That to me is almost as bad as what they used to do for "the monthlys"!...rags, that were washed & reused!

I use Bounty towels but I LOVE the pic-a-size! I use far less with those & as I said before, unless they have grease on them, they go into the compost...recycle!

I bought a big bag of those "no color" shop rags & that is what we use to dry our hands at the sink. Some days they get changed several times. The bag had like 100+ in it so I won't run out any time soon! ;D

[bobbysgirl]

I didn't think tissue was included here. Anything with body fluids needs to be a one use thing. Those are the real germ carriers.

I like the k64 idea of paper napkins in the compost. Thanks K64. I use cloth under normal circumstances, but when I have lots of company, I break down and use paper.

[dancinmama]

Dec 30, 2010 22:24:37 GMT -5 @leeann said:

okay, my dh does not like cloth napkins, in fact he won't use them unless we are at someone else's home. I know the frugal code is to use cloth but I also have to admit I like paper towels as well.
So....................what do ya'll think?

Uhm, I think if your hubby doesn't like them, then he doesn't like them. I always get my napkins, paper towels, etc. for free by combining a store sale with a coupon and/or a store promotion and pay with rewards dollars. But even though I have a few packages of each in my pantry, we do not use them "as if they were free".

We use the 'fancy napkins', first, if we have them (unused from getting fast food), drug chain brand if we're out of fancy napkins, and cloth when we have company.

We will use paper towels for grease drainage and some cleaning jobs, but we NEVER use them just to dry our hands. I have enough kitchen towels so that I never run out. I can have a full load of them in the laundry and still have plenty that are clean in the kitchen. I found them at Kohl's for 3/$.51 in the last couple of months so I was even able to rotate some out of the kitchen and into my cleaning towel pile in the laundry room cabinet.

[bobbysgirl]

DANCIN: You are my hero of the day. 3/.51 is a steal deal!!!!

[Anne_in_VA]

I like Viva paper towels better than Bounty. I used Bounty for years, but got a free roll of Viva and I really liked them so now I buy them.

I use kitchen towels on a daily basis and use the paper towels for the cat messes and greasy/messy stuff. I usually change my kitchen towels daily too since I think they harbor germs if used for too long. I don't use antibacterial soap (or antibacterial anything for that matter), but wash my dish cloths, kitchen towels and sponges in the washing machine regularly. I saw something on TV a while ago which talked about how germy most dish cloths and sponges are. I understand you can also put them in the dishwasher, but I don't run mine often enough to do that.

[dancinmama]

Jan 1, 2011 15:05:32 GMT -5 @bobbysgirl said:

DANCIN: You are my hero of the day. 3/.51 is a steal deal!!!!

bobbysgirl: Ha ha ha!! I got REALLY lucky. When Kohl's put out the $10/$10 coupon recently (a promotion when they were celebrating the opening of a new store), I was wandering around to see what we they had that we use EVERY DAY that I could get for free. I was thinking socks, but wandered over to the kitchen area. I noticed that the dish towels that were $6.99 were on sale for half price or $3.49 ea.

Here's how it looked:

$10.47 (3) Dish Towels @ $3.49 ea. Half price sale
.04 Sales Tax (no tax on the coupon amount)
10.51 Subtotal
- 10.00 Kohl's $10/$10
.51 OOP instead of $22.91

I had a friend who was able to get some extra coupons and sent me a few so I used all of them to buy dish towels. Now, I won't have to buy dish towels for a very long time.

[sccdf]

I'm like Crone I will use paper towels to soak up grease and clean yucky stuff. A roll will last about two weeks in our house of four people. Otherwise to wipe off the countertop or dry hands it is a kitchen towel.
I keep old socks and t-shirts to use as cleaning rags.

[gailbon]

This post could not be more timely for me! My New Year's resolution is to stop using so many paper towels! You all made my day!!

[Deleted]

I use cloth diapers for cleaning, wiping spills, etc.
I use 2 or 3 rolls of paper towels a year.

[emptypockets]

depends on what you need to clean up. for grease, paper towels are better because they go in the trash. If you use fabric, it takes alot of detergent/bleach to get all the grease out of it. and if it's red juice, beet juice, spinach juice, you will have permanent red and green stains on your fabric towels.

[dragonfly7]

I use dishtowels for drying dishes and clean hands. Beyond that, it is almost always paper towels or napkins. I grew up using rags for cleaning, and it always seems to me (especially in the bathroom) that they just move the lint around rather than getting anything 100 percent clean.

[celticqueen]

We're weird in that we use cloth napkins for every day and paper napkins for company. That's mainly because our cloth napkins don't match. I'll use rags for cleaning but I must admit that we go through a lot of paper towels in our house. Between the 15 year old incontinent dog and the 15 year old cat who likes to upchuck, I'm keeping Bounty in business. But for everything that's not gross, I try to use cloth. I even cut up some old t-shirts to fit my swiffer so that I can mop with it without having to buy the swiffer wet pads.

[daisylu]

We use cloth for most things - drying hands, dishes, cleaning spills and messes. But for eating messy foods, draining, ect we use paper. Always VIVA. I bought our last 8 roll pack in August and we are only on roll 6, so we use roughly 2 packs/year. I can live with that.

[moneywhisperer]

DD and I keep one color set of dishtowels that are used for messy/dirty clean ups (like the floor), another color set that are for dishes, and then paper towels for super ick clean ups. Paper towel roll lasts about a month.
Oh and napkins are cloth for sit down meals & a package of paper ones for kids lunches.

[telephus44]

I use paper towels for exactly the same things as cronewitch - cleaning up cat puke and draining bacon fat. DH uses them more often, but even so, we only go through 2-3 rolls a year. I mainly use dish towels and cleaning rags.

And maybe we're slobs, but I generally don't use napkins. If someone needs to wipe their hands or face, they can grab a clean dish towel (I have MANY). If we have company, I'll either break out the cloth napkins or set out paper towels, depending on who it is.

[bella]

We get paper towels free from where my hubby works. I never was one to buy many, but since they are free, I use them a lot. I like the idea of composting them. I do have lots of dish cloths so usually use them once and they are ready for the wash. To me that is not very cost effective either.

[oreo]

I'd like to get away from using so many napkins. My son is 2 and he can make some pretty big messes when he eats! I probably use 5 or 6 napkins per meal just on him. At the end of the meal I use a small wash cloth to do a final wipe of his face and hands. Would you suggest using cloth napkins for him? Does that work when he tries to eat his macaroni and cheese with his hands and then wants them wiped after every bite? Do I just try to wipe with different areas of the napkin or would I just end up using 5 or 6 cloth napkins?

We use hand towels for hands, dish towels for dishes, paper towels for cleaning the counters.

This is going to sound SO cheap but I realized that at work I use 2 paper towels every time I wash my hands (either after using the restroom or before eating something) and my hands are clean (some times that can be 10 or 12/day). So now I just bring them back to my desk and lay them flat (to dry). Then when I leave I put them in my lunch bag. I take them home and use them to clean up grease and messy spills.

[Apple]

Oreo--if you want to try use cloth napkins for your son while he's eating you might get it damp first or just use a regular washcloth. Just seems like it might work a little better damp.

[rubyslippers]

I use paper towels and paper napkins, but wouldn't go through so much except for DH who uses them more than I do. I'm not brand specific anymore; I just get them at the cheapest price using store rewards. If I had my pick, I would only use Meijer brand paper towels. They're the best.

[sccdf]

I basket of white washclothes on the bathroom counter. Rather than sharing a hand towel or constantly washing large towels we use washclothes to dry our hands. It hardly adds anything to the laundry.

[tibbar]

I use washcloths to wipe counters and hands. I use dishcloths for hands and drying dishes. One cloth hangs on each side of the sink, hands left side, dishes right side. These are washed as needed. I keep any extra paper napkins when we eat out and use these to drain fat things on.

We use cloth napkins or washcloths depending on the "Mess" factor of the food. I bought a bundle of brown washcloths as these don't show stains like my light colored ones do.