set up costs!

I think a lot of people think of the start up costs of using cloth diapers, and that puts them off - because paying hundreds of dollars in one go, CAN be very off putting, especially if you don't have hundreds of dollars just floating around.  But I am here to tell you that you don't NEED to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars!  I personally think that prefolds & covers are the cheapest way to go, probably followed by OSFA (one size fits all) AIO's or pocket diapers....

So I have done some research online - using New Zealand websites, to get some cost comparisons for the price of diapers from birth to potty training...
*** please keep in mind these prices are for brand new nappies, from reputable stores - you CAN certainly pick up preloved diapers a lot cheaper (I may actually add an example to this post) 


Real Nappies have a 'birth to potty' pack which costs $600 and contains 6.5dozen prefolds, 23 wraps, 8 rolls of 100 liners, 2 bags of nappy sanitiser, 2 night time boosters, 1 pair of potty training pants and 1 wetbag

& when searching various websites I found Tweedle have 6 packs of small prefolds for $19.80, and 6 packs of regular prefolds for $21.60, and on YoYo Nappy I found a cover which has a OSFA option, for $25.00.  This little combnation would come to a total of $344.00 (2doz small prefolds, 1.5doz regular prefolds & 8 covers)

When it comes to OSFA pocket diapers, the cheapest I could find were from Cherub Tree, where you can get 20 OSFA pockets for $349.70... 20 is the minimum number of pockets I would be wanting & is what I started out with.

Sticking with Cherub Tree, I also found their AIO diapers for a bulk price of 447.70 for 20 diapers.  Again, 20 is the minimum amount of diapers I would want to have on hand

I know a lot of people will still be thinking that $344.00 is expensive, particularly at one time, so for an example of how cheap you can do things, here are some examples I found on TradeMe...

• 18 prefolds (regular size) - $40.00 buy now
• 18 prefolds (small size) - $40.00 buy now
• 8 prefolds (newborn size) - $20.00 buy now
• 8 Real Nappies wraps (newborn size) - $20.00 buy now
• 4 Real Nappies wraps (infant size) - $20.00 buy now
• 5 Bummis wraps (small/infant size) - $35.00 buy now

there are none on right now, but you can see from those prices that you could most likely find 6-8 medium wraps for $30.00-40.00, so you could almost say you could get a whole system on TradeMe for just over $200.00 (most people I've spoken to have said they've not had to go past a size medium for wraps)



So here are some of the 'cheaper' deals I came up with on my search - keeping in mind these are for TOTAL diaper packs, that will do from birth-3yo approx

• TradeMe prefolds & wraps, some used, some unused, some barely used - $200 approx
• Tweedle prefolds & YoYo Nappy covers - $344.00
• Cherub Tree OSFA pockets - $349.70
• Cherub Tree OSFA AIO's - $447.70
• Real Nappies 'birth to potty pack' - $600.00 (lots of extras)

What is important to remember is that you DON'T need to buy everything all at once...  There is no reason you can't buy items as you need them (unless of course you are getting a bulk deal), and remember to email the owner of the store to find out if they do lay-by (lay-away).  I was able to pay off my initial stash of OSFA pocket diapers, over the space of about 12 weeks, which made it VERY attainable!  Another way to develop a stash of diapers that won't cost the world, is to join an online cloth diapering forum, such as The Nappy Network (NZ) or Diaper Swappers & check out their 'FSOT' (for sale or trade) areas - I have purchased a lot of my diapers this way & definitely won't hesitate to do it again!

You can of course spend a lot of money building your stash if you wish - I'm a believer that when it comes to cloth diapers, you often do pay for quality - not that I'm saying the cheaper options I've mentioned above are bad quality - I have used all of those brands & have no complaints!  But if you did want to spend hundreds - urm, even getting toward the thousand (plus!) dollar mark it would be very easy... it all comes down to what you feel is acceptable to pay, because when you are done with the diapers there is a market for used diapers, so you could guarantee to make some of your money back!

If you ask me, trawling the internet for hours looking at diaper options & what prints etc you JUST HAVE TO HAVE, is a lot more exciting than walking into the supermarket & chucking a pack of 'sposies' in your trolley!

Cloth diapers are more expensive than disposables, right?

I came across an article online - High Cost of Diapers Forces Some Parents Into Risky Practices - the basic premise being that a lot of low income parents are unable to meet the costs of buying disposables for their children, so are doing certain things to 'extend' the life of the disposable - including washing the diaper out & reusing it.

It's a very sad truth - the statistics in the article say that 1/3 parents are doing this, and I would believe it.  Here in New Zealand for a regular sized packet of disposable diapers you are looking at paying $5.10NZD/3.86USD for the cheapest packet, and for the more expensive brands you're paying around $16NZD/$12USD - and that is for a pack of 15-20.  If I was to buy disposables for a week, I would need basically 2 packs for a week - so at the most approximately $64.00 a month - that doesn't sound like a lot really, but when you are barely making enough money to make ends meet each week, that is a lot. 

On my worst weeks by the time I have got groceries, gas & paid all the bills - I might have $40.00 left over, to buy things for myself & the girls & cover any unexpected costs that come up.  If I was buying disposable diapers, that would mean I'd have around $100 to live on each month, by the time the diapers had been purchased.  THEN you can take into consideration the fact there are women out there who DON'T breastfeed for whatever reason - and they have to purchase formula too - it all adds up VERY quickly.

It's fairly obvious that for me my main motivation to use cloth diapers was for financial reasons.  My initial stash was 20 OSFA pockets which cost $11.00 each - so $220.00, I also purchased extra inserts which came to $30.00 - so all up I spent $250.00 on my initial stash... which I paid for by layby - paying $10.00 a week over 25 weeks.  Yes, it was a long way to go about it, but I paid for the diapers at a rate that I could comfortably afford, and it wasn't as if I needed them straight away - they were paid off in May & Emersyn was born in mid June. 

When I look at the actual numbers, my total cost of $250.00 is the equivalent of
15 packs of 20 diapers - or 300 disposable diapers all up,
which I would have gone through in basically 7 weeks, if I was using an average of 7 diapers a day. 
7 weeks & the cloth diapers had paid for themselves.


Lets pretend I go through an average of about 25 diapers a week across the 3-ish years that Emersyn is in diapers, that'd be a total of  3900 diapers, and if those were disposables purchased at $16 for a pack of 20, that would be a total cost of $3120 for diapers alone (if my math is right!)... not taking into consideration the fact she could be in diapers for longer than 3 years - the total cost could easily be more like $4000.00.

Now lets pretend I didn't buy any extra cloth diapers & stuck with my original $250.00 worth - that would mean I would be saving $2870.00!

Obviously my cloth diapering addiction kicked in at some point & I've now spent a LOT more money on cloth diapers than I had originally, BUT each of those cloth diapers - which can be used hundreds (probably thousands) of times cost less (in most cases) than the price of one packet of disposables, and then when I am done with the cloth diapers I can sell them & make a little money back.  That isn't to mention that if I had another child I could reuse those same cloth diapers - potentially saving myself close to $6000 by the time that child was potty trained.  The average number of diapers is just an estimate - but I think that whether or not it's accurate it is easy to see that cloth diapering is by far the more financially viable option.

What's the whole point of this blog post?  I'm basically saying that there needs to be more of an awareness of cloth diapering, of the costs associated - and the comparison with the cost of disposables.  It's very true that you can spend upward of $40.00 PER diaper for some brands, however it is also true that you can be very thrifty with your diaper buying - and like me if you purchase pre-loved diapers you can pay well under half the normal retail price.  Here are a few examples of the bargains I've had...

3x barely used Snazzipants fitted diapers.. RRP - $84.00 / I paid:  $17.00
3x used, but in great condition Bummis Super Brites - RRP - $72.00 / I paid:  $17.00
5x used, but in great condition Bitti D'Lish - RRP $135.60 / I paid:  $76.00
8x used, still in good condition FuzziBunz pockets - RRP $263.60 / I paid: $40.00
3x used, still in good condition Ecobubs woolen pockets - RRP $119.85 / I paid: $30.00

GRAND RRP TOTAL:  $675.05 (average of $30.68 per diaper)
I PAID:  $180 (average of $8.20 per diaper)

I COULD of course sum this whole long winded post by saying:
NO, cloth diapers are NOT more expensive than disposables!