Cloth Diapering Savings

I've been asked if cloth diapering really does save money and is it really worth it. I think a lot of people, like myself at one time, can't get past the initial start up cost while doing cloth diapering. I mean spending a couple hundred $$ at once on diapers when a box of Huggies is $20 at Walmart can be hard to get past. What they also may not know is that there are cheaper ways to start up rather than going all gung ho with the big name brand diapers.

So here is how I figure the breakdown of savings for us. Currently I have 2 kiddo's in cloth diapers exclusively. There's not a single disposable in my house that doesn't belong to one of the daycare kiddo's. Starting up I have spent just under $250 which gives me enough diapers for both kids and allows me to do the washings every other day. I prefer the pocket diapers with the occasional personally made cover with a prefold. My pockets consist of Bum Genius, Nubunz, and a handful of Kawaii Baby. The nubunz were bought brand new but the others were bought 2nd hand or off ebay at a discounted price. Surprisingly cloth diapers have a really good resell value.

Now, with 2 in diapers I'm estimating we would have spent approximately $80 a month on disposables. In addition based on our most recent water bill with the extra washes there was an increase of $5 per month. Nothing else in our life changed in the last month so I'm pretty sure thats from the extra laundry loads. Based on those numbers in just over 3 months we would have broke even. That means going into month 4 we would be having a savings of $75 a month. In a years time (I'm pretty sure Toots won't be potty training anytime soon) that is a savings of $900. Now this isn't taking into account swim diapers or the fact that we probably won't need diaper rash cream since rashes aren't common in cloth. Plus they are well made diapers so they last a long time so I'll be able to use them for baby #4 if we are blessed with one so the savings just continues.

Is it worth it?? For me it is. Cloth diapering really isn't that difficult. Yes it means I have a couple extra loads of laundry to do each week and but really how hard is that? You wash them, hang them to dry and your done. Even Mr. X has not found it too difficult to deal with of course I do all the stuffing for him and take care of the poopy dipes but still, its no different than a disposable to him he just doesn't throw them away. And quite honestly, one benefit is I have actually kept on top of the regular laundry instead of letting it pile up and doing it all in one day. Thats one thing Mr. X definetely won't complain about now.