A mom-of-three has revealed why her family stopped using toilet paper three years ago and what they use as an alternative.
Amber Allen published a video on her Youtube channel explaining why she and her husband Joseph have stopped using toilet paper.
"We’ve used cloth instead of toilet paper for the past three years," Amber said in a video on her YouTube channel. "We started not using toilet paper for several reasons. We were trying to get out of $70,000 of debt, so we cut anything out of our budget that we could."
She said other measures they took included canceling their Netflix subscription, not shopping at all, as well as eating frugally, but in healthy ways.
"One day it occurred to me, why are we using toilet paper? We are literally throwing our money down the toilet," she said. "I just couldn’t wrap my head around why we were doing that."
Watch her video below:Allen stated that she used the internet as a way to research alternative options to toilet papers and came across cloth wipes - though "not many people were doing it", she admitted.
However, cloth wipes are still costly so she decided to save her money by cutting up old or damaged clothes that she didn't like and reinventing them as cloth toilet wipes.
Yet, Amber quickly discovered that cloth wipes wore out "insanely fast" so started purchasing second-hand baby blankets made out of flannel.
She estimated that not using toilet paper in three years has helped her save between $1200 to $2100. The content creator added, though, that the family still does buy toilet paper, and it’s strictly for guests only.
"We used to have a BYOR (bring your own roll) rule in our house," she joked. But the family eventually decided to be more accommodating and bought one pack of toilet rolls for guests to use.
Amber detailed that her family put the used cloth wipes in a bucket with water and they wash it every other day. "Please wash your cloth wipes in a separate load from your clothing," she advised.
She explained that her husband "made the mistake of washing used cloths with our clothing" and "there's no coming back from washing your soiled cloth with clothing or bedding without soaking everything in a bathtub with baking soda."
The supersaver doesn't judge people who still use toilet paper and admitted that using cloth wipes can be time-consuming and tiring. "After using cloth wipes for years, we are kind of getting tired of it," she said.
"It takes work, but we’re going to keep going, for now," Amber concluded.