Even before everything with COVID-19 was happening, we were always looking for ways to save money around the house. Plus, we continually strive to be more “green” every year and help the environment. And what I’ve found is that there are a ton of ways to merry both saving money and going green together. The best way we have found to achieve both goals is by switching from disposable products whenever, and wherever we can.
Paper towels
When it comes to disposable products, we didn’t use a ton of them to begin with. But, I knew there will still places that we could work on. And paper towels just happened to be a big one for us. With 5 kids and boarding a ton of different dogs, there are always messes to clean up.
While it may not seem that paper towels cost a lot of money, what they do cost can actually really add up. If we go with a 10 year projection, it’s easier to see the real savings by switching from disposable products.
Our family goes through about 1 roll of paper towels per week. If we purchase a package of 8 rolls for $17, that package will last us approximately 8 weeks, or 2 months. Which means, that for a year’s supply of paper towels we will be spending about $110.50, before tax. So, over 10 years, we would spend $1105 on paper towels. That’s a heck of a lot on just this one disposable product!
However, we decided to toss out the paper towels and go with a reusable, washable version of paper towel instead. The product we chose is Lola Wowables 30 count roll for $19.99. They come in 4 different colors: yellow, teal, purple and coral. We chose teal because that color matches our kitchen best. The website offers free shipping on orders of $40 or more, so we chose to purchase 2 rolls to save us the shipping cost.
Overall Savings
Since these reusable paper towels are washable and biodegradable, they last for a really LONG time! In fact, based on the aforementioned usage, one roll should last us a total of 2 years. Which means that by buying the 2 rolls at once, we should have 4 years worth of paper towels on hand. And we paid a total of $40 plus tax for that!
So, over a 10 year period of time, we should only have to spend a total of $100 on these fabulously bright and absorbent reusable paper towels versus the $1105 we would have spent on disposable products. That’s a huge savings in just this one category alone!
water bottles
Our family strives to drink more than the recommended 64 ounces of water per day. Which means that we all end up needing water bottles because we aren’t always at home. And with a family of 7, that could really add up if we were buying bottled water all the time.
In order to just get the 64 ounces per day, each of us would have to drink 4 bottles of water per day. This is based on the standard 16.9 ounce prepackaged water bottle size you find in stores. Which means we would go through 28 bottles of water per day, on average. We can get a 24 pack of water bottles for around $3.50. But, one package wouldn’t even be enough for one day of water for us, since we have 7 people in our family.
Therefore, in order to get enough water bottles for a year, we would need to purchase 426 cases of water (24 bottles in each case). This would total up to $1491 plus tax just in water bottles for 1 year, or $14,910 over 10 years That is a TON of money!
But, by switching to reusable metal water bottles, we have saved a ridiculous amount of money just in the first year alone. We found these really awesome, larger and more versatile reusable metal water bottles instead. The Extremus Deluge SS Wide Mouth water bottle usually sells for $20.99 per bottle and comes in 6 different colors. We were actually able to get them for a discounted rate since Amazon had them on sale for $16.79 when we found them, so we have saved even more. And, they come with 2 different handles, a carabiner and a smaller lid that screws off only at the mouth hole, which we really liked.
Overall Savings
These water bottles should easily last for 10 years, barring any child accidents. So, with that in mind, we have spent a total of $146.93 plus tax for all 7 bottles. So, if they last the full 10 years, this means we will have save a total of $14,763.07. Now, that is a not only a HUGE savings, but it also has a giant impact on the environment. Reusable water bottles for the win!
switching from disposable products summary
Overall, there are a lot of ways you can choose to go about this. But, ultimately, the more open minded you can be about getting rid of disposable products, the more money you can potentially save. Our biggest savings come from the paper towels and water bottles category, personally. But that doesn’t mean you can’t save in every category. No matter what, the more disposable products you get rid of, the greener you are and the more you can save.
What are some of the disposable products you’ve tossed to ultimately save more money and go green?
