I have decided to stop buying toilet paper, with 3 girls in the house we go through at least a roll every 3 days. I used to buy the expensive seventh generation kind because of it's being earth friendly, however it was not repaying the favor to our budget. Recently I decided to cut up old t shirts, sewed them into "baby wipes" and switched our family to the recycled TP. I just keep an extra waste basket in the bathroom and wash every couple of days with my old cleaning rags in Hot water and use a touch of bleach. Then they hang out on the line to dry. Just thought I would see if I am completly nuts or is this reasonable, I figure I can use the extra money for gas these days.

 Many European countries have a bidet as a standard feature in the bathroom--a quick rinse, pat dry, and that's it. 

As far as cloth TP, my concern would be with e. coli contamination--a particularly hardy bacteria.  

 I wou.ld definately use hot water and a lot of bleach. When you think abou this, it is the same as what we did with babies before fancy baby wipes were invented. Then, we had a pail with water, bleach, soaked them then washed and dried. Babs

 I have 3 daughters as well and I'm sure none of them would go for t-shirt wipes! Our youngest was using a lot of paper, so I took her into the bathroom and gave her a gauge of how much should be sufficient.  Still it seems like she uses a lot.  After the girls were born I recall getting a plastic squeeze bottle that I filled with warm water to rinse while sitting on the toliet.  I don't know if it was a special bottle, but maybe something like that would help you cut back on TP or the t-shirt wipes.  And yes, we need all the extra cash we can scrape together to buy gas these days!!  Good luck.

My sister collapsed at her home in January and was down for 22 hours before her pastor found her.  She was rushed to ER and eventually diagnosed with bacterial meningitis (not viral).  She was in MICU for several weeks, was moved to a step down facility, moved to a nursing home then rushed to another ER with c-diff (extremely contagious diarrhea is what I understand it to be) and the family had to gown, glove, and mask in order to visit.  If we needed to get a nurse, we had to remove all the paraphernalia to leave the room, then put on fresh to re-enter.  She has been through several other infections, is now in a nursing home and can barely move for herself, not to mention being on a feeding tube in order to survive.  Her home was always open to everyone, and she had more of the three V's (vim, vigor and vitality) than anyone I know.  I had never heard of c-diff.  Neither had any of the other family or friends.  Along with the c-diff was something called mersa, also requiring gloves, masks, gowns.  So I would draw the line on this one due to health reasons.  I would find another area in which to be frugal.  If you have medical coverage, it's not enough.  Medicare kicks in when you have $0.00 and everything you own has been sold.  The cost of TP is far less than losing everything you've worked for your entire life. 

Just out of curiosity, did they find out how she contracted the C-diff? Looking up in Wikpedia...

C. difficile is a commensal bacterium of the human intestine in a minority of the population. Patients who have been staying long-term in a hospital or a nursing home have a higher likelihood of being colonized by this bacterium. In small numbers it does not result in disease of any significance. Antibiotics, especially those with a broad spectrum of activity, cause disruption of normal intestinal flora, leading to an overgrowth of C. difficile. This leads to pseudomembranous colitis.

MRSA is something that is very contagious within hospital/nursing homes that tend to target people who have weakened immune systems. 

For me, I personally wouldn't use the wipes for all times and would just find cheap tp to stock up on. If you think about it... you'd be washing the rags in the same washer as what you use for dishclothes/hand towels which could spread the icky germs.

 Im not saying that I agree or disagree. But has anyone ever washed cloth diapers????? Babs

well tp is kinda of a recent invention in the grand scheme of things!