2022 Frugal Living Challenge

spudsmum

Siebrie said:

joedenise said:

I haven't got a Farmfoods and use Iceland's loo rolls.  They were £5.50 for 24 rolls but I noticed on Facebook that they had an advert saying 2 for £11 and £13 crossed out, so presumably they've gone up to £6.50 for 24 since I bought the last lot!  It's really annoying because it's the sort of thing you can't cut back on!

Well..... I've seen an article where people made reuseable wipes from cotton shirts. They had a lidded bucket next to the toilet.

I've seen this mentioned in other places. I'm all for frugality but that's a step too far for me I'm afraid. 

It would be muggins here that would end up emptying it with my kids that's not a palatable thought at all. 

Perhaps for wee it might not be too bad but I'd cut back on many other things before I sacrificed toilet paper totally. 

mumtoomany

Hi spudsmun and others. I've been buying the toilet rolls from Farmfoods. I get 15% staff (daughter not me) discount. When they were 4 packs for £10, i worked out, that with discount, they were cheaper per sheet than Aldi's cheap ones, (they were 6 rolls for £1.99 then.) FF rolls have 166 sheets Aldi 400. Aldi was 0.0829166, FF was 0.0711178. When they went to £12 they became 0.085341, a fraction dearer but as they are three-ply we should use less. Now they've gone up again! But Aldi's are now only £1.93. Will be buying those again next time. Hope this helps, and you don't all think I'm sad working out price per sheet!
Mumtoomany.xx

spudsmum

mumtoomany said:

Hi spudsmun and others. I've been buying the toilet rolls from Farmfoods. I get 15% staff (daughter not me) discount. When they were 4 packs for £10, i worked out, that with discount, they were cheaper per sheet than Aldi's cheap ones, (they were 6 rolls for £1.99 then.) FF rolls have 166 sheets Aldi 400. Aldi was 0.0829166, FF was 0.0711178. When they went to £12 they became 0.085341, a fraction dearer but as they are three-ply we should use less. Now they've gone up again! But Aldi's are now only £1.93. Will be buying those again next time. Hope this helps, and you don't all think I'm sad working out price per sheet!
Mumtoomany.xx

Thanks @mumtoomany

I don't think you're sad at all - I quite often stand in the shop calculating cost per gram so that I can compare brands it's the only way to compare like for like. 

That's really interesting - I try to avoid Aldi in general as I find it quite pricy but I'll definitely be shopping around for my loo rolls from now on. 

Jellytotts

Floss said:

Jellytotts said:

Siebrie said:

Well..... I've seen an article where people made reuseable wipes from cotton shirts. They had a lidded bucket next to the toilet.

I mentioned to DH last night that I was going to look at doing this, I shall keep a look out for a suitable lidded bucket on the free sites and see how it works for us.

It sounds a bit like a nappy bucket.

Yep, I’ve no problem with a bucket of cloths that have been soaking in sterilising liquid.  No worse than dealing with washable nappies. 

Purchasing paper to flush down the loo has always seemed mighty wasteful to me.

Elisheba

Jellytotts said:

Floss said:

Jellytotts said:

Siebrie said:

Well..... I've seen an article where people made reuseable wipes from cotton shirts. They had a lidded bucket next to the toilet.

I mentioned to DH last night that I was going to look at doing this, I shall keep a look out for a suitable lidded bucket on the free sites and see how it works for us.

It sounds a bit like a nappy bucket.

Yep, I’ve no problem with a bucket of cloths that have been soaking in sterilising liquid.  No worse than dealing with washable nappies. 

Purchasing paper to flush down the loo has always seemed mighty wasteful to me.

I suppose it would depend on the size of your household how much money it would save and whether it was worth it.

After the cost of sterilising fluid and boil washes, there might not be much of a saving for a household of 1 who spends £1.97 on 6 Lidl toilet rolls a month.

For a family of 6 spending £12 a month on toilet roll, it could save over £100 a year and may well be worth the extra effort.

Also very good for the environment. 

willow_loulou

I’m another who won’t consider giving up loo roll. It’s just not something I can add to my list of chores - plus I suspect totally unfeasible for those with heavy periods. Though I often need to shower extra I’d rather not add cloth cleaning in to those miserable few days! All power to those who do though. 

spudsmum

willow_loulou said:

I’m another who won’t consider giving up loo roll. It’s just not something I can add to my list of chores - plus I suspect totally unfeasible for those with heavy periods. Though I often need to shower extra I’d rather not add cloth cleaning in to those miserable few days! All power to those who do though. 

I hadn't even though of that aspect to be honest but I definitely agree. 

I have nothing against it in principle and fair play to those who do it but I already have zero time to myself and the washer is regularly on at least twice a day already so adding to my list of stuff to do is not an option.

Add to that a son with SEN who likes to investigate everything. A bucket of "used" cloths and chemicals easily accessible in the toilet is just not a good idea for us. 

fionaandphil

spudsmum said:

It often seems like I replace the roll every day in my main bathroom and no amount of nagging/threatening/persuading has been successful in getting them to use less. Short of standing outside the bathroom and handing out a ration per visit I'm at a loss as to how to reduce consumption so I guess this is one area where I'll just have to pick my battles lol 

When DS was toilet training they recommended squeezing the roll so it was oval rather than round so it flows less easily and doesn't come off too quickly, I think it worked but it was a while ago

2Scratters

Well yesterday was a little frugal as not putting the heating on till later, doing the house cleaning was a good cardio day, so when I got warm I sat in here and had  a read, then we cooling off went and did some more I did have an extra t-shirt on but was very snug all day. The day was all in balance.  Today is sunny so am able to cheat a bit on the house jobs. 
Quite happy at the moment with my utility supplier and the new variable rates are cheaper than the fixed. As we are heading to spring will need some wood chopping and have some "coal" left too. Just need to keep our eye on the ball with it. Will be bottoming the veg in the fridge into some soup for lunch. Checked DS vehicle insurance and definitely  better staying where he is.
Right ladies you may cringe at my finding yesterday.... I have one of those little foot machines for removing the hard skin, don't ask why I did what I did but I did my knees too , you know that little area that always gets leant on then I did my dry legs (been neglected through winter) hey ho worked like a dream a little multi tool

2Scratters xx

joedenise

fionaandphil said:

spudsmum said:

It often seems like I replace the roll every day in my main bathroom and no amount of nagging/threatening/persuading has been successful in getting them to use less. Short of standing outside the bathroom and handing out a ration per visit I'm at a loss as to how to reduce consumption so I guess this is one area where I'll just have to pick my battles lol 

When DS was toilet training they recommended squeezing the roll so it was oval rather than round so it flows less easily and doesn't come off too quickly, I think it worked but it was a while ago

I still do that!  We started doing it when we had a caravan because it always unravelled whilst we were travelling and it just seems the logical to do it indoors as well!