Sometimes you just have to change your buying habits in order to get the best value for your money. I had one client, Linda, tell me that she was having difficulty figuring out where she could cut corners in her expenses. After two months of tracking, she came to my office and worked through her monthly expense sheet. I asked her about her paper towel use. Linda would only buy one particular brand and she knew exactly how many rolls she went through a week. I showed her that she was spending $520 a year on paper towels alone. It looked like this:
4 rolls per week @ $2.50 each = $10 a week x
52 weeks per year = $520 annually
She was appalled! She said she could afford to buy a new dishwasher for that amount of money! This gave her the motivation to stop using paper towels. Immediately she went out and purchased a bunch of inexpensive linen towels. The initial investment was $12.64 for 20. Even with laundering costs she knew that she was saving huge amounts of money by not using paper towels anymore.
