Savings you don’t think of with cloth diapers

Most people assume that you only saving money buying the cloth diapers themselves, which is completely true, but you also save money on sales tax, diaper cream and energy to!

If you would like to know more about how much it costs to cloth diaper check out this article

Diapering savings with cloth diapers

Sales tax savings with cloth diapers

Sales tax varies from place to place with the highest sales tax in the United States being 9.5% (Louisiana) and the lowest being 1.82% (Alaska).

That means if you bought a $50 pack of diapers in Louisiana it would cost $54.75 but that same $50 would only cost $50.91 in Alaska because of the much lower tax rate.

While the purchase of cloth diapers would also be taxed, you would be taxed once and on a much smaller number.

A baby uses about 7,200 diapers from birth to 2 1/2 years average disposable diaper costs about $0.33 that’s $2,376 (no wipes), now we add an average sales tax of 5% and that adds $118.80 making the new total $2494.80.

Savings on diaper cream with cloth diapers

Diaper cream is also used much less with cloth diapers, there are some parents that still use diaper cream or coconut oil after each diaper change, but most only use diaper cream occasionally, like after baby poops or before baby goes to bed.

With cloth diapers you do need to be careful about the diaper creams/rash creams you use as some creams have ingredients that will cause your cloth diapers to either smell funny, but in my experience the smell washes out over time.

Or it could cause your cloth diapers to repel liquid, which is NOT good, while there are ways to fix this, they are either hard on you, hard on your cloth diapers, or both.

Ingredients to watch out for

• Petroleum (coats fibers & repels liquid)
• Lanolin (coats fibers & repels liquid)
• Zinc oxide (temporary whiteish stains & weird smell)
• Fish oil (temporary fishy smell)

Another ingredient I personally would avoid is cornstarch, my 3rd baby got yeast rashes very easily, and Yeast (candida) loves cornstarch.

Also cornstarch can irritate skin and lead to infection.

Article from WebMD that says to not use cornstarch on diaper rash webmd.com

Make sure to read labels and ask the manufacturer of your cloth diapers about any diaper creams you aren’t sure about.

Coconut oil is a awesome and cheap diaper cream option, coconut oil is also antifungal, so while it might not prevent Yeast diaper rash it most likely helps to keep it at bay since Yeast (candida) is a fungus.

Article on the benefits of coconut oil at medicalnewstoday.com

A 14oz jar of Great Value unrefined virgin coconut oil is $5.98.

14oz jar of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste was $16.97 (has white petroleum)

Parent’s Choice diaper cream seemed to only come in 4oz tubes for $1.98, so 4oz x 3.5 = 14ozs, so $1.98 x 3.5 = $6.93 for 14ozs of Parents Choice diaper cream (has petroleum, lanolin, corn starch, cod liver oil and a added fragrance).

16oz jar of Equate rash ointment for $8.94, so about $7.82 for 14ozs (has petroleum and corn starch).

16oz jar of Desitin daily defense for $15.98, so about $13.98 for 14ozs (has petroleum and zinc oxide).

A+D Treat is $5.47 for 4ozs, 4oz x 3.5 = 14ozs, so $5.47 x 3.5 =$19.14 (has zinc oxide and cod liver oil)

A+D Prevent is $14.47 for 1lb/16ozs, so about $12.66 for 14ozs (has lanolin and petroleum).

That makes coconut oil $0.95 cheaper than the cheapest diaper cream the Parent’s Choice which was $6.93 for 14ozs vs the coconut oil at $5.98.

Now while coconut oil is a good choice most days, it’s not one of the better rash treatments, so make sure you do have a rash cream of some kind on hand because cloth diapered babies can get rashes.

Then for the rare extra nasty rash I breakout the A+D Treatment cream (Not A+D prevent), which is my favorite zinc oxide cream, zinc oxide has all sorts of benefits, so it helps diaper rash in a lot of different ways.

article on zinc oxide at nationallibraryofmedicine.gov

If you are looking for an all natural diaper rash cream you will probably like Earth mama Organics diaper cream which is $12.99 for a 2oz jar or $21.99 for a 4oz jar, it’s kinda pricey, but smells nice and works well.

Grandma El’s rash cream $8.99 for 2ozs or $14.49 for 4ozs at clothdiaper.com*.

Grandma El’s is a very well known diaper rash cream that many cloth diapering parents use and love, however, it does contain Amber petroleum and lanolin, but I have used this product for several months and haven’t had any issues.

That being said because it has both petroleum and lanolin, I would highly, highly suggest that you contact your cloth diaper’s manufacturer before using this product.

If you are planning to use disposable liners with your cloth diapers then the ingredients in your diaper cream aren’t as big of a deal since a disposable liner is a barrier between the cloth diaper and the cream.

If you want to learn more about diaper cream and cloth diapers , check out this article

Cloth diapering cuts down on emergency trips to the store

The average person must travel 4 miles to get to a grocery store, so that is an 8 mile round trip.

According to the U.S department of transportation it costs about $0.72 per mile to operate and maintain a car as of 2022 that means that an 8 mile round trip on average costs $5.76.

While cloth diapering doesn’t cut out all emergency trips to the store, it does cut out what would be the most stressful to me ( 0 diapers for cranky baby).

If I go to make spaghetti and then see I have no pasta sauce, I’ll just write it on the shopping list and make something else, no big deal.

But, if I went to change my baby for bedtime and found that I had no more diapers, or maybe 1 diaper I could put them in now but none for overnight changes or first thing in the morning, I would be super stressed.

I get a great sense of security from the fact that I will never run out of diapers even in emergencies, in our area through the winter it’s not uncommon for snow storms to make the roads unsafe, but the power is usually still on.

With cloth diapers I don’t have to worry that I can’t get out of the house, because I don’t need to, everything I need to make sure my baby has clean diapers is right here at home.

I have also hand washed cloth diapers during a week long power outage ( it’s not as hard as you’d think)

Less garbage with cloth diapers

When you are using cloth diapers and wipes you have far less waste than if you were using disposable diapers and wipes, I would say with disposable diapers you will have about 1 extra bag of trash per week.

But an entire bag of old dirty diapers is going to smell, so probably plan on taking diaper trash outside mid week, then again on trash day.

If you are using a Diaper Genie or some other special trash can for your disposable diapers, you then need to factor in the cost of the can and the special bag refills.

Diaper Genie refills are $16.97 for a box that says it lasts 5 months, so that’s $3.39 per month.

There are store brand refills that are a little cheaper though.

If you’re like me and your trash company gives you a ginormous 95 gallon trash can that can hold up to 335 pounds, then you probably don’t have to worry about 1 extra bag of trash per week.

However, there are some places where adding an extra bag of trash to your weekly pickup will cost an average of about $5.00, some places that is per week, others it’s per month.

If it’s $5.00 per month for 34 months (2 1/2 years) that’s $170.00 in extra trash pickup from birth to potty-training per child.

Laundry savings with cloth diapers

I know it sounds weird that you will actually save money on laundry when you are doing more laundry, well it’s really about how you do the laundry, not how much laundry there is.

Detergent amounts

When I first started cloth diapering almost 6 years ago I was firstly shocked to see how a regular old washing machine and cheap detergent could actually clean dirty diapers.

Then I was shocked to learn that I was actually using way to much detergent, I was using probably 3x the amount I really needed on my cloth diapers, which meant I was using 4x-5x what I needed on regular laundry.

So, even though there was extra laundry, I was actually using about 1/3 less laundry detergent per month than I was before I started cloth diapering.

Cloth diapers also have much better elastic around the legs and across the back, so while poop and pee escaping does still happen, it happens less often, so less washing poopy clothes and blankets.

My favorite laundry detergents so far are, Dandelion Naturals unscented, Charlies Soap powder detergent (which is weirdly not a soap), and Farmhouse laundry soap (is a soap because it contains coconut oil, be sure to use warm or hot water).

Dandelion natural’s detergent dandelionnaturals.com Charlie’s Soap powder at charliesoap.com Farmhouse laundry soap at sweetgrassfarm.com

Wool dryer balls vs Dryer sheets

Dryer balls are a natural and reusable alternative to dryer sheets, dryer balls are not something I personally use, but I never really liked dryer sheets either.

While dryer sheets have softeners, lubricants and artificial fragrances, dryer balls are 100% wool, some dryer balls do have dyes in them so they look prettier, but most dryer balls are just 100% wool, usually from New Zealand.

A set of wool dryer balls will last for about 1,000 loads of laundry and will cost around $20.00 on average.

The cheapest dryer sheets I could find were $1.97 for a box of 40, the instructions say to use 1 sheet per load, so $1.97 = 40 loads of laundry.

So, it would be around $50.00 for 1,000 loads, compared to the $5.00-$35.00 (depending on pack size & brand) for wool dryer balls.

That’s a savings of $15.00-$45.00 every 1,000 loads, and no chemicals!

Hang drying laundry vs dryer

I love hang drying both my cloth diaper laundry and my regular laundry, I’m so exited when warm weather comes back to Ohio where I live so that my sheets, blankets, clothes and my cloth diapers smell like sunshine again instead of dryer.

Depending on the type of clothesline you are wanting, a clothesline could cost anywhere from $2.00 for a 50 foot length of rope that you could run between any 2 objects that wouldn’t fall over once clothes were put on the line.

For $30.00 you have a ton of options in retractable clotheslines

$70.00ish will get you a pretty solid non-retractable clothesline

Then $200-$300 buys an umbrella clothesline

Personally, we have always gotten 2 pulleys and some rope and made a pulley clothesline at a cost of about $20-$30 depending on what kind of rope and pulleys you buy.

The drying rack I currently have is wooden and Amish-made so it’s a little pricey at $60.00, but it can hold a whole load of laundry and is very sturdy.

My old drying rack that I used for about 4-5 years was from Amazon, made of steel and cost about $30.00

I have an electric dryer and electric dryers cost about $0.24-$0.72 per hour to run, whenever I use the dryer to dry my cloth diapers it usually takes 1-1/2 hours for everything to be dry.

I do have fitted cloth diapers and some cloth diaper inserts that are very thick, and typically things that are very thick/ very absorbent take longer to dry.

If you were only using flat cloth diapers which are just a single layer of fabric that you fold into multiple layers then your drying time will be much less.

So, to be clear if you are still just drying all your cloth diapers in the dryer, then there really isn’t much savings.

However, in my experience the need to hang dry my cloth diaper covers led me to discover how awesome line drying is, your laundry just seems to feel and smell better after it’s hung out on the line.

Once you discover all the benefits that come with hang drying your laundry you start doing it more, when you hang dry more and use the dryer less you save money.

I use my dryer for about 20 minutes 3x per week to just fluff my cloth diaper absorbency a little bit, that’s only 1 hour a week so about $2.00 a month.

If I was only using my dryer to dry my cloth diapers, I would need to run my dryer for about 1 1/2 hours 3x per week, so 4 1/2 hours a week, that’s about $9.00 per month.

Which is $108.00 a year, and $270.00 for 2 1/2 years of drying 3x a week (keep in mind, my oldest potty-trained at 4, so the cost could be almost double).

Lifestyle savings with cloth diapers

What I have found is that cloth diapers lead you to new/ cheaper/more energy efficient things

Like how I don’t just line dry my diaper laundry, I line dry all our laundry to save money and use less energy.

When I got into the world of reusable diapers it opened up a world of tons of other reusable things, like refillable applesauce pouches for kids, which last time I did the math saves about $0.80 per pouch!

You also learn about all the harmful chemicals that are in everyday life (air fresheners are terrible for you by the way).

Resources

Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning I receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) from qualifying purchases made through those links. * Indicates an affiliate link

Dryer balls at happybeehinds.com

Dryer balls at clothdiaper.com*

Drying racks at amazon.com

portable (travel) clotheslines at amazon.com

My favorite natural laundry detergent at dandelionnaturals.com

Charlie’s Soap at charliesoap.com

Farmhouse laundry soap at sweetgrassfarm.com

Grandma El’s rash cream at clothdiaper.com*

Diaper Genie signature refills at target.com

Refillable applesauce pouches

Article from WebMD that says to not use cornstarch on diaper rash webmd.com

article on zinc oxide at nationallibraryofmedicine.gov

Article on the benefits of coconut oil at medicalnewstoday.com

Article on cost of dryer usage at ctenergy.com

Cost per mile article at transportation.gov