We are Paper Free!

Okay, so not really paper free. We still have books, notebooks, school books....and toilet paper.

What we mean by paper free is in the kitchen.
If  for a whole year you write down the amount every time you buy paper towels, paper plates or paper napkins and go and add it all together, your jaw would hit the floor when you see how much money you have literally thrown away. 

We try to a lead a simple, frugal life. So I saw this as a necessary thing to change.

So we said GOODBYE to paper plates. Every plate we own is reusable (mostly glass at that).
We said GOODBYE to paper towels and napkins.
For the last 2 years in place of paper towels or napkins, we use a different assortment of rags or cloths.
I took pictures of half of my stash and wanted to share it all with you all so you can see what works for us.

 We don't have a dishwasher, so everything is washed by hand. We use these for dishes to reduce sponge usage (which can get pricey too!) Most are made by my self, and a few were made by my brothers girlfriend.  Here is a sample of what they look like , mine are the top two hers are the bottom two. We have 7 of these, one for each day of the week.

We use standard washcloths for cleaning up small messes, dirty hands and faces, drying hands and faces... Ya know, small things! We have about 30 of these and they last us anywhere from 4-7 days.

 

 Next, we have cloths recycled from old towels cut into sections. These are quite a bit bigger than the standard wash clothes. We use these for cleaning, big messes or spills or pot holders (when I can't find mine! Haha!) If you are recycling towels, a neat thing is the ability to cut them into whatever sizes you want or need. Below is 3 different sizes from big to small. Some people add a stitch around the outside to prevent fraying, but I'm not worried about that. :) We have about 14 of these.

 

 This is the difference in size between the standard and the big ones I cut my self. 

Last, we have the dish towels. We use these only for drying dishes. Nothing else. Easy Peasy. We have 10 of these.

 In place of paper towels we also use cloth. It's so nice doing all of this because about the same time every week, I can throw all of this in one load into the washer and wash them and be good for another week.

We have a small laundry basket that's kept under the kitchen sink cabinet, so when something gets dirtied we can just toss it in and it's out of sight and not piled up somewhere else.
So yeah, that's how we went paper free and save a ton of money!


If you have any questions or comments please share them! I'd love to hear from you!