How much were you spending on disposables?

House of Blue · #1 (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 12:39 PM

This was a discussion on another board I use and thought I'd bring the question over here too

How much were you spending on disposables and how much have you spent on cloth? Most of the info out there is extremely slanted either by those promoting disposables or cloth. Those promoting disposables will come up with astronomical #'s for the cost of cloth, I guess assuming you wash twice a day and use armload's of chemicals to wash with and spend hundreds upon hundreds for 4 different lots of sized diapers flushing the toilet 4 and 5 times for each diaper... Then the Cloth diapering sites tend to inflate the cost of disposables. No idea how some of them came up with their #'s

I worked it out and this is what I came up with...

A big box of Pampers here (I'm in Canada) is about $47 ($53.58 including 14% tax). That would last almost a month. Get the smaller pack of diapers and they are $17.99 ($20.50 including tax) a pack and those would last maybe a week.

For wipes we used the clean and go. They were about $16 ($18.24 with tax) for a box, they would last us a month.

$642.96 for a year of disposable diapers.
$218.88 for a year of disposable wipes.

So $861.84 for 1 year of diapering in name brand disposables. I'd say that is on the low end because we would go through a whole lot more diapers if we were dealing with illness or diaper rash... And sometimes we just ended up going through them faster.

I've spent around $200 - $250 on cloth diapers for my nearly 2 y.o. (I normally buy used and sell what we are done with to buy what we need). We use pocket diapers like Fuzzi Bunz and very recently Diaper Change. When I'm done I can still sell of the stash and get more $$ back. I wash every 4 days with vinegar and extremely minimal amounts of detergent. I also line dry so washing/drying isn't expensive for us. We pay a flat water tax but I use a diaper sprayer anyway so we technically just flush once for poop (which you are supposed to do w/ a disposable anyway) I didn't start to use cloth of the sake of saving money but it's certainly ended up saving us a WHOLE lot of money

chrisallen · #2 (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 08:23 PM

I have 3 in diaprs, and we use approx 18 per day. I did the math, and it came out to. 3.50 per day, so $100/month.

Cara*s_Mom · #3 (**permalink**) 06-10-2008, 11:43 PM

I have NEVER bought a pack of diapers!

A friend on my Due In board mentioned FBs one day, and I became absolutely intrigued. I was pretty well won over. I didn't know how to approach the subject with my DH. Well, he occasionally got on and looked at the board, and saw the diaper discussion. He was sold too! We were both for it.

My (sabotaging) MIL bought us 2 bags of size 1 Pampers. In 5 months we have used 1 bag of diapers + about 5 out of the 2nd bag. Oh, minus the two we tried to put on the dog when she was in heat. Anyway, we rarely use them.

On the topic of how much have I spent? WOW! I can't even guess (and don't want to). But to be fair, I'm not a good person to gauge by. I get all giddy when I shop for diapers. Like, insanely excited!

We have:
2 x-small FB's - I had an ultrasound that said baby would be big, so I didn't even bother really.
Around 20 small FB's - I was born blonde, and I love the pretty colors.
4 bG one size pockets - if I had it to do all over again, I'd get these instead of the fb's.
6 Infant PFs
6 Infant Premium PFs
5 small Thirsties covers.
3 really terrible small Prowraps.
oh yea - 3 small Happy Heiney's

That's a big chuck of change right there. Let's not even start on the Mediums!

mbsr76 · #4 (**permalink**) 06-11-2008, 05:49 AM

We were spending around $60/month I think on disposables. Ridiculous amount of money. I didn't even add in the wipes, either. I figure we will probably save around $1000 by CD'ing just for my son alone, not counting getting to reuse them on this next baby.

We don't have to pay for our water here so that helps, and besides 2-3 loads of laundry a week won't come near the cost of what we were paying for disposables. I am going to line dry some as soon as I can get a line strung up out there. Nearly our entire backyard, except for this one teensy little corner all the way in the back, is shaded by a ginormous banyan tree, so I have to get the line just right back there to soak up the sun.

Oh, and I've spent a little over $100 so far on cloth.

Cara*s_Mom · #5 (**permalink**) 06-11-2008, 07:33 AM

ONE hundred? Only 1? lol I should have shopped like you did. lol I went a little crazy with it, obviously. lol I bought a lot of girly colors the first shopping trip around. Then I realized that we may have a boy later, so I've been buying neutral since. Every now and then I get a pink

But I'm with you on that. The more kids, the more savings imo.

mbsr76 · #6 (**permalink**) 06-11-2008, 08:13 AM

Well so far we've only done PF's and covers. I did buy 2 fitteds this last time around and I have this sinking feeling that I'm not going to be able to stop with what I have

I also just got the cutest fleece soaker in the mail yesterday and I can't wait to get some more of those.

I definitely have some more things on my list, like I really want to try out a couple of AIO's because I think it would be easier for when we're out and about. And the fitteds I got are just so soft and luxurious that I feel a deep need to have more of them

We are probably at the bare minimum of what we need right now, but still I feel good that we have enough now to keep him in cloth. And I won't feel too bad about adding to my stash every now and then because I've got another on the way that we'll use the diapers for, so heck I may as well buy them NOW, that way they really cost less because I get to use them on at least TWO kids. Haha, I like that logic!!