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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Saving money on baby - cloth diapering

I have written about this plenty before, so I'll mostly be linking to other posts here, but I wanted to touch on this topic first because I'm gearing up for a big cloth diaper show on Saturday, so any of you local readers with more questions can come ask me in person!

Cutie Booty!
Cloth diapering has been the single biggest money saver in our home these past 2 1/2 years. I confess that I do buy disposables for trips longer than one night, and every time I do, I'm so thankful that I don't have to add that to my budget each week! Initially, it was all about doing what was right for the environment, but now I am equally if not more motivated by the financial return.

Because I do not use disposable diapers full time, I don't know firsthand what it costs. I know some mom's who find good deals online or use coupons, and they do save a great deal. I can tell you about how much I've spent cloth diapering, though.

When Izzy was born, I had $150 dollar limit to spend on cloth diapers, so I went with the cheapest diapers available - prefolds and covers. I bought 18 prefolds, 8 covers, a diaper pail liner and some wipes with that budget. As time went buy, I splurged and got a few fancier diapers and some more covers. When she got too big for those diapers, I bought some more and overall I may have spent $300-$400 total.

When Korban was born, I could have easily used what I had plus a few new covers (they start to lose their water-proof liner eventually), but I had just started as a consultant so I used my discount and some of my income to try out several types of diapers, so I spent a hundred or so there.

Now that we're getting ready to diaper baby number three, I know that I love the prefolds and covers I initially bought, but after two kids, my covers have pretty much had it. I'll be replacing the covers, but the prefold diapers themselves are still fine. I've only had two of those wear out on me.

I don't have an exact number for you, so I'm going to estimate way high here. After having cloth diapered 3 kids to potty training, I expect to have spent less than $1000 dollars. And that's including the cost to launder them, which is a couple bucks a week for water, soap and electricity.

The last estimates I saw for diapering a child in standard (not the natural brand, which costs more) disposable diapers showed a cost of $1500-$2000 per child. So, for three kids, that's $4500-$6000.

Why yes, I'm quite proud of my savings of $3500-$5000 dollars.

Here is a link to the Zukababy cloth diaper info page. I love their advice, and I'm a consultant for them.

Also, here are links to the prefolds and covers I ordered, if you are new to cloth diapers and need a visual.

And, here is a link to my past posts about how I cloth diaper, for your reading enjoyment.

Look for another post with more details about the diaper show!

The end!

3 comments:

  1. If you register for them, you can save a lot more money when people give them as gifts. that's how we got our pocket diaper stash.

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    Replies
    1. Definitely! People are hesitant to buy cloth diapers, but if you have a registry, they'll know exactly what you want!

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  2. I never buy disposable diapers anymore. They are expensive and give rashes to my baby. I think cloth diapers are better because they are cheaper and are safer than disposable ones.

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