The Great Ass Wipe Debate

Sorry I have been remiss in posting regularly. Life is rather busy and I'm feeling a little chagrined because I spent entirely too damned much on stupid ass Halloween costumes. I used to make them every year, but I've found that all my children apparently go through a "thing" between the ages of six and ten where homemade Halloween costumes are not cool. So I entertained two booger heads with their uncool costume issues. And I make awesome costumes.

 Actually, I sometimes will spend just as much on making a costume as I would in just buying one, but since I always used basic shirts, pants, or long sleeved onsies as the base for the costume with the actual "costume" parts made to be removed, I came out fairly well since the most expensive parts could be stripped down and added to their wardrobe. The Cat in the Hat year was my most awesome. Tuba Girl was the Cat in the Hat and the boys were Thing One and Thing Two.(Click title to view full post if you're interested in seeing the instructions. My new three column format doesn't seem to work with breaks.)

My problem with this year's Halloween costumes is I now have two ninja outfits that are going to serve very little purpose other than as, well, ninja costumes.

On to other things - the great ass wipe debate as noted in the title.

I bought Great Value toilet paper for the past month. I bought six packs at a $1.27 per pack. Not counting taxes, I spent about $7.62. However, I came highly close to running out after buying only one pack the first week and stopped at the Family Dollar where I picked up a four-pack of generic toilet paper for $1.00. In all, I spent $8.62 in toilet paper. On top of that, I nearly ran out last night and had to borrow a roll of toilet paper from a neighbor. It's odd, but not something we don't do from time to time. If I'd had to run down to the convenience store to pick up one roll of toilet paper, that would have cost me 79 cents. So in the long run, I have not saved money with this toilet paper.

And then it hit me when I actually bothered to comparison shop between Scott's and Great Value.

The Great Value brand costs 12.3 cents per unit while Scott's cost 7.7 cents per unit. (I can't remember the units used to measure, but I do remember the units were the same so I know I'm really coming out better in the long run with the Scotts. Here is a quick link on unit pricing if you somehow don't know about it. There's also a little quiz to see if you caught the basics of it. Turns out I am an excellent comparison shopper when I remember what I'm doing.

On top of the price, it was really getting on my frigging nerve to go through a roll of toilet paper a day. Instead of about 8 or so of those empty toilet paper rolls from the Scott's, I ended up with about 30 damned toilet paper rolls in the trash. (Although I did store some of them to use as seed starters next spring. Undoubtedly, I'll need cheap things to start my plant murdering next year.) Either way, that definitely ups the amount of trash output coming out of my house thereby increasing my damned trash bag costs. Trash bags are one of the non-food items that I always buy name brand. I've tried those cheap ass Ruffies and wasted more time and money because of split bags than it was worth.

So the final outcome is I will stick with Scott's toilet paper as it actually the cheapest (yet still comfortable and effective) that I've found so far. I bought a 12 pack of Scott's toilet paper for $9.24 this morning. It should last about six weeks unless we're hit by some shit-slinging virus in which case all bets are off.


I'll try to keep things flowing better, but I've also chosen to compete in NaNoWriMo this year and I'm already behind which seems to be the story of my life. (HaHa)


Cat in the Hat and Thing costume instructions.
I've never been too good at home maker sort of things, but if it involves cutting, stapling, gluing, or hammering, I don't do too badly.


Cat in the Hat
    * Cat in the Hat hat (I splurged and bought one because I love the Cat in the Hat and I had a great time wearing it around town sometimes.)
    * long sleeved black shirt (preferably a turtle neck)
    * black pants
    * white gloves
    * white sticky back felt
    * red sticky back felt
    * black fabric paint in the tube (whatever you call it)
    * black eyeliner pencil

   1. Cut an oval out of the white sticky back fabric and place it on front of the shirt to serve as the Cat's stomach.
   2. Cut a basic Cat in the Hat bowtie shape from the red sticky back felt.
   3. Outline the bow and other parts of the tie with the black fabric paint. Check Cat in the Hat pics to get a general idea of where to add black lines. Let dry.
   4. Stick bow on the neck of the black shirt.
   5. That's it. Dress your kid and draw cat whiskers with the eyeliner.

Things One and Two
    * Red onsie with sleeves and legs or long sleeved red shirt and pants
    * blue spray on hair color
    * white sticky back felt
    * black fabric paint

   1. Cut ovals out of the white sticky back felt.
   2. Paint "Thing One" and "Thing Two" on the ovals with black fabric paint. Let dry.
   3. Place the ovals on the front of the shirts or onesies.
   4. Spray kids' hair blue.
   5. Dress in the Thing suits.

Later, you can rip the sticky back felt off everything and use it over.