If you’ve ever been here before, you know we live near the beach and spend nearly every waking second there from June through September. Come Memorial Day weekend, we transform from hard-charging workers to laid back flip-flop folks with a constant layer of sand over most of our belongings.
PhotoCourtesy Courtney Jarmon Photography
It’s glorious.
What this means is that, like most people have back to school shopping, we have back to beach shopping and it takes just as much planning and preparation not to break the bank.
One of the things we have to bulk up on is paper products. I tend to go from an Earth Loving cloth napkin girl to a paper towel fanatic when I’m beach side. Also, we increase our visitor frequency ten-fold in the summer. After the first year with increased house guests causing The Husband and I to find ourselves in the bathroom with an empty cardboard roll and no backup one too many times, we learned in May to stock up on toilet paper.
Sunscreen, bathing suit, toilet paper. Check, check, check. Ready for summer!
For this self-appointed cheapskate, stocking up on paper products can be painful. I’ve tried everything to cut costs, coupon clipping, dollar store shopping and even one-ply desperation. What I’ve learned is that there is a minimum quality I can handle in the loo and one-ply ain’t it, no matter how cheap it is!
Enter Scott Shared Values. Now, I’ll admit I avoided Scott for a bit because I only thought of them as the one-ply wonders you used to get in school bathrooms. But, I’ve learned Scott has come a long way since my Catholic School days. They are not just single roll one-ply bath tissue any more. There is plenty of Scott Bath Tissue to choose from to satisfy every visitor that comes through my door. Scott even has a Naturals line that satisfies my hippie-leanings. And as for paper towels? Well, Scott Paper Towels are the only choose-a-size style towels that are sturdy enough and perforated enough to come cleanly off a dispenser with one hand. For once, I don’t feel like tearing the whole thing off the wall and throwing it out my kitchen window!
Quality Choose-a-Size and a coupon? Score!
And with the regularly low Walmart price and Scott’s Shared Values internet deals, I knew just where I was going to do my beach stock-up shopping. You can see the story of the whole shop on my google+ album here. 
One extra cool part of this shopping trip was that the Scott Paper Towels had a coupon for a $4 Vudu credit. What’s Vudu you ask? Excellent question, as I had to figure it out myself. The easiest way to explain Vudu is to say it’s like Netflix with some important differences. With Vudu, you pay as you go, so you only pay for what you use-no monthly fees. Also, it seemed to me the movies were more current than those on Netflix or even on Demand with my cable company. 
The timing of this coupon was perfect because I had been home for nearly two weeks without The Husband and I needed some entertainment. I get to pick whatever movies I want when I’m alone, so I chose a tear-jerker that I knew would never fly when he was home. I loved that Vudu was available on my iPad because that meant I could watch the movie in my bed which proved to be a good call when I found myself sobbing loudly enough that I would have woken my children if I were downstairs in front of the television!
Sitting there watching The Impossible on Vudu, I might have learned that Scott Bath Tissue also makes for a fine way to blow one’s snotty nose.
Next time, I’ll remember the tissues at Walmart!
P.S. Looking for more parenting guidance and tips for self-care? Check out From Chaos to Calm a guided training to help you feel better in this tough season.
