Wiping in Style!

“You use what?!”

Yes its, true.  My house doesn’t have a single roll of toilet paper in it.  We don’t use moss, newspaper, or banana leaves when we do our business; we use cloth.  WAIT!  Before you start getting grossed out, let me explain the many advantages of using cloth toilet wipes.

First, they are so soft and comfortable.  After you make the switch from scratchy, thin paper to luxurious cloth wipes, you will never go back.  In fact, we refer to our wipes as “luxury wipes”.  Public restrooms will, unfortunately, be the only place your bottom is subjected to thin, disintegrating sandpaper.

Second, cloth wipes are economical.  I don’t spend a dime on toilet paper.  I don’t have to get two carts at the grocery store either — one for my groceries and the other solely dedicated to hauling around mounds of toilet paper rolls.  No more late-night trips to the store for me!  We never run out.  The cloth wipes I’m using right now have lasted for over a year.  I have single and double ply cloth wipes that I sewed out of cotton flannel.  All I did was cut squares and sew them together.  If you have a serger, its even easier.

Here's a nice example of cloth wipes.

Third, it great for the environment.  My household produces significantly less waste since we’ve shifted from paper to cloth.  It always bugged me to spend money on stuff that I was just going to flush down the toilet.  You might as well roll up dollar bills and use them as toilet paper!

Fourth, they are so easy to clean.  In each of my bathrooms we have a little garbage can with a lid.  After we  do our business, we just toss the cloth wipe into the garbage can.  Then when I wash BigD’s diapers, I simply dump the bags of cloth toilet wipes into the washer too.  So easy.  I never have to touch the dirty wipes.  Everything washes up beautifully and comes out smelling clean.

So, how do I do it?

I store my clean dry wipes in a neat little pile on the toilet tank.  Right next to them, I have a wipe warmer where I store our clean wet cloth wipes.  I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to use a warmed wipe.  (In fact, I think this is what convinced my husband I wasn’t crazy.)

You can either throw your used wipes into a little garbage bag, your cloth diaper pail, or a wet bag.  Some people like to hang a wet bag from their toilet paper holder.

If you have kidos in cloth diapers, just throw your used wipes into the washer with their diapers.  That’s what I do.  If you don’t have kids in diapers, I’d recommend washing your wipes separately from your other laundry.  Wash in hot then dry in the dryer or line dry.  Nothing could be easier.

Using cloth toilet wipes really isn’t as gross as it seems.  Give it a try, and quit paying for a clean rear!  You’ll never go back!

Here are some good links for additional reading on how other people use cloth wipes and what they think of it:

CLOTH WIPES AND CLOTH WIPE SOLUTION

TMI Alert: Cloth Toilet Paper

Archive for the ‘Cloth Toilet Paper’ Category

Top 10 Odd Environmental Ideas

Frugal Friday – Cloth Toilet Wipes 

Cloth Wipes

Whittling Down the Kitchen—Four Pots Left

My  latest step towards a minimalistic kitchen has been to decrease the number of pots and pans I have.  My kitchen isn’t very big, and I’m sick of trying to squish a full set of pots into my little cupboards.  It’s not worth it!

I received several sets of pots and pans when Mr. J and I got married.  The nicest was a stainless steel set from The Pampered Chef.  They are wonderful and will last my whole life.  The only problem is, my stove has four burners.  That’s it.  I couldn’t cook with more than four pots if I wanted to.  So what’s the point in keeping them?  The extra pots don’t get used that much anyway.  (We took the front two burners off because BigD can reach up and touch them.)

I know some people can get by with one nice pot, but I LOVE to cook, and I do it all the time.  I need at least four pots, and these do it all.

Here is what I kept:

6 qt covered stockpot

10″ covered skillet

3 qt covered saucepan

1.5 qt covered saucepan

The extra cupboard space is wonderful, and I haven’t missed my extra pots yet.

I Just Ordered My Flats!

I just ordered 30 flats from Diaper Junction!  Diaper Junction sells two sizes of birdseye cotton flats.  I called the company up and they recommended I purchase the large 32″ X 32″ size instead of the smaller 27″ X 27″ for my 13 months and 24 pound baby.  I chose to go with natural instead of white.  The company said there was no difference in absorbency or prep time between the two, and that it simply came down to preference.  Since my prefolds are all white, I thought I’d go with natural this time.  I’m excited to start using them, and I’ll tell you if I like them more or less than prefolds.

2011 Flats & Handwashing Challenge!

Change the world by changing a diaper!

Kim Rosas, author of the blog Dirty Diaper Laundry, has issued the Flats & Handwashing Challenge in response to a recent report on moms who reuse disposable diapers because they don’t have enough money to buy more.  This article was the inspiration to the challenge, and I found it very disturbing.  I can’t imagine letting my baby sit in a dirty diaper for hours and hours.  It’s terrible, and it breaks my heart to know that some babies are being subjected to this.

By issuing the Flats & Handwashing Challenge, Kim hopes to create buzz that will help educate moms about cloth diapers.  The challenge only allows you to use flats because they are SO easy to wash, and they dry in no time.  They are the ultimate all-purpose diaper.  They can transform from a diaper to a burp cloth to a play mat and even to a blanket!  They are as basic and as cheap as you can get.

Green Mountain Diapers has some great pictures of babies in flats.  You can look at them here.  At Nicki’s Diapers, you can get one dozen flats for only $15!  That’s as much as a pack of disposable diapers will cost  you, but flats will last forever.  If you washed your diapers every night, 12 would take you from birth to potty trained.  I would personally prefer to have at least 24 diapers, but that’s only $30!  Anyone can do that.

When my washing machine broke, I spent three weeks washing my prefolds by hand.  This wasn’t easy, but it was doable.  I’m told that flats are even easier because they aren’t thick like a prefold and they dry so quickly.

Here are the rules:

• You MUST use Flats.
• You MUST handwash them.  How is up to you.  (bathtub, sink, large wash tub, portable non electronic washing machine, or camp style washer (bucket and plunger- think churning butter)
• You MUST air dry them.  (indoors or outdoors, makes no difference)
• You MUST limit your number of covers in rotation to 5 or less.
• You can use any detergent you want.  (Keep in mind that you still want cloth safe detergents)
• You can still use your nighttime diapers but I ask that you try to make flats work.  Maybe try a prefold wrapped in a flat.
• You can use disposable liners.
• You CAN’T use a diaper sprayer.  I thought long and hard about this one, but at an average cost of 40.00 this is one diaper accessory that is out of range for many families.  Dunk, swish, flush, or scrape!
• You MUST start the morning of May 23 and end the evening of May 30.

I’m excited to take Kim’s challenge, and I hope that it will help some moms learn how cheaply and easily they can diaper their child (not to mention I have an excuse to buy new diapers!)  The challenge starts May 23 and ends May 30th.  I’ll keep you updated on how it goes.  It won’t be pretty, but hopefully it will be worth it.

Mrs. J

Finally! A Free Dryer.

Two days ago I finally took the plunge.  I did something that, a year ago, never would have entered my mind.  I chucked my dryer.

I grew up in a family that always had a washing machine and a dryer.  When the clothes came out of the washer, they were thrown straight into the dryer.  We turned the knob, and 45 minutes later fluffy, warm clothes awaited us.  Easy.  Convenient.  No hassle.  When Mr. J and I got married, it was essential that we find an apartment with a washing machine and a dryer.  The landlord wanted to charge us 25 dollars a month to rent his washer and dryer, but it was worth it, right?  Well, that’s what we thought at first.  Slowly, however, we started to resent paying 25 dollars every month to wash and dry our clothes.  We don’t have an exceptionally large monthly budget.  Mr. J is in medical school, and student loans hardly allow for frivolous spending.

At the beginning of every month, I found myself thinking, “Do we really need to spend money on this?  Really?”  No.  We didn’t.  The solution, then, was obvious.  We should buy our own washing machine and our own dryer so we don’t have to pay to rent our landlord’s.  If we bought used, I knew we would be able to break even in a few months.  After that, we would be saving 25 dollars a month (300 dollars a year).  Not bad, since every little bit helps.

Mr. J and I found an inexpensive washing machine and a free dryer on craigslist.  We called up our landlord and stopped paying to wash our clothes.  This worked great for a while.  Then things started to change.

In March of 2010, I had a baby.  BigD was 7 and a half pounds of laundry disaster.  Spit up, drool, poop — it’s amazing how messy tiny babies can be.  To complicate the laundry problem, I had decided to cloth diaper.  It seemed like I was doing a load nearly every day.  After a few months of increasing utility bills, Mr. J and I realized how un-free our “free” dryer really was: $0.29 per load.

We figured this by using 0.25 therms/hour as the amount of gas burned (our dryer was always set to maximum heat) and then looking at our bill to see that we were paying $0.683 per therm.  That means we were paying $0.17 per hour of drying, or $.25 per load of diapers since they took over an hour to dry.  Electricity is $0.687 per kWh, and at 0.5 kWh per load, the total comes to just under $0.29 per load.  In the summer this would rise by a penny.

I discussed our dryer with my Mom, and she sent me up a wooden drying rack.  At first, I only used it for the cloth diapers.  It takes 70 to 80 minutes for a load of diapers to dry in the dryer.  That’s twice as long as a regular load!  On the racks it takes about eight to twelve hours.  Longer, yes, but it doesn’t cost a dime.  With a little forethought, I always had a fresh stack of diapers for BigD.

The months went by.  BigD learned to walk, Mr. J was finishing up his second year of medical school, and I was growing increasingly unhappy with my dryer.  It was so big!  It took up a lot of space, and it was noisy.  I used it more than I should.  It’s just SO convenient to throw the diapers in there and forget about them!  I knew it was better for the environment and my pocket book to dry not only the diapers, but all my clothes on the rack.  I also knew that this would never happen unless the dryer disappeared.

I talked to Mr. J, and we decided to try and sell it.  No luck.  After all, we had gotten it for free, and it wasn’t the prettiest thing.  So, we called someone up who carts off scrap metal.  He was more than happy to take it off our hands, and I was more than happy to give it to him.

The rack fits perfectly in the same spot where the dryer used to be.  Here you can see my diapers and cloth wipes drying.  I love it.  I love that I can move my “dryer” anywhere all by myself.  I love how quiet it is (obviously).  I love that I can fold it up when I’m not using it.  I love that it forces me to plan ahead when I do the laundry.  I love that it is one less appliance my husband and I will have to move one day.  I love that its good for the environment.  Most of all, I love that I have finally found a dryer that is truly free.  If you’ve every thought of making the switch from a gas or electric dryer to some drying racks, I would encourage you to try.  It’s easier than you think.

Mrs. J

Ditching Verizon

Mrs. J and I both came from “Verizon” families, so it was very convenient for us to set up a family plan upon getting married.  We loved it—the service was great, all of our family was in “the network” and we never had to worry about counting minutes or paying for text messages.  Since neither of us had ever experienced any other cell phone company, we never even thought about doing something different.

Then we read how the Frugal Girl does cell phones.  It suddenly seemed ridiculous to be pinching pennies with our $200/month food budget, yet be dropping $120/month on premium cell service.  This $120 a month was buying us the ability to forget all about our phone plan, since texting was unlimited and most of our minutes were spent talking to “in network” family.  In the typical month we were using between 50 and 100 minutes out of our allotted 700.

Our three big questions were: 1. How do we regularly talk to our families without being on Verizon?  2. How much would we miss texting?  3. What were our options in the world of pre-paid phones?

The answer to question #1 was pretty easy—Google Voice.  If you haven’t checked out this service, you probably should.  It was originally a convenient way to manage your email, but in the last few months has become a powerful alternative to having a “home phone.”  You choose your new phone number, and can use it to call any cell or land line in the US, for free.  It also has unlimited texting, visual voicemail, and a bunch of other features.  With Google Voice we could still call friends and family, whenever we wanted, for absolutely no money.  The only cost was that we had to be sitting at the computer to talk, which seemed worth $120/month.

What about text messaging?  Both Mrs. J and I had gotten “texting” during college, and it had become an integral part of our lives since then.  (Don’t worry, I asked Mrs. J on the first date in person!)  We usually shot a few notes back and forth during the day while I was at school, often had “conversations” going with friends and family, and would coordinate meeting places and information through text messages.  I imagine this is similar to how everybody else uses text messaging, though I have known some people who have to check their phones every few seconds for another message.  We decided that saving $120/month was worth restricting our text messaging to Google Voice.

I haven’t missed it for a minute.  Google Voice lets us text when convenient, but it also lets us be free from constantly whipping out the phone throughout the day.  If you’ve had text messaging for a couple of years, let me testify that it’s incredibly liberating to leave the phone in your backpack (or pocket, or purse) all day long and never once have to check it for a message.  It’s also nice to be free from a second layer of conversations floating in the air above your head, distracting you from whatever is at hand.  This is harder to describe; it’s similar to the feeling of being in the woods without phone service, knowing that you won’t be bothered by anyone for the next several hours.  Sure, I can still be called on my phone at any time, but that happens with much less regularity than text messages used to.  In short, getting rid of mobile text messaging hasn’t been a sacrifice, but a positive change.

Finding a pre-paid phone service was pretty easy.  An hour googling led us to PagePlus Cellular.  This was convenient because they operate on the Verizon CDMA network, and could use our existing phones.  Their prices are also very reasonable: $0.10/minute or less, depending on how many minutes you buy, with a four-month expiration date.  Simple and easy.

The final obstacle was, of course, Verizon’s feared Early Termination Fee.  It’s prorated based on how far into the two year contract you are, and the total for canceling both our lines was $240.  There are instructions floating around online for getting out of the ETF by arguing that the Federal Universal Service Charge (which increases every so often) is having a materially adverse effect on you and thus justifies canceling the contract without a fee.  I gave this method a halfhearted attempt but didn’t follow up when Verizon stonewalled.  It didn’t feel right to try and use a loophole to escape a contract I’d signed in full faith, especially since I knew the $0.11 increase wasn’t having a real adverse effect.  In the end, we payed the $240 fee—it was only two months worth of payments, and we’d be saving lots of money in the long run.

We made all of these changes in February, so we’re now two months into the new plan.  We still talk to our families, we still call one another when necessary and we always have the ability to call 911.  What’s our average bill been with PagePlus?  $10/month.  Counting the Early Termination Fee, we’re going to break even beginning in May, and be saving $110 every month thereafter.  Add this huge cost  savings to other benefits (we LIKE not having mobile text messaging) and ditching Verizon was a great move.

Mr. J

Quality of Life > Quantity of Stuff

 In the summer of 2008 Mrs. J and I, two excited newlyweds, needed a place to live.  Of the many options available in town, two stood out.  One was in a great neighborhood, right next to the river and trail system, and less than a mile from the university where we both studied.  The units were 620 sq ft with a single bedroom, and the complex had a pool and gym available for residents.

The other apartment, pictured above, was in a crummy neighborhood on the south end of town (a block from the railroad tracks, actually).  It was several miles from school, and not within walking distance of anything.  The dilapidated home had been divided into three apartments, and each had exposed plumbing and cramped floor plans as amenities.  However, it was a two-bedroom apartment with about 900 sq ft.

Each apartment was available for $550/month.  We didn’t hesitate in choosing option two, despite all the advantages in location and comfort that the first apartment offered.  Why?  Simple—we knew 620 sq ft could not hold all of our stuff.

Even with two bedrooms things got pretty tight.  Before getting married, each of us had fit our things in one half of a single bedroom that was shared with a roommate.  After the wedding and a year of marriage, we had already filled up the spare room.  You can see the pictures—our storage room was packed!

A year later we moved away so I could begin medical school, and of course the stuff had to come with us.  We moved 1,400 miles, and never once questioned why two people would need four paintball masks, six backpacks, two George Foreman grills, 150lbs of (spoiled, we later discovered) pasta, and a slew of other redundant, unused, or useless items.

Predictably, the new apartment was larger (1200 sq ft) and more expensive ($700/month) than the last.  [It's worth mentioning that rental prices in rural America are awesome].  There were brand-new one-bedroom places available for $450/month, but could we live there?  Forget it!  We needed a full basement to keep our things organized.

Soon baby came along (BigD) and with him a mountain of clothes, toys, and accessories.  Would we like two desks, two rocking chairs, a bowflex?  Yes.  Soon 1200 sq ft was getting tight.

Then a wonderful thing happened: BigD began walking.  We scrambled to baby-proof the house, and quickly realized that the easiest way to keep a kid from getting into things was to remove the things.  The idea of “less” was planted.

When we were searching for apartments back in 2008 and 2009, there was never a question of how much space we would require.  Two bedrooms were essential.  It didn’t matter how nice an apartment was, how many amenities it offered or how convenient the location was—if it had a single bedroom, it wasn’t an option.  The question that we never asked was “Do we really need all of this stuff?”  By unquestioningly accumulating more and more, we forced ourselves to compromise in other areas, especially housing.  In a real way, we chose to maintain our quantity of stuff over increasing our quality of life.

Our hope now is that we can begin to ditch the junk, clear up space, and use our money and time for things that matter more: financial freedom, time with each other, eating healthier, and giving more to those in need.  We see this blog as a fun way to chronicle and share our adventures.  We hope you enjoy reading it!

Mr. J