In our last post, Al and I shared ways on How to Save Money on Cloth Diapers. We went over which type and brands we found to be most cost effective and a few other crumb saving ways to deal with poo, cloth diaper laundry, etc. And as promised, now that we have survived 1 month of cloth diapering, here is a breakdown of our costs, savings, and thoughts on whether cloth diapering is really worth investing in over disposables.
Cost of Disposables
Before we go over how much we spent on cloth diapers, it would help to have some hard numbers on what we are comparing to. We’ll use Kirkland brand disposable diapers from Costco as a reference since those are the ones we would most likely purchase if we ditched the cloth.
A box of Kirkland size 1 disposables contains 192 diapers. So if used over 1 month, that would average 6-7 diapers/day (I read somewhere that Costco conveniently tries to package about a month’s worth of diapers per box, so this seems accurate according to our usage).
1 box Kirkland disposable diapers = $30 = $360/year
Hmmm…..for all the talk about diapers being such a huge baby expense, $360/year for disposables is not as much as we thought. This means that $360/year is the maximum amount that we can save by switching over to cloth diapers. Is it worth it? It’s only $1 a day! Let’s see how cloth diapers shake out.
Cloth Diaper One-Time Initial Costs
As mentioned in our previous post, we decided to use the simplest types of cloth diapers (flats and prefolds), purchased most of them used (consignment event), went with inexpensive covers, and used paper towels as liners (make sure to check out our previous post for more details). So here are our costs for getting started in cloth diapering. These are one-time costs for items that should last us a while.
*Many of these items were given to us from our gift registry or we purchased with Amazon gift cards/credit from returns. So in theory our out-of-pocket expense was much less.
Cloth Diaper Monthly Ongoing Costs
We use disposables at night and during outings, Viva paper towels as liners, and special laundry detergent for cloth diapers. All of these are ongoing costs each month.
Cloth Diapers vs. Disposables
So how do they compare? Here are the costs comparing full time disposables and the Crumb Saver cloth method, which is a combo of using cloth and parttime (PT) disposables for nights and outings.
Keep in mind that these are based on rough estimates that could vary based on a variety of factors such as:
- Needing to replace cloth diapers, especially if the cheap ones don’t last as long
- Water costs (especially if you live in places like CA, but not an issue here in TN)
- Electricity (but be a good crumbsaver and use the sun instead of the dryer!)
Maxing Out the Savings
Notice that our savings really aren’t that much. With our current system of cloth diapering, even though our initial outlay of costs was very low, we are still only saving approximately half of disposable diaper costs. How could we save even more? Currently we are using disposable diapers at nights and when we go out. This is for convenience and also because we think disposables will be more comfortable and more absorbent for nighttime when we change the baby less often.
However, most true cloth diaperers are more hardcore than we are. If we were to use cloth diapers exclusively, our savings would increase dramatically.
Luxury Cloth Diapering
Our price analysis is based on the Crumb Saver method of cloth diapering as described in our last post. However, if we decided to use the typical cloth diapering methods that are popular on many mommy blogs, we would be paying at least $15 per cloth diaper for the more expensive styles and brands. We would also need to build an arsenal of at least 20 of them just to get through about 3 days of use. That means our upfront costs would skyrocket to at least $300 on the cloth diapers alone. With these much higher costs, we wouldn’t start saving money over disposables until the second year of use. That cuts our potential savings over 2 years to a maximum of $360. That’s only a savings of $0.50 per day! Even for penny-pinchers like us, we would gladly pay that to avoid the additional hassle, mess, and work of cloth diapers at night and when on the road.
Is Cloth Diapering Worth It?
After 1 month of cloth diapering and crunching the numbers, we were extremely surprised to find out that disposables really weren’t as expensive as we thought and that our savings with cloth diapers aren’t as much as we expected, even using the most inexpensive options we could find. We currently are only saving about $20/month. Is $20 worth the hassle of special wash methods, drying in the sun, folding to size, and the undesirable intimacy with poo and pee?
As Crumb Savers, cloth diapering was something we had to give a try and we’ll probably continue for a while. But at $20 per month, with each poopy explosion I am more and more tempted to ditch the cloth and go with convenience. (Of course, if we went exclusively cloth, cloth diapering would have a much larger financial benefit, but I’m not ready to be that hardcore yet.)
So if you’re considering cloth diapering, here is our opinion on when it is truly worth it:
- You can reduce the upfront investment costs of the diapers themselves – opting for luxury brands and fashionista styles can tank potential long-term savings
- You use cloth diapers exclusively – in order to maximize the savings
- You have the extra time (i.e. stay-at-home mom) – if you work or have other children, your time is probably worth more than the cloth diaper savings
- You don’t have many others who need to learn how to do it (i.e. daycare, babysitters, family members) – putting in the the extra effort yourself is one thing, but putting the burden of the extra work on others may not be worth it
- You and your child aren’t picky – you aren’t picky about fashion (so you can buy cheap to save more) and your child isn’t picky about what goes on their bottom (some children don’t like that cloth diapers make them feel wet, they may have a hard time getting used to the bulkiness, or may be picky about the inconsistency of using different types of cloth diapers that you get from sundry places secondhand)
So what are your thoughts? Having done cloth diapers for only 1 month, I’m sure there are still many things we need to learn. Share with us what your experience has been with cloth diapers vs. disposables, why you prefer one over the other, and whether you think cloth diapering is worth it. Perhaps you can help us decide whether we should continue or not!
Our goal with cloth diapers was more about not throwing away all of those diapers rather than about saving money. To that end, starting with used cloth diapers was also important to us. But we did save some money, I think.
Last time, we bought ours used from a neighbor. Then we resold them when we were done. So we ended up pretty much breaking even on the actual diaper part. We also used cloth wipes, just cheap baby wash cloths and water. Our water bill and electricity bills did not actually increase. I’m not sure why, we must have been using less elsewhere? Fewer long baths, perhaps? We were not scientific enough about it. We will see if utility costs increase this time.
And despite everyone’s assurances that cloth diapers babies potty train sooner, we used them for three full years. Then my son potty trained himself in one day a week before his third birthday, just up and decided he needed underpants.
We did start using disposables for overnights at some point bc our son was a champion heavy wetter but would sleep 12 hours straight in a disposable and that was totally worth it to us. And we did not bring the cloth diapers on vacation.
This time, we got all of the diapers for free from my sister. I don’t know if we will do them overnight or not, we’ll see how it goes with this boy. And maybe he will potty train earlier? Again, who knows? I don’t personally think that they add a lot of work- drive to Costco vs do a load of laundry. We don’t have aa special wash routine or anything and we use the same detergent (All Free and Clear) on everything.
Sounds like you are a veteran cloth diaperer and have a system down that has worked great for you! Just curious about your wash routine. So are you able to wash dirty diapers with just one regular cycle? I haven’t tried it before, so I’m curious if a normal wash gets everything out or if it really requires extra rinses etc like people say.
We have an energy star front loader washing machine, so that probably helps with the utility costs.
Wash routine:
I spray the diapers in the toilet. My sister gave us her diaper sprayer, but a friend of ours got one of those kitchen sink sprayers at Habitat and just retrofitted it for the toilet. She found a tutorial to do this online. Might be easier than pre-washing them in the bathtub. You could also try a wet pail, where the diapers are in there with water. My mom did that when we were kids and said she never had to pre-rinse them.
I put them in the quick wash cycle on cold with no soap. I think this cycle takes maybe 15 minutes? I think this is necessary for the energy star washers so that you are not washing the clothes in mostly pee, but if you have an older washer, its not bc the older washers use way more water to start with.
Then I add whatever other laundry to the now rinsed diaper load. I usually stick with baby/kid laundry. You don’t want real big things like towels bc they can wrap around the diapers and keep them from getting clean. But there is always enough kid laundry in our house.
The washer needs to be 2/3 full, bc the newer washers work by rubbing the clothes against each other. I do a normal hot wash for this. We use free and clear detergent bc my husband and older son have very sensitive skin, but you can really use most detergents. Then that’s it, they are done. The big downside of the fancy kind that we have now is that they take forever to dry. Flats and covers are the way to go for shorter time on the line.
I will try and keep track of our utility costs and how they change this go-round.
That sounds like a pretty simple routine that’s also cost and time efficient. Thanks for sharing the great info, I’ll probably incorporate some of it into what we do! 🙂
Do you wash them in the washing machine? That would add to the cost for them. Seems like a lot of work, although much easier on the environment.
Yes, we wash them in our frontload washing machine. Fortunately we aren’t in CA or our water bill would probably suffer! Cloth diapering has its benefits but definitely isn’t the quickest, most efficient option.
We bought our cloth diapers brand new and it was a lot of money up front, but we generally don’t buy disposables except for when we’re traveling.
My mother says that she tried cloth diapers with my brother, but did not know what she was doing as she had no one to intstruct her on how to use them, so did not continue.
Years later, she decided to use cloth diapers with my youngest sister. This time she watched this lady’s tutorials on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2CE681574C00E83D, and they really helped her.
I have changed a lot of cloth diapers and have not found them that difficult. When my baby sister was very small, we had a diaper sprayer (connected to out toilet) which we used to clean off her diapers. My father put it together with parts from either Ace Hardware or Lowe’s, and followed instructions from a do it yourself website. It cost under $40.00.
Now that she is 2 1/2 and …well…you know, we clean the diapers. 🙂 It can be kind of yucky, but we feel that it is very good for the environment as disposable diapers take eons to disintegrate , and it does save us some cash. We also seem to have a comfortable routine of washing diapers every other day or so, and we too live in TN. Anyways, that’s my two cents.
Good for you guys! I could probably learn a lot from someone like you who has a lot of experience in cloth diapering. Thanks for sharing the YouTube channel, I’m going to check it out.
You’re more than welcome. We really learned a lot from that channel. I hope that you find it helpful as well.
I love how you guys break down the costs and explain things (you guys already got me to switch to Cricket). Anyways, I didn’t want to lose my frugal card for not trying cloth diapering but it seemed like a hassle for not much cost savings…though I never did much comparison. It would have been even tougher for us because we live in an apartment complex where the laundry room is in the basement. Ultimately the cost savings wasn’t worth it…sometimes it makes sense to pay for the convenience.
No worries, Andrew. Your Crumb Saver membership card won’t be revoked here today! 😉
I think you’ll end up saving more than you have actually calculated using cloth diapers vs. disposables. I generally Figure about 10 disposable diapers a day with a newborn. 6 a day would be really scant I think. Also, the cost per disposable diaper goes up as the baby progresses into larger sizes, so you can’t figure in the prices for a whole year using only size 1.
Have you considered doing elimination communication to save on diapers? It takes some definite commitment, but would save money in the diaper department. I have friends doing it with good success, who with their 4 month old baby were getting all poopy business in the toilet and most wet diapers during the day. Also, it can result in much earlier actual potty training, usually completely trained by 18 months.
Those are some good points! Our calculations are pretty rough, so I’m sure there are a lot of factors like the ones you mentioned that we’ve left out or haven’t even realized yet! I read an article about elimination communication and it was so intriguing. Would be interested how your friends implemented it.
I wish I could have a chance to really talk with my friends about their experience with elimination communication, but they are far-away missionaries…All I know is that they had great success and she was completely potty trained just as soon as she could walk! But there are lots of blogs out there detailing the methods and personal experiences, which I’m sure you can refer to. The thing that interests me is that the move to disposable diapering has changed the average age of potty training from 12-18 months down to the age of 2.5-3+ yrs in developed countries like the US. However, in much of the world the average age is still 18 months, in places where people can’t afford diapers! (The thought is that the super absorbency of the disposable diapers prevents babies from recognizing when it is that they go from dry to wet, and they learn to ignore this body function. Once they learn to ignore it, it becomes very hard to potty train them until they are older.)
Anyways, something Ive thought about is not just the cost of the first year of disposable diapers, but the 2nd & 3rd+ yrs, when the larger sizes cost a lot more per diaper! If your child is potty trained by the end of the first year or soon thereafter, that is a really significant savings from what the average American family is spending on diapers!
So true!
The other thought I had as far as savings, is that many babies have sensitivities to the chemicals in the disposable diapers. You might find at some point that the cheapest brand of disposable diapers causes diaper rashes, and you would have to change to another brand or one specifically made for sensitive babies.
You shouldn’t run into this problem while using cloth diapers as long as you’re changing baby often enough and using a mild detergent. If you do have reoccurring issues with diaper rashes, you can make homemade wool soakers (diaper covers) out of lambs wool sweaters from a thrift store. These are much more breathable than the waterproof cloth diaper covers.
Ah, so that’s what wool soakers are! I’ve heard about them but wasn’t sure what they were for. 🙂 Sounds like you have some good experience with cloth diapering. That’s awesome!
Haha, not much personal experience with cloth diapers but I’ve done a lot of research. I take care of wealthy people’s babies (baby nursing) and spend my free time calculating how much they spend and how much less I’ll spend when I have my own baby someday!!!
Haha! You’re so smart! 🙂
Thanks for this article! We got a baby on the way lol….and was considering the cloth diaper route…..then also remembers, oh yea, we’re on a septic sewer system…..so that’s a lot of extra washing…..I think we’ll stick to Sam’s Club diapers 😉
Congratulations on your soon-to-come baby! Sounds like you’re really thinking ahead to be prepared before the munchkin arrives. That’s good, you’ll be glad you did during those first few months! 🙂