Doing Away With Tissues and Using Our Sleeves

We're a cloth diaper family. I don't really do it because I care about the environment, although I agree that is important.
Mainly I'm cheap and hate buying disposable things.

We make our own baby wipes for the same reason. While, yes, they are disposable, they are cheaper, and I know what's in them.

When I can, I make our own spices, as well, such as pumpkin pie spice, ranch dressing mix and taco seasoning mix. Partly for health reasons, but mainly because 1) they taste better, and 2) CHEAP!

I am cheap frugal when I can be. Allergy season had me cringing over the amount of Kleenex boxes we were going through. And sometimes (okay, you have permission to announce "how cheap! those poor kids!") I would let my toddler's nose run just a bit longer before he was old enough to blow his nose, just because I didn't want to waste a whole kleenex if I was just going to wipe it again in another minute and a half. (I know, I know...)

So I got an idea.

Hankies.

Yep.

Not original with me.

But here's the thing. I don't know how they did it back when Kleenexes weren't a thing, and tissues were... especially with a cold, or allergies. The same ol' hankie all day long??

This is what has stopped me from trying it sooner.

But then somehow I got the idea to use some old t-shirt sleeves we had in the scrap bin. (I think these are left from the t-shirt quilt I have cut out but never sewn together.)

I cut off any seams, since those wouldn't feel good on a sore nose, and cut each sleeve into two pieces. If you want larger, just use the whole thing. I cut out a bunch! I knew we'd need several to keep us stocked while they cycle through the laundry.

I kept an empty tissue box to stuff them into. (Which by now looks a bit too beat up for a blog pic, since my two-year-old found it and decided it was a toy, or something to jump on, or who knows what, so you get a pic of what we're using right now, which is an empty diaper-liner box which is working nicely) Then after a bit of blowing our nose and running to the laundry room to discard the used hanky, I decided we needed a handy place to put them.
Hence, the little blue basket in the pic.

And again, my boy decided this was a toy, and commandeered it, and guests didn't know what they were for either, so I labeled it.
I used just a scrap piece of cardstock and punched holes in it, and tied it with some cute twine left from the goody-bag from my niece's 1st birthday.

And there we go! It's been a pretty easy transition for my family. It has taken a bit longer to get guests to love the idea, so we still have Kleenex boxes around, but we've totally saved money so far!