According to a past DFA Tip of the Week, my wife & I have stopped using paper products (with the exception of toilet paper) and switched to non-disposable products instead.

For example, instead of Kleenex, now we use handkerchiefs.  Instead of paper towels, we use washable microfiber towels (Sam’s Club sells a great 24 pack).  Instead of paper napkins, we busted into our stash of cloth napkins that we NEVER used.  All these changes have been a joy for us. Not only do we not miss the paper products, we found that we heavily prefer the cloth products!  The benefits are multi-fold, which you should use your imagination to discover.

Also, making this change caused me to challenge the entire disposable product industry.

Come to find out, this genius marketing idea of “disposable products” was invented by King Camp Gillette, the founder of The Gillette Company of razor fame.  From Wikipedia:

“Gillette realized that a profit could be made by selling an inexpensive razor and generating a market for disposable blades. This has been called The Razor and blades business model, or a “loss leader”, and has become a very common practice for a wide variety of products.”

Now again, use your imagination and you’ll undoubtedly begin to conjure up over 20 products you use in every day life that have sold you on this idea of “disposable products”.  Why?  So they can keep you coming back for more.  It’s the same concept as a service provider selling you a subscription instead of focusing on a one time service fee…scheduled & guaranteed return business (consider the swiffer mop & duster for example).

My wife & I are currently auditing our life for the brainwashing affect of this marketing idea, and trying to make a frugal return to the days of true recycling…not using disposable products!  I challenge you to do the same.  Work to rid your life of the brainwashing effect the marketing industry has had on us, and instead reevaluate how to be more frugal in every day situations.  Challenge the norm, don’t be afraid to stand alone in a thing if it be good, make responsible choices in all areas of your spending and you will undoubtedly see your a drastic reduction in your spending.

Read our DFA Tip of the Week series to learn about how to adopt more money saving, frugally based tips!

God bless.