Cloth diapers

My husband and I have been discussing expanding our family a lot lately. We know that there are issues and concerns about how we will do it financially, but who isn't thinking about that?

Well, I'm always willing to do whatever I can to save a buck. So, I decided to look into cloth diapering. I had to first think about what it was going to save. We've basically only used Babies R Us brand diapers since the day he was born with the occasional pack of Pampers or Huggies whenever I found a great deal.

The BSU diapers run around $25 for a box of about 100 (give or take based on baby sizes). Those diapers 100 diapers will last us about a month, sometimes a little less, but for the sake of this...

$25*12months*2.5 years of diapers = $750 (not too bad, right)

But then we do $750*2 kids = $1500

WOW! That's a lot of money just to diapers a couple of babies!!! GEEZ!! Sadly though, I know that there are many people that spend much more!

The cloth diapers (we went with one size pockets) can also be pricey....
1 Bum Genius diaper, brand new runs about $25, and you'll probably want about 20! Awesome part though....these will be all that you need!!!

$25*20 diapers = $500!

I happened to have gone a much cheaper route...ebay! It is very common to buy used diapers, sanitize, and reuse on another baby. I bought these lots:

5 BG at $51 (which included shipping)
17 BG at $96 (which included shipping)
1 BG at $2.50 (which I ONLY paid shipping and it came from a site other than ebay)

In the end...$149.50!

But prior to my buying, I had put an ad on freecycle asking for anything that I could use to get started cloth diapering. Sadly, I didn't get a response until I was already committed to the other purchases.

From freecycle.... 18 BG diapers and 10 Haute Pocket diapers...cost NOTHING!

Lucky for me on that last one, the woman also hooked me up with my diaper pail, pail liners, rice paper (catches the poop), 3 odor sprayers, and extra inserts!!

WOW!!! That's BIG!!!

So now I have more diapers then I can count or ever need. What I am I going to do? Well, one of the benefits of cloths is the that even when you are done using them, they still have value! My plan is to use what I have for now, but started to weed out ones that might need a little work (sometimes there are parts like the velcro or elastic that wear, but it can be replaced for less than a dollar), fix...or not fix, and then ship them off with the hopes of recuperating some of the $150 that I spent. If I can get the cost spent to $75 over all, that would make me happy!


I know that there is also cost in laundering these diapers. I started making my own laundry detergent about a month ago and it just happens to be safe for these diapers. BUT I also got lucky in that the same wonderful woman that gave me her diapers on freecycle also gave me about 60 loads worth of laundry detergent!

Detergent costs for OUR diaps: $0 for probably 5 months
Water costs for diaps: I honestly don't know....and I'm not that concerned with it to be honest!

Overall costs: $150 for diaps, $0ish for laundring diaps for the first 5 months, $0 for the cost of pail, liners, and other goodies to get me started.

$1500 to diaper 2 babies
- 575 that I've already wasted on M
- 150 cloth diaper cost =
I still come out $775 richer....not too shabby!


I can deal with that.