It’s been a long time (almost 3 years) since I delved into the magical world of cloth diapers, and I am now realizing that I have to start at the beginning again. Why, you ask? I’m helping a friend get started, and not only that, but she’s having TWINS!

I spent most of this morning doing cost breakdowns of one brand of diapers, and estimated that your average disposable diaper costs about $.28 per diaper, and $.05 for a wipe. Of course, this is relative to the diaper size (smaller cost less) and type of wipe (specialty cost more), but overall, I figured out that the price to diaper one child for 2 years in disposables costs roughly… $2,125.

Yes. You read that right. And to diaper Alex, (minus the disposables we buy about once a month on the cheap), it cost us about $150. Now, this is just the beginning, because it doesn’t include the cost of laundering, which adds roughly $220 for 2 years washed every other day (we don’t, so it’s about 1/2 that), and the cost of detergent, which we buy in bulk, saving us money, actually.

I’m not an exclusive cloth diaperer, so our total cost to cover Alex’s behind is going to be somewhere in the $750-1000 range, but still at least 1/2 of the “normal” cost.

At the present, I’m sorting out the cost of diapering 2 babies at once with diapers, covers and cloth wipes, which I thought would be $200, but is probably more like $400 (diaper supplies only), but still way less than the estimated $4250 that it could cost for disposable everything. (10% is really good!)

So, for now, I leave you with this… Would you rather pay $.28 per diaper change or $.02 per diaper change? That’s a difference of $2.30 a day! (or a cup of Starbucks tall coffee, or a dollar menu meal, or…)