My TFF blogging partner, Aimee, is lucky. Her family agrees to use cloth napkins. I think she’s successful because her kids learned to use them at an early age.
I missed the boat on that one, and my family has an aversion to using cloth napkins, so every week I dole out money–too much money–for this silly thing called paper napkins. But all the waste, and all the money–did I mention money? — is getting to me. I weaned my family off of boxes of tissues (except when they have bad colds), and instead, they use toilet paper for that job. We get quality TP (with coupon), no one complains. Packaged napkins will be the next paper goods item checked off my shopping list for good.
We ran out of paper napkins this week and in a pinch at breakfast, I grabbed the roll of Bounty paper towels (great sale + coupon). One sheet is too large for a napkin. I grabbed the scissors and cut a sheet up in fours, put them in the napkin holder, and everyone was happy. I did a little calculating and here’s what I came up with.
- Price I typically pay for 250 basic, no-frills store-brand napkins: $1.65 (PriceRite) to $1.88 (Stop & Shop).
- That means each napkin = .0066 cents a napkin from PriceRite and .0075 cents a napkin from Stop & Shop.
- Price for one roll of 2-ply Bounty paper towels (sale and coupon) .42 cents.
- 46 Sheets on one Bounty roll x 4 napkins made from each sheet = 184 napkins from one roll.
- I have 184 napkins for .42 cents, making each napkin .0023 cents. Great if 2-ply paper towels are on sale.
Two Frugal Fairfielders 
Serious question, why an “aversion to using cloth napkins?” Once out of paper ones (and I do think the cut up paper towel was a cleaver alternative), offer cloth napkins. If that’s the only choice, why balk at it?
We are a 99% of the time cloth family, reserving what few paper napkins enter our home for really messy items that stain such as BBQ ribs, greasy fried chicken, etc. Not a major issue to toss cloth napkins in with the daily laundry, often line dried this time of year. Most of my cloth napkins are thrift shop finds. Once tattered and beyond repair, they often are found as disposable rags here.
Using the S & S napkins for a family of 4, 3 times a day = $0.09 cents/day x 30 days=$2.70/month x 12 months =$32.39 + $2.07 tax for Mr Malloy for an estimated yearly cost of $34.46. (never mind super messy meals, guests etc) Certainly a few doz cloth napkins are alot cheaper, a greener alternative. What could you put $35 towards in your annual budget?
Also, have you calculated the cost benefit of using TP over sale priced tissues? Allergy sufferers here, we go thru a considerable amount of tissue, easily 8-10 boxes a month @ approx $1/average sized box.
Hi Carol, I know, I asked my husband why,, why, why don’t you use the darn cloth napkins! Even when I forced them to use cloth napkins, they just left them folded up–lol! (I even had them use nautical-themed fabric napkins thinking that’s what would do it for them–nope) Don’t worry, I’m going to try again and again. The only answer I received from my husband was a scrunched up nose when I mentioned fabric napkins and he’s the first one that likes to save money.
Also, thank goodness we don’t have allergy sufferers here so the tissue issue wasn’t difficult to eliminate.
But I am going to try fabric again….I’m going to buy a different type of fabric (any suggestions?) that may be softer than the ones I have now. Wish me luck!!! ~Marilyn, TFF
Go with a heavy cotton fabric content, vs polyester which can be scratchy and far from absorbent. Got an old cotton tablecloth to cut up into napkins? try a thrift shop, many high quality, cotton napkins can be found there at reasonable prices! HTH
That may be the key! Thanks! I betcha the ones I bought ages ago are polyester (no tags). ~Marilyn
Ah, quick postscript: the napkins are indeed cotton, not polyester. My husband actually remembered that little fact.