Frugal Friday: Cloth Diapers and Wipes

I have come to the conclusion that I blog better when I have a deadline. I'm sure I am not the only one who feels this way but I love blogging and I just don't find the time unless there is a goal in mind. So with this thought as motivation, I am starting a Frugal Friday post here. Each Friday I will post something that I have found to try to be more frugal and usually more natural too. Some of my posts maybe things I have tried, some will be things I would like to try. But I will have one each Friday, Lord willing!

So, today we are talking diapers and wipes. There has been a lot of talk about how much it costs to use cloth diapers and whether the impact on the environment is any better when you use cloth over disposables. I can't answer all those questions since I am not an expert in statistics or anything like that. I can just tell you what I know from my experience.

Using this calculator, I figured out it cost me about $1.60 a load to wash my diapers once a week. (I wash them twice, once in cold and once in hot. The first time, with cold, I add soap, borax and bac-out. The second round I use just soap and hot water.) If you add that up, it costs about $6.4 a month to wash diapers. Then you have to add the cost of the diapers. Even if I had to buy them every two years (which is crazy...) it would cost me $5 a month. So all together, that's $11.40 to cloth diaper one child every month. When you figure the best price you can find consistently to buy disposables is about $22 on Amazon, cloth diapers sound pretty good. :D (There are situations make cloth diapering difficult or next to impossible, but again that is beyond the scope of my blog today.)

So for me, cloth diapers are the way to go. I wish I could have cloth diapered all three of my little ones but I figure better late than never!

I'm getting ready to start using cloth wipes too for my son. I'll be using the Anti-fungal Baby Wipes recipe from this website to make them. I'll have to let you know how the cost plays out. Right now, I use the Seventh Generation wipes from Amazon. They are only .02 when you use the subscribe and save option, which is pretty good, I think.

Anyway, that's my tip of the day. In the next few weeks, we will be talking about natural shampoos and conditioners, laundry soaps and fabric softeners and others. If you have suggestions, please let me know!

Have a great weekend!