Cloth Toilet Paper: Would You or Wouldn't You?

Monday, August 20, 2012 by Kathy Murdock from Thrifty Mom's Two Cents

I taped this phenomenally interesting show the other night called Extreme Cheapskates. Like seeing a train wreck, or Hoarders, I couldn’t turn away. And, of course, as I watched I made notes, thinking I have to blog about this!

So here goes the first story.

One family with kids professes to be great cheapskates, and one way they save money is something I have never heard – or, actually, thought – about: they skip buying toilet paper at the store and instead cut up cloth out of strips and use this as toilet paper.

How does it work? They hang a basket by the toilet that serves as the ‘toilet paper holder’ and they use a trash can by the toilet in which they and their kids toss their ‘dirty’ toilet paper when they are finished, well, going potty.

I know I’m cheap, but this one was a little much for me.

While I didn’t have an issue cleaning up messes the kids made in their diapers or pants when they were younger, the idea of tossing a bunch of, well, poop-stained cloth toilet paper strips into my washing machine about made my stomach lurch.

It was even worse when someone held up a stained cloth and said, “I think this one is dirty,” because, as we know, poop stains. No, explained mom, it was clean and had been washed and needed to be folded to be used again. And again and again.

I’m all about saving money, but the idea of cloth strips as toilet paper is not appealing to me. I think of the technicalities, like:

If you kept these soiled items in the bathroom for any amount of time after they had been used, wouldn’t it smell?
All that washing - doesn’t that add up to about the cost of a package of Angel Soft? I buy about twelve double rolls on sale for $3.49-$4. Wouldn’t water and electricity and detergent cost about that much?
Poop stains would freak me out on clean cloths, period.

Maybe I’m making too much of this. It's probably similar to using cloth diapers on babies, although babies have smaller 'movements'. I guess if you stayed on top of the laundry and got the soiled cloths into the machine quickly enough it wouldn't smell; and if you really needed to save money, this could be one way to do it, especially if you have a lot of kids in the family that require a lot of bathroom tissue.

The mom in the story stated she saves about $20 per month on toilet paper, or $240 a year.

I think I’d rather ditch a meat-filled meal once or twice a week and buy the TP instead.

How about you? Would you give up the convenience of toilet paper and switch to cloth for the savings?

Kathy Murdock
Kathy Murdock works as a full time writer and web designer. Recently planted in the middle of the deep south from the busy streets of Los Angeles, when she's not coding Wordpress websites or writing about women in business and thrifty motherhood, Kathy spends time ...Read More

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