My 4 Favorite Stylish, 99-Cent, Reusable Canvas Bags

As we’ve often talked about here at the Fun Times Guide to Living Green, it doesn’t always cost a lot to take steps towards going green.

Earlier this month I wrote about a .99 cent reusable canvas bag from Publix, helping us free ourselves from a dependency on plastic bags.

Thanks to the response and comments on that post, I thought I’d pass on 4 more .99 cent canvas bag options.

Some of these even resolve some of the common complaints of carrying reusable canvas totes!

A recent post from LifeHacker highlighted a set of 4 canvas bags that would run you $24!!

Yikes, though they do accomplish the same purpose, I’d rather stick to the .99 cent range myself.

So what are some options under a buck that not only get the job done, but simultaneously avoid looking completely utilitarian? (Let’s be honest, canvas totes are becoming one of the hottest accessories to be seen with.)

 

4 Stylish and Cheap Reusable Canvas Bags & Totes

From Target:

(These are my personal favorites.)

Target has 2 options –

1) The smaller version for .99 cents (pictured in “zipped up” state above).

2) The large flat bottom version for $1.49. (pictured in both expanded and collapsed/snapped shut in the animated picture above.) Yeah yeah, I know it’s a little over .99 cents, but it’s too cool not to mention.

• Both versions solve a major complaint, like as in this comment on the aforementioned LifeHacker post, as they both fold up small enough to easily fit into a glove box, briefcase, or backpack. So portability is no longer an issue.

• The small version actually zips up into its own little pouch and is the exact size of most women’s wallets (and a friend of mine actually passed over the small one in the store, thinking it WAS a wallet–you know who you are). This means a couple could easily fit into a woman’s purse.

• The large version remedies another complaint of reusable canvas shopping bags because it has a hard bottom! Some people complain that bags without a hard bottom are hard to load, their items shift, etc. This bag fixes that problem altogether!

 

From Publix:

I talked about the Publix bags in my post from earlier this month. You can see my favorite version, black bag with green lettering, in the animation above.

Check out this size comparison of the Publix canvas tote and the large reusable Target bag, which is shown in both folded/snapped up and expanded configurations in this animation:

 

 

From Trader Joe’s:

We don’t have a Trader Joe’s here in Nashville, TN, but from what I’ve read, they come out with stylish bags that are season-themed for .99 cents all year long.

This bag from Trader Joe’s was available in the summer of 2007 (and may still be, to my knowledge).

 

From Whole Foods:

Whole Foods offers a wide variety of reusable canvas bags at their stores, including the new “Better Bag”, pictured here.

This bag is, “woven from a special fabric made of 80% recycled plastic PET pellets (derived from #1 plastic bottles), each Better Bag represents approximately three 20 oz. plastic bottles [and is] 10 times stronger and will last longer than any reusable non-cotton bag previously available.”

Whole Foods will actually be plastic bag free by Earth Day 2008!

So there you have it, 4 sylish, .99 cent reusable canvas bag options to choose from. Where do you get your favorite reusable shopping bags?