I have always been concerned for the environment, but even more concerned about saving money. Our family is by no means struggling for money, my hubby provides very well and has worked hard to give us a very comfortable life. But, I am cheap and I enjoy finding different ways that I can save money here and there. I very rarely use paper plates,plastic cups or silverware. It just seems so expensive and wasteful.

My extended family uses these items a lot and having them to visit over the summer really got me thinking. Then my sis bought the kids some designed plastic bags as a gift, but she was telling me how A kept telling her not to get some for her because she only uses plastic containers. My sis bought them anyway telling A not to worry about it. Then I really started thinking about it. My kids, especially A, knows how I think using plastic bags all the time is wasteful and expensive and bad for the environment.

I kept this in mind as we ordered her lunch box this year. We ended up ordering her a Japanese Bento box which comes with lots of little cool designed plastic containers that are to be used over and over again. No waste there except some washing time. But that still didn’t seem like enough…

Then I decided the last item that needs to change are paper napkins. No more. We are on our way to switching to all cloth ones. But…. after looking at the variety or should I say, lack of variety, I decided to make my own. Even better, for the price I can buy a set of 4 in the store I came make a set of 8. Better yet, I took the kids to the store and let them pick out their own material. They are proud of their napkins, we all know whose are who’s and they can’t wait for the other kids at school to see them.

Then, after getting such a positive response from people who saw them, I decided I am going to make up some more batches of them and try selling some on ebay and at some craft events. From my research thus far, I have not found anyone selling cloth napkins that are targeted towards children, so maybe they will do well. If not, that’s ok too. My kids enjoy them and think they are so cool, which makes me smile. Plus, it supports 2 of my beliefs- being thrifty and not wasteful.

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