Solution: How to Save Money on TP with a 3yo in the House

[jollygreen23]

I don't know about the other parents out there, but my kids have a blast unrolling too much toilet paper. My three-year-old daughter, in particular, uses an ungodly amount. It got to the point where we were using 1 roll per day--just in one bathroom!

The solution was so obvious, I feel silly. But maybe the same problem is staring some of you in the face.

Take the toilet paper off the roll.

It was that simple. I just keep the loose rolls on the back of the toilet. Even if the occasional roll falls off the tank and plunges into the water once a week, I think we'll still come out ahead.

Hope this helps.

[nereo]

once upon a time there was a poster here who riled everybody up by saying that we were all (paraphrasing here) freakishly frugal wackos who spent our time discussing methods for saving money on toilet paper instead of increasing our incomes.  I responded that I had never actually seen a thread on how to save on toilet paper.  Today I have.

[relena]

my daughter would not like that. she would try to climb up and grab it and put it on the toilet roll holder herself. she uses a lot of toliet paper, but luckily not one whole roll a day.

what would probably work is get an empty roll and roll a tiny bit of toliet paper on that roll for your kids to use. of course, it would require someone to constantly put a tiny bit on it each time it runs out of toliet paper. Me, I'm too lazy to do that.

[Bracken_Joy]

Tuck the end back into the roll? Much harder to get it going then.

[a rose by any other name]

This is actually one of the first tips in The Complete Tightwad Gazette. Squash your TP roll so that it's oval shaped rather than round (you may have to use your foot to squash it). This will prevent kids from unrolling much because it makes it harder to roll.

[LadyStache in Baja]

We keep our bathroom door locked, with the key on a high shelf just outside the door.  In fact, we keep all the rooms in our house locked, even the kitchen. 

My grandma jokes that it's like a zoo around here.  It is.  If we didn't, then while we're wrangling one monkey, the other two would be taking everything out of the drawers and fridge and all the things all over the house.  Four under four.

[gaja]

Our biggest annoyance was soap. Soap bars disappeared, liquid soap made gigantic foam baths all over the bathroom/kitchen/hallway/kid's room. The solution was homemade foam soap; one part liquid soap, nine parts water. Even if they used the entire bottle, they only used 1/10 the ampunt of actual soap. And substantially less foam bath everywhere.

[Rezdent]

Our biggest annoyance was soap. Soap bars disappeared, liquid soap made gigantic foam baths all over the bathroom/kitchen/hallway/kid's room. The solution was homemade foam soap; one part liquid soap, nine parts water. Even if they used the entire bottle, they only used 1/10 the ampunt of actual soap. And substantially less foam bath everywhere.

Ours was dish soap - once the kids starting washing dishes they were going through enormous amounts, so I started watering it way down.

OnE time  we ran out, so DH picked up a bottle on the way home and gave it straight to the 16-yr old.  She told me that she was afraid to use it.
Thought dad had gotten ripped off, that it was a fake soap. Either that, or it had gone bad.  When I asked her why, she said it was all thick and weird.

Maybe this should be its own thread - Mustachian children's problems.  Kids who think squashed TP is normal, can't recognize undiluted soap, and believe everyone washes baggies.

[tonysemail]

once upon a time there was a poster here who riled everybody up by saying that we were all (paraphrasing here) freakishly frugal wackos who spent our time discussing methods for saving money on toilet paper instead of increasing our incomes.  I responded that I had never actually seen a thread on how to save on toilet paper.  Today I have.

Hahahaha.  This is really great.

[Merrie]

It was that simple. I just keep the loose rolls on the back of the toilet. Even if the occasional roll falls off the tank and plunges into the water once a week, I think we'll still come out ahead.

Hope this helps.

My daughter will accidentally knock the loose roll into the sink/trash can a couple of times a week, so this doesn't help us much. I used to do this when she was younger and still just tried to destroy the TP (she's 4 now). Now I just keep the bathroom door closed all the time because while she was never interested in toilets when she was a young toddler and so I never worried about her getting into one, her 1 1/2 year old brother finds them totally fascinating and awesome.

[TVRodriguez]

Unrolled TP is a nightmare.  One of my kids did that once.  I had them help me put it all in a plastic bag that was left in the bathroom, and we all used that before re-filling the roll.  DH got tired of it before it was done and just trashed it.  But I don't remember any of them doing it again.

[Scubanewbie]

Naive question here but can't you teach them to count the squares and only use 2 squares for potty?  Seems like it solves a lot of the problem and my daughter came home from daycare telling me she could only use one square so she thinks it's quite the bonus to use two squares at home.  I have a 6 year old boy and 3 year old girl so I'm not completely new here...and have never run into this problem???  Paper towel on the other hand...grrr!

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

My only issue is that when they learn to wipe themselves, they're pretty profligate. Big Brother used to enjoy unrolling a whole roll (which I then put in a bowl), but he seems to have outgrown this urge. Fortunately, he often seems to do his business at school :-).

[jollygreen23]

Naive question here but can't you teach them to count the squares and only use 2 squares for potty?  Seems like it solves a lot of the problem and my daughter came home from daycare telling me she could only use one square so she thinks it's quite the bonus to use two squares at home.  I have a 6 year old boy and 3 year old girl so I'm not completely new here...and have never run into this problem???  Paper towel on the other hand...grrr!

I tried that first. This resulted in the sound of the lock popping into place before the sounds of the roll bouncing around on the pin as she unrolled it. :/

[jengod]

This is actually one of the first tips in The Complete Tightwad Gazette. Squash your TP roll so that it's oval shaped rather than round (you may have to use your foot to squash it). This will prevent kids from unrolling much because it makes it harder to roll.

Second.

And I try not to leave extra rolls near the toilet, because the kids will drop them in the toilet bowl or just knock them down and they end up in a puddle of pee when the little guy doesn't make it to the potty in time.

On Extreme Cheapskates one time a gal had designated numbers of squares set out for each person in the family.

[Merrie]

Rationing TP seems creepy to me. And two squares, eeeeew. I want my girl to wipe until she is dry and learn to be the judge of when she's dry. She doesn't typically waste horrendous amounts. When I happen to be in the bathroom with her I'll pull off the roll somewhere around what I'd use or a little less, and she's content with that usually.

[MBot]

This is actually one of the first tips in The Complete Tightwad Gazette. Squash your TP roll so that it's oval shaped rather than round (you may have to use your foot to squash it). This will prevent kids from unrolling much because it makes it harder to roll.

In a house with 6 kids growing up, this worked! And my mom did get it out of that book too.

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

I actually buy roll-free toilet paper. (I think it's Scott Naturals?) So it doesn't roll all that smoothly to begin with :-).

[Bill76]

For reasons that I don't understand, our three year old likes to tear off an extra square (or partial square sometimes) and drop it on the bathroom floor. It's only a small amount of waste, but I get annoyed at having to pick up the extra bits every day. Has anyone else's kid done this?

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

For reasons that I don't understand, our three year old likes to tear off an extra square (or partial square sometimes) and drop it on the bathroom floor. It's only a small amount of waste, but I get annoyed at having to pick up the extra bits every day. Has anyone else's kid done this?

No, but why are YOU picking them up? Your three-year-old is old enough to do this themself!