Last night, the manager of a plant that makes Clorox wipes was interviewed on nightly news. He said demand has tripled. Consequently, they’re working overtime (and making big bucks). to fill up empty store shelves. Everyone is beginning to panic. Stop! You don’t need wipes to disinfect.

If you can't get Clorox wipes, you can make your own solution. Stop! You don't need disinfectant wipes. — Stop! You don’t need disinfectant wipes. You can make your own bleach solution during this pandemic.

You can’t even buy Clorox wipes on Amazon. They’re out of stock. It boggles the mind, when you know how easy it is to disinfect with plain old bleach. I haven’t seen any store out of it. I always have a big bottle of it in my broom closet. It’s dirt cheap. All you have to do is pour a little bit of bleach into some water, put on some rubber gloves, take an old rag, and voila! You have a disinfectant every bit as good as clorox wipes. You not only saved money, but you helped the environment.

Can you believe there was a time when people didn’t use wipes to clean a baby’s bottom, wash their face, or disinfect? In the early sixties, I used soap and water on a washcloth. I had never heard of a baby wipe. It wasn’t until the seventies that they became popular. It wasn’t long before there were wipes for just about everything. And people thought they couldn’t do without them.

What’s bad about wipes? For starters, they’re bad for the environment. Whether baby wipes or disinfecting wipes, they pose a major problem by clogging up sewer systems. Once they enter the sewer system, wet wipes bunch together and trap food and other waste to form wads called “fatbergs” made of fat from food waste and wipes.

Most wipes contain plastic fibers that are not biodegradable. When the wipes make their way into the ocean, they get ingested by sea creatures, such as turtles, who mistake them for jellyfish. The plastic stays in the stomach of the animal, and eventually, they die of starvation.

Plumbers do not like wipes. Even though some wet wipes are marketed as “flushable” and “septic-safe,” they take a longer amount of time to do so compared to toilet paper. Consequently, clogged pipes and blockages occur more frequently.

Save money, save the environment. First, clean and remove dirt and grime from surfaces. Next, follow the directions on a bottle of bleach to make your own disinfectant solution. But be careful not to use too much. Fumes from too strong a solution can sting your eyes and nose.

Yes, you can get through this pandemic, even if you can’t buy disinfectant wipes.

Many years ago, I had a mother-in-law who prided herself on her money management skills. We’re talking a real tightwad, here. Like turning off a faucet before you had a full glass of water. Never, ever, discarding a leftover. Changing banks every time they offered a free gift if you opened an account. And of course, this frugal lady believed she saved a lot with coupons.

She lived in a small, beachfront apartment, so there wasn’t a lot of storage space. But one kitchen cupboard was crammed with containers of upscale, name brand items that represented, to her, hundreds of dollars in savings–offbeat things like crab soup, gourmet peanut butter, imported cereals, special jellies. The list could go on forever. She seldom used any of these items. They just sat there, month on end, but she could tell you exactly how much she had saved by using coupons for their purchase.

STORE COUPONS DON'T ALWAYS SAVE MONEY — HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAVE WITH COUPONS

Coupons weren’t so widely used in those days, and since I was working full time, I thought coupons weren’t worth the time and bother. Why spend hours going through magazines and newspapers in search of a $1.00 off coupon for a can of name brand food, when I could buy generic brands for even less?

Coupons are everywhere nowadays. You go to the drug store to buy a pack of gum, and the cash register spits out ribbons of coupons representing mega dollars in savings. However, there’s a catch. You can’t use a coupon to buy a bottle of any old face cream; it has to be the most expensive one on the shelf. The mail brings more coupons—stacks and stacks of them from our local grocery store. They’ve even kept track of my purchases and send me coupons for the things I’m likely to buy. I stuff these things in my purse, but when I get to the store I don’t have time to sort them out and decide which ones are still good. And often, when I try to cash one in, I’m informed that the coupon just expired.

One drug store chain has a sneaky way of sending coupons through the mail that are only good for a week. On the back of the coupon, you see numerous “excluded” items, including anything that’s on sale. If you rush to the store to redeem your coupon, you see yellow tags everywhere you look. Everything you normally buy is on sale! Your coupon is useless. But what the heck, they got you into the store!

The Sunday paper is loaded with coupons. How else would newspapers survive without that advertising revenue? Here again, it seems more trouble than it’s worth to save a couple of dollars on a product you wouldn’t ordinarily purchase. And yet, millions of people must cut out the coupons, or the companies wouldn’t spend the money to print them.

I guess the world is divided between those who clip coupons and those who don’t. As for me, I prefer coupon free stores like Walmart, Sam’s and Aldi where what you see is what you get.

Tag: frugality

Stop! You don’t need wipes to disinfect

HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAVE WITH COUPONS?