Trim the Fat Tuesday: The Tissues
It's that time of year again: the sniffles are upon us. Wintertime colds and (fingers crossed, not this year) flu mean an investment in several boxes of tissues, and that go us thinking about trying to skim a little off the price of those. From here on out, we plan to
Replace name-brand Kleenex with store brand tissues.
This isn't one of the biggest money-savers in the world, but it is a really easy one. It turns out the Market Basket tissues aren't too bad — a little thinner, but not terribly scratchy or rough. And since our typically wasteful children appear to use just a tiny corner of a tissue tissue before throwing it away, they probably won't notice at all. The boxes are uglier, but whatever.
The math on this involves some estimating, as I can't honestly claim to know exactly how many tissues we go through in a month. Let's say we average two boxes per month for the family (less in the summer, more in the winter).
The box of 160 Kleenex tissues are $2 each at Market Basket, while store brand tissues are 99 cents for a box of 144.
It's a total pain that these aren't easily comparable boxes, so now I need to figure out how much an individual tissue costs as well as how many we go through each month. Good thing I like math.
Each box holds 160 tissues, so that's 160 tissues x 2 boxes, or 320 tissues a month.
At $2 per 160 tissues, the Kleenex cost 1.25 cents apiece. Multiply that by 320 tissues, and the cost per month to not be gross is $4.
At 99 cents per 144 tissues, the Market Basket tissues cost just .6875 cents apiece. Multiply that by 320 tissues, and the price per month is $2.20.
Quick subtraction shows us that the difference per month is $1.80. Not amazing, but nothing to sneeze at.
Ba dum DUM.
As always, I'm rounding up.
Savings per month: $2
Replace name-brand Kleenex with store brand tissues.
This isn't one of the biggest money-savers in the world, but it is a really easy one. It turns out the Market Basket tissues aren't too bad — a little thinner, but not terribly scratchy or rough. And since our typically wasteful children appear to use just a tiny corner of a tissue tissue before throwing it away, they probably won't notice at all. The boxes are uglier, but whatever.
The math on this involves some estimating, as I can't honestly claim to know exactly how many tissues we go through in a month. Let's say we average two boxes per month for the family (less in the summer, more in the winter).
The box of 160 Kleenex tissues are $2 each at Market Basket, while store brand tissues are 99 cents for a box of 144.
It's a total pain that these aren't easily comparable boxes, so now I need to figure out how much an individual tissue costs as well as how many we go through each month. Good thing I like math.
Each box holds 160 tissues, so that's 160 tissues x 2 boxes, or 320 tissues a month.
At $2 per 160 tissues, the Kleenex cost 1.25 cents apiece. Multiply that by 320 tissues, and the cost per month to not be gross is $4.
At 99 cents per 144 tissues, the Market Basket tissues cost just .6875 cents apiece. Multiply that by 320 tissues, and the price per month is $2.20.
Quick subtraction shows us that the difference per month is $1.80. Not amazing, but nothing to sneeze at.
Ba dum DUM.
As always, I'm rounding up.
Savings per month: $2
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