One of our money-saving strategies for the year is to put our children in reusable, cloth diapers.
Using cloth diapers is a great way to save money with kids, and to reduce impact on the environment. While disposable diapers are assembled in a factory, trucked to a store, sitting on a shelf, purchased, driven home, pooped and peed in, put in the trash, picked up in a truck, driven in truck to landfill, dumped in landfill, repeat for every diaper used every single day for ~3 years per child.
Cloth diapers are made once in a factory, trucked to a shipping center, shipped to your home, pooped and peed in, washed, pooped and peed in, washed, pooped and peed in, repeat for every diaper every few days for ~3 years per child. When all children have been potty trained, cloth diapers can be re sold for a pretty good price, or they can be re-purposed in other areas around the house.
So, what do Cloth Diapers cost?
Again, those cloth diapers cost about $375 for the set, and I'll use them all of this year, plus for the next few years, and for multiple children. It really is a huge savings to use Cloth Diapers.
So, if you are interested in Cloth Diapering, what should you do? You can definitely use the Oracle, I mean Google, to look up cloth diapering, but I'll send you to a few places too.
Using cloth diapers is a great way to save money with kids, and to reduce impact on the environment. While disposable diapers are assembled in a factory, trucked to a store, sitting on a shelf, purchased, driven home, pooped and peed in, put in the trash, picked up in a truck, driven in truck to landfill, dumped in landfill, repeat for every diaper used every single day for ~3 years per child.
Cloth diapers are made once in a factory, trucked to a shipping center, shipped to your home, pooped and peed in, washed, pooped and peed in, washed, pooped and peed in, repeat for every diaper every few days for ~3 years per child. When all children have been potty trained, cloth diapers can be re sold for a pretty good price, or they can be re-purposed in other areas around the house.
So, what do Cloth Diapers cost?
 |
| This beautiful rainbow of diapers cost $300! They were purchased on Black Friday with extra discounts too. EEK! |
 |
| And this stuff probably cost $75!!! |
Now, why would such a cheap person shell out all of that money for some diapers that I have to wash? Because I am cheap, and disposable diapers cost money too.
This box of Huggies Little Movers costs $40.00 on Diapers.com. 112 Diapers with 2 kids in diapers will last me approximately.... 12.5 days.
I would have to buy 29.2 boxes of Huggies Little Movers this year if I don't figure out how to get my son to go on the toilet like a big boy, at a cost of $1168.
Even if I potty train him tomorrow, and cut my diaper usage in half, disposable diapers would still cost me $584.
and then I'd have to buy baby wipes. I have no clue how many I would buy in a year, maybe 3 huge boxes of them. I usually get the Target ones at about $9.99 per box, so that's another $30.
We are using reusable wipes too... also known as baby washcloths, which we got for free at my baby shower.
To clean the diapers, I do need to buy a box of Tide powder, which will cost about $30 and last me an entire year or more.
Yes, cloth diapers are a hassle because you have to wash them, so you do end up doing 2 or 3 extra loads of laundry every week, and your water bill does go up a little bit, but it is still cheaper than disposable diapers. You also use a lot of water, which some environmentally minded people may not like, but I feel that water is a renewable resource, so its not as bad.
 |
| And then when you Cloth Diaper, your kid walks around with an adorable bubble-butt. |
So, if you are interested in Cloth Diapering, what should you do? You can definitely use the Oracle, I mean Google, to look up cloth diapering, but I'll send you to a few places too.
www.diaperpin.com is a great place for information
www.diaperswappers.com is a great place for info, and also to buy used cloth diapers. I used used cloth diapers for the first 2 years of my son's life, but when we got our second baby, I decided to buy some brand new ones, mostly of the same kind, just because I deserved them.
www.Abbyslane.com is a wonderful company to buy diapers, they offer free shipping to Maryland, DC, and Virginia
another great company is www.ecobabiesonline.com
in the DC area, we have a yahoo group called DC Cloth Diaper -ers which can be found in yahoo groups by typing in "DCCDers" The group has been incredibly helpful in learning about cloth, and figuring out how to troubleshoot.
If you like the idea of cloth diapering, but don't want to wash them, your area may have a diaper service. You can use the Oracle for that as well. A diaper service will cost you more money, but may still be less expensive than using disposables.
Your area may have a local Cloth Diaper support group, and local mothers who sell diapers, or even make their own that you can buy. If you buy diapers from a WAHM (Work-at home mom) you not only are being frugal, helping the environment and being cool by Cloth Diapering, you are also supporting the local economy which is even cooler.
It is cool to use cloth diapers, all the cool kids are doing it, and saving money all the while, think about it....
No comments:
Post a Comment