When it comes to cleaning up messes, you want to be sure you have plenty of paper towels on hand. So this week are taking a look at how to recognize a good price for paper towels.

Like with toilet paper, paper towels come in a variety of sizes and packs. You have Big, Huge, Giant, Mega, SuperMega and other marketing words to make you think you are getting a lot for your money.

Is it cheaper to buy a 6 pack of “Big” size towels, or an 8 pack of “Regular” towels? To really figure out the best price, we need to take a close look at the math and square footage of paper that comes in the package.

For example, let’s look at Bounty White Paper Towels which come in sizes including Regular, Big, Huge, Giant, all the way up to Oversize (available only at Walmart).

The math that is on the front of packages can be misleading. On this 6 pack of Bounty Big Rolls, we see “6 Big Rolls = 8 Regular Rolls”.  A Regular Roll has 41.3 sq ft of paper. A Big Roll has approximately 50.83 sq ft, and when we do the math, we get a very different comparison.

8 Regular Rolls at 41.3 sq ft each = 330.4 sq ft
6 Big Rolls at 50.83 sq ft each = 304.98 sq ft which is equivalent to 7.29 Regular Rolls

That’s is more than half a roll off…I guess they are rounding up. Who said that math class would never come in handy?

Let me show you a short cut to really figure out the cheapest price per square foot. At some stores, they have done the math for you on the price tag:

If your store doesn’t do this, you can do it yourself using the same formula. Take the current price and divide it by the total square feet of paper in the package. This gives you the Unit Price Per Square Foot.  So when you are in stores this will make it easier to find the best price on paper towels. You can also factor in any coupons you have into the price per square foot to get your true bottom line. Read More→