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Are we really saving money??

1K views 54 replies 54 participants last post by  NowOrNever 
#1 ·
Ok well after a few tough weeks of trying to get DH to understand CDing.. Yesterday he had a light bulb moment when he saw how upset I was not getting a custom order at FM in the morning. Later when I saw my email that they were going to have all custom orders taken I was so excited. I told him I wanted 3 or 4 of those diapers and he said just go for all 12. I was so so excited. However I am very new to CDing and in the past week Im well over 300.00 without including the up and coming 12 diapers from FM.
: I also see everyone here buying stuff all the time. I am becoming really obessed with getting all the cute prints and best diapers and thinking about the $$ . is alittle nerve racking So do you think you really are saving $$ by CDing or it has become much more of a hobby???
 
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#2 ·
For me, it's not about savings. When I started using cloth, I was using a service--it was $64 a month. A box of sposies from Costco (the 'good' pampers cruisers) was $29.99 and it lasted most of a month. So, yeah, right there I was doubling the cost of covering my baby's butt. But, i didn't care. I wanted the cute prints, the adorable bubble butt, the fleece fluff, and the little snappy sounds.

Just as I find breastfeeding to be a billboard for my superior parenting, I also see people watching me when I change a cloth. I'm not sure if they're confused, or if they KNOW that I put in the extra effort to put the best against my daughter's skin, but, well, in my head, it makes me feel like people know how much my child means to me.

Maybe this seems pretty egocentric, but hey---I've got to get SOMETHING for the almost $600 I've spent on diapers in the last 7 weeks---you know? Hehehe. I LOVE my cloth diapers and I really don't care if the fitted are $20 a piece!
 
#6 ·
I am, but I make my own. If I were buying high-end WAHM-made diapers, no, I'd probably bespending more than I would on disposables. Fortunately, there are tons of fun, cute options out there for people who need to save money, so cloth is good for ALL reasons, yk?

Some people are happy with their thrift-shop finds and hand-me downs, and other people love the thrill of shopping for designer clothes. It takes all sorts, and all sorts cloth diaper
 
#9 ·
I think we'll still have saved money by the end, because I'll re-sell most everything when Braden potty learns (all but a few keepsake dipes). When I got my stash big enough, the $$$ came from the tax return. Then my MIL bought us some. Now, I sell to buy or do trades. A lot of us do that. So I might be *spending* a lot, but I sold diapers to get it. We'll still come out way ahead.
 
#10 ·
Quote:
Just as I find breastfeeding to be a billboard for my superior parenting, I also see people watching me when I change a cloth. I'm not sure if they're confused, or if they KNOW that I put in the extra effort to put the best against my daughter's skin, but, well, in my head, it makes me feel like people know how much my child means to me.

that is so well said and when i look at a disposable on my dd thats how i feel
 
#11 ·
Pre-folds and pro-raps, that you pass on down to the next baby...yep, that would definitely be saving buckets of money. I think I'm probably still saving some, since I have the prefolds (on their 3rd baby) but I also have some fitteds, and some wool, and some other goodies.

But I do it because it gives me great pleasure, makes diapering a wonderful postive thing for me (and thus for baby), and as hobbies go, is pretty harmless.


-Kimberly
 
#12 ·
I am not saving any money *yet*, but in the long run I will. For one, I plan to keep my dipes and reuse them on future babies. Just like all the Larges that I have now for ds#1, I will be able to use on ds#2 when he is in Larges. (And hopefully ds#1 will have potty learned by that time) And if I did not want to keep my dipes to reuse, I could sell them and make back at least 50% of what I have spent. So any way I look at it, I will save $$ in the long run. It has become a hobby for me though. And I love it!
 
#13 ·
I'm definitely not saving money right now, but my son is soon going to be wearing 20-30 lb dipes at almost 4 months old, so we've gone through 3 sizes already. I figure that I'll save money when I use them on multiple kids, or maybe if my son actually wears a size for more than a few months.
 
#17 ·
I think you can truly save money if you stay away from here :LOL

I started off with CPFs and PUL covers and I got my entire stash for about $160 (including 3 FBs for traveling)

But then.... I fell victim to the dark side... the cute prints, fitteds, AIOs and lastly.... WOOL!!!

My husband has just given up
and has come to the conclusion that we really aren't saving any money anymore.
 
#19 ·
if you look at it one way, i'm not saving money. the dipes i like are $10-15 a peice (not including stuffing for the pockets) and covers run $8-18. i bought about $50 worth of diapers in the last 2 weeks (and when you're as poor as we are, that's a LOT of money) and came out with 5 diapers. you can look at that and think, wow, you can buy 136 sposies (of the brand we keep around for my mom to use on k) for $16, and that will last most of the month.
if you look at it another way, i'm saving money. i am not having to spend gas money to drive to the ends of the earth for wal-mart (that's where they sell the only kind of sposies i allow on the girl-- white cloud-- and, god bless my city, is still winning the fight to keep wal-mart outta here) and with gas prices the way they are right now, that's substansial. i am "planning" (note the use of quotations!) a finite number of diapers per size, so the spending will stop SOME DAY (it better, or we're screwed!).
it probably balances out financially in the long run, but there are several other important factors i consider in cloth diapering: cuteness is definitly a factor (oh, i love cute diapers! and i LOVE bubble butt on a little one!), the environmental impact is another, plus the better for her butt thing makes a difference to me-- since starting cd'ing, k gets a diaper rash anytime she wears a sposie! that alone tells me we're doing the right thing!
 
#20 ·
hmmm, i have been buying/selling/trading for 3+ years now and i refuse to add up all i've spent.
i change my babies very often though (cloth or sposies) so i believe i am still saving some money. since saving money isn't in my top reasons to use cloth i'm fine with spending more on them than i "need" to.
 
#22 ·
We are saving money...and most of you probably are, too, you just don't realize it! We switched to cloth when my now 15 month old was born...before that we were spending approx. $150/month on sposie diapers and sposie wipes (even with coupons or with buying the store brand or buying at costco... we changed as often in sposies as we do in cloth). Since that is what we were spending for 1 in dipes we would have spent approx. $300/month for 2 in dipes or $4500 just in the 15 months we have been cding. Going off of the $150/month per child in dd if your dc is in diapers until 3yrs old that is $5400/per child. So then going back to the cost of cloth...to save money you don't need to spend less than the $5400/per child...you can spend more and save dipes for future children...you can spend more and resale what you don't like or what didn't work for your dc or what you love, but don't need anymore...most hyena diapers go for 75% or more of their retail price (some truly hard to get diapers go over their retail price). That all said, I doubt most people spend anywhere near $5000 on cloth and therefore you are saving. Yes, you do pay more initially, but you save overall.
 
#25 ·
Hmmmm..probably not yet. We've spent $75 + $55 + $35 + $10+$3....that's almost $180. Plus I wasted some money on ebay for used items that turned out to be so gross I just threw them away. DD is 2.5 months old, and we did use sposies for the first 3 weeks, and for a weekend trip, and just this week started using cloth wipes. And now it's time to order some regular size prefolds, so there's more money. But, I think we'll get all the cd's we'll ever need (for all our children) for less than $500. I think we're still in the initial start-up cost phase
 
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