I received a comment that I want to post here just to clarify some things. Here is the abridged version on the comment:
"I use a mix of Luvs diapers and Pampers diapers for night time use. The cost of diapers for Luvs is around $17, not including coupon savings or specials at Kroger/Target (I got them for $14.50 this week at Kroger!). The count of diapers varies from over 200 diapers for newborn sizes down to 80 diapers for size 5. Pampers is typically $19, again not including coupons (which are in the Sunday paper once/month for $2 off) and specials ($16.50 at Kroger this week!). So let’s average at $17/ 100 diapers over the lifetime of the child, which is conservatively expensive. At 2920 diapers per year, it is $496.40. Assuming you use a Diaper Genie, the cost for refills and the Diaper Genie for those diapers is about $84 (the first year, subtract $40 cost for the Genie itself on subsequent years). Over 3 years you spend total $1737.
Let’s look at the cloth diapers. RealdiaperAssociation.org recommends 6 dozen diapers over the child’s lifetime. At a cost of ~$20 each, you will spend $1440. Of course you need to launder these diapers, which I calculated for my Kenmore High Efficiency models assuming doing a load every 3 days, you would spend ~ $168/yr. It would be more if you used a standard washer/dryer of course. The grand total: $1945. Uhhh, where’s my savings? You mean it costs me MORE to get cloth? AND I have to clean them?"
Thank you for these comments! I want to clarify a couple of things. First off, the recommendation to buy 6 dozen diapers over the child's lifetime most likely refers to flats and prefolds, which I will be discussing the cost of these in that post. They are nowhere near $20 each. I personally have about 30 diapers total, none flats or prefolds, and I never run out of diapers when I launder them every other day. I also did not spend $20 each on my diapers. Many of my diapers I bought used from www.diaperswappers.com, and many I bought new for way less than that. My brand new expensive ones (that I must admit I love!!) are $24.95. In total, I have spent about $500-$600 total on my diapers, and I will not be buying more unless I buy some potty training ones or occasionally try a new one here and there. And granted, since some of my diapers are used, the elastic may go out on them, so I might need to replace those. So, add on an extra 100 bucks just for the fun of it, and I have still saved around a $1000. But even if I had 30 of my expensive ones, the cost would still be $750. Still saving...
2 comments:
It's been a while, but I don't remember having that many diapers when my kids were little and they were running around in prefolds. If you did, you wouldn't have to wash them as often, but then you would have a royal mess going on, not to mention the smell in the diaper pail. I'm thinking maybe 3 dozen did the job. Hubby does mention how well they turned onto rags after the original purpose was past. He teases all the time about how the "new cloth diapers wouldn't even make a good shop rag" (insert smile here!).
Sorry, Dad! But, I could always rip off the outer lining and use the inner for rags when the time comes! Oh, and thanks to both of you for helping me fund my "fancy stash!" Merry Christmas to me! :-)
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