Cloth Diapering

Let's be honest

Are any of you actually saving $$ with CD's? I thought I was all set with my pockets until DS became a tummy sleeper, then I needed to get some fitteds and covers, then some wool, then some more aplix for daycare and another wet bag, then a really cute new print came out, then I needed to try one of the new Fuzzibunz, and on and on.

DH is very supportive, especially for the environmental reasons, but he really questions if we are saving any money. DS is only 8 months old, so we are maybe breaking even about now and will start saving until he's potty trained...except I can't stop buying!!

 

 

Re: Let's be honest

  • Honestly, yes. Think about it. Even if you spend 1k on your stash (like me) your breaking even at 1 year, by two you've saved probably 1 grand. Then saving you stash for another kid saves even more money. Even if you have a different sex next time all you would have to do is maybe update some prints and wet bags. More savings.
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  • So far I have spent about the same amount of $$ I would have spent buying 7th Gen diapers this whole time (what I was using PT before I switched completely to cloth, and what I would have used had I not done cloth) I will be saving money after next week... until I buy something else!
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  • I think so.  Even if you allow yourself to slurge, you can put together an amazing stash for under a thousand dollars.  You may even end up with a three year old who refused to PT like me...seriously, I think most people who cloth diaper end up saving $1500-2000 some even more if they are cloth wiping it as well.  That is no small amount of money.  The other thing is, you can use your stash for another baby or you can sell some of your stash and recoup some of the money. 
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  • It's possible to go either way. I've spent MAYBE $500 on my stash (I'm definitely rounding up); that's all accessories, selling and rebuying what I actually ended up liking, a splurge here and there. DD is already showing interest in the potty and all of her dipes are in awesome shape. I aimed to buy gender neutral dipes but of course got some girlier ones that I can sell to buy some more boyish prints if we have a boy next time. So I'll diaper at least 2 children for that cost and in the end be able to sell my stash and recoup some cost back from that.

    Basically if cost savings was a huge aspect for somebody they could most definitely achieve it. I agree though, it's hard not to go crazy and buy up all the cute fluff you see.

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  • Even with the ridiculous amount of money I have spent on my stash, I have no doubt that I've saved money. I plan on having another kid and let's be honest will continue buying more diapers for that one too, but still less than sposies would have cost me, I'm sure.
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  • Yup! I have so many diapers, 160 lol, they will have awesome re sell value since it's a big rotation. I have also aquired a lot of collectable prints and discontinued diapers that will go for good money.
  • imageGismo123:
    Yup! I have so many diapers, 160 lol, they will have awesome re sell value since it's a big rotation. I have also aquired a lot of collectable prints and discontinued diapers that will go for good money.

     

    holy moly.  Post on here when you're ready to sell!

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    Asher Benjamin and Lola Aisling

     Infertility
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    Clomid, Metformin, Ovadril, PIO, P17 Iron/Platlet Tranfusion

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    <3 Angel Baby   Elisabeth Adelle  April 2008 <3
    Asher Benjamin  April 2010
    Lola Aisling  May 2014
  • Yep! I think we spent somewhere under 1K but now I've got DS2 who's using the diapers and although DS1 is PT'd now, I don't see us buying anymore since we already have the variety waiting for DS2 to need them.  fitteds/wool vs pockets vs prefolds/covers, and I have also sold off what doesn't work for us which I don't even take into account with the grand total.
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  • I think we'll end up breaking even and only make $$ back when I start to sell. I also think the annual cost of disposables is completely over inflated on most comparison sites. I started doing the math on what we would spend using Pampers/Luvs purchased at Sam's Club. It's around $500/year. I've spent about $900 so far.
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  • We have definitely saved a huge amount! I have crazy-nice in-laws who bought a big amount of our stash and my own parents bought us a bunch as well (M was a very anticipated new addition!) I have definitely spent a few hundred myself, but WAY LESS than if we were buying sposies. We used up gifted wipes and went right to cloth wipes.  I have an 8 week old and have never purchased a sposie in my life!  That in itself feels good.  

    We've saved money and our minds by not being desperate for a sposie at 3am and needing to drive frantically to the store 

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  • Oh definitely saving a ton! We did cloth on DD1 and we reusing all of her diapers for DD2. I have had to buy more as I didn't have a NB stash and DD2 is a heavy wetter. I have now added some expensive fitteds and a wool cover. I have spent about $600 on my stash so far. We plan to have another and if it's a girl we will be so set. If not and it's a boy, I only have a few girly diapers and I will sell them and buy some boyish ones. We also use cloth wipes.
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  • I haven't bought any diapers in many, many months and have saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Plus it's time to break out the newborn diapers for the next baby!

    I don't really care about diapers as collectables and have no interest in the expense and hassle of fitteds and wool. 

  • I think I have a large and somewhat fancy stash. But most of it was bought through second sales. So good deals!

    The baby isn't here but I should have plenty of options so make different situations work as he gets bigger.

    If nothing else it's nice that its all purchased, and we aren't having to rely on showers for people to stock us up on diapers!

    I feel very fortunate that we know we can diaper our kid no matter what.
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  • For my family, we are saving a bundle!

    I purchased 25 Kawaii P&N's, 8 ONHW's, and a pack of additional inserts during the valued customer sale on the theluvyourbaby.com a few months back for $160. When Cotton Babies was selling the Flip covers for 2 for $20, we stocked up on those, plus I purchased 2 packages of prefolds (not on sale, but I purchase them a little at a time, so they are on hand when we're ready to use them). I waited for Earth Day to purchase wet bags & got 3 for $50. 

    I think if you look for sales & buy when they are at a good price, you can really save.

    Another plus for my family is we live in an apartment that pays for gas, which includes hot water & running our washer. That is just a plus, but I know those extra couple of loads of laundry wouldn't make that big of a difference! 

  • I did the math.  On average, including washing/drying/accessories, etc. we spent about 230 on our stash to last through the newborn stage into the smallest stage - some of the items included in this will last the entire time like snappis, diaper pail liners, wet bags, etc.  For the first three months I have estimated that we would probably spend about $240 on sposies (not using 7th gen, just normal ones) assuming that our son is a "normal" pooper and not a super pooper.  We haven't started yet, but by my hopeful estimations we'll save at least 25% on diapers barring any need for more supplies in the first 4-6 months compared to disposables.  

    Just a general rule of thumb I've found in research, the cheapest sposies cost about 24-25 cents per diapers while your average cloth is about 17 cents per diaper.  Over the course of 30 months (roughly the time a kid needs diapers) that adds up a lot. 

  • I suspect it depends on type of cloth you use and how much you control how many you get. We use prefolds and covers, and we definitely saved money. We also don't pay utilities (live in a house provided by my husband's job and they pay utilities) so that makes it even more savings for us.

    Now that we're expecting LO #2 and will be using the same diapers (buying just a few more covers) the savings is going to be even WAY more. 

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  • I just ran some numbers and at 17 weeks, I've already saved about $90. These numbers are all ran off of what I assume we would have chosen for diapers and wipes, which was Costco and at the cheaper end of the sposie spectrum. 

    My stash is 36 OS prefolds, 13 covers (9 OS and 4 size 1), 4 hemp inserts, 3 snappis, 3 small wet bags, and 2 xl wet bags and it all cost $210.20 (including shipping). DD wets a lot and I calculated how much we would have spent on disposable diapers and wipes. I didn't figure for wipes in my stash cost since it was all leftover flannel fabric from the crib sheets I made. 

    Maybe as DD gets bigger, we might expand the stash a little bit (after she starts daycare possibly). The prefolds work great for us so far and I have no complaints.

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  • Yes, we're saving money. I've been very, very disciplined about adding to our stash, buying gender neutral colors, buying new covers only as DS has outgrown the smaller sizes, and then buying a couple of pocket diapers for nighttime. I'm sure if we have a girl next time I'll buy a couple of feminine covers/diapers for her, but I am really serious about wanting to save money by cloth diapering. My estimate is that the value of our stash plus accessories is around $500 or so, maybe $600 (and quite a bit of that were gifts, so not out of our pocket).

    I do think that the cost estimates of disposables are inflated on some comparison sites. I found that Pampers were $0.25/each - but store brands are cheaper, and of course baby starts going through fewer per day after a few months. If you're spending $20-25+/cloth diaper and have 50+ in your stash, I question how much you'll actually end up saving over store brand disposables, especially when you factor in the other costs associated with cloth, including water, electricity, and gas. If saving money isn't a priority in cloth diapering, then have at it - but for us it was, and I think we've done reasonably well at it.

  • imagenowababy:
    imageAngela814:
    I think we'll end up breaking even and only make back when I start to sell. I also think the annual cost of disposables is completely over inflated on most comparison sites. I started doing the math on what we would spend using Pampers/Luvs purchased at Sam's Club. It's around 500/year. I've spent about 900 so far.


    I agree with this. Unless you do only prefolds.

    I should have added that we would have saved a lot more had I cloth diapered my older girls. They were both in daycare, so I didn't even realize it was an option. That would have given me about 2k in savings.
    Annalise Marie 05.29.06
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  • I bought an expensive stash of AIOs (about $800) and then they didn't work out for us, so around 5 months I wondered if we were really going to even break even on this. But I ended up selling/trading the AIOs for BG pockets, I might have ended up spending 20 or 30 additional dollars but that was it. And since then, I haven't spent any more money. We would have spent $1200-$1600 in disposables in these 2 years, so yes, we saved. (I have done the math, and yes, if you buy diapers at the absolute lowest price Amazon sells them for, you can get by on ~$500/year, but you have to factor in the times that your LO will outgrow a size in the middle of the package, or you forget to order another box in time and have to pick up an extra pack, like I know I would do)
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  • Even using target brand, I figured it out to about 1000 dollars a year. I spent about 600 on my NB and OS stash, and I plan to use it for multiple kids.

    So, yes, we are saving plenty of money....

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  • imageJmeJme:
    Even using target brand, I figured it out to about 1000 dollars a year. I spent about 600 on my NB and OS stash..

    Same here.

    Plus I live in a very HCOL area. Even on sale Pampers/Huggies/Luvs are around 35 cents apiece. We do not have Sam's Club and our Costco is such a zoo that I refuse to even have a membership since I can't stand shopping there.

    So yeah, given the realities of buying sposies where I live, I'm saving a ton of money. 

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  • Yup! Since we've gone almost entirely with prefolds, we've definitely saved. The woolies, AIOs, and fitteds we have were purchased in EUC or VGUC at fantastic prices, and I sewed all of my bamboo and hemp inserts. We did have some mistakes (flats and BabyCity pockets), but they weren't expensive. All in all, we've spent around $300, including diapering accessories.

    I do get diaper envy, though; every time I see cute diapers, I start wishing I'd harped on saving the world instead of saving money when trying to convince DH to go cloth.
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  • Okay so for giggles, I just went to cotton babies and "built" in my checkout box what I would consider to be an awesome stash.  It included 14 BG 4.0s, 8 BG Freetimes, 6 thirsties covers, 2 FLIP Hybrids, 6 Inserts and 2 Boxes of disposible inserts.  A sprayer, 2 wetbags, and 7 BG NB diapers.  Add the cost of that cart to the cost of purchased 20 GMD workhorse fitteds, you're at about $700.  Between the fitteds, covers and NB AIOs that is an entire NB Stash.  The rest speaks for itself, only I would add fitteds in larger sizes, but not add to the cost because I would sell my NB fitteds to do it and I would add less of them. 

    So lets just say that $700-800 could get me all the cloth diapers I WANT and need, because these are the diapers I'd want, I really would be saving money over the course of three years.  A lot of money.  

     It is silly to lowball the annual cost of sposies.  You may end up with a kid who can't wear target brand, costco, LUVS.  My kid cost a bundle because we had to wear Pampers sensitive and when he outgrew those, 7th generation...otherwise diaper rashes that would bleed.  We also had to change him more often.  I had intended on using less expensive diapers. And look what happened anyway, we still had to switch him over to cloth around two, so then there was that investment.  

    If I go based on my own history, there is no way I won't save CDing over sposie.  No way.  

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    Asher Benjamin and Lola Aisling

     Infertility
    PCOS, Progesterone Deficiency Disorder, Multiple Miscarriage
    Clomid, Metformin, Ovadril, PIO, P17 Iron/Platlet Tranfusion

    My Spring Babies! 
    <3 Angel Baby   Elisabeth Adelle  April 2008 <3
    Asher Benjamin  April 2010
    Lola Aisling  May 2014
  • I bought a varied stash, mostly pockets, mostly big brands, and mostly full price. I've spent over $1000 easily. But LO has chemical sensitivities, so I would be buying 7th generation which locally priced would cost $2900 for 2.5 years. Even if I keep buying cute diapers and a couple when she starts daycare I will have halved my cost. And I don't pay for water (our town just does flat rate per house) and haven't seen an increase in electric bills. Our next child I will need to spend about $200 to complete my dream stash (more nb dipes and replace/repair some pockets), so that's where our real savings will be.
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  • imageABColeslaw:

    imageGismo123:
    Yup! I have so many diapers, 160 lol, they will have awesome re sell value since it's a big rotation. I have also aquired a lot of collectable prints and discontinued diapers that will go for good money.

    &nbsp;

    holy moly.&nbsp; Post on here when you're ready to sell!



    LoL it will be a few years...we aren't trying for 2, which will be our last one, untill next year.
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