Cost Comparison: Cloth Diapering vs. Paper Diapering

Right after I blogged about our 2.5 years of cloth diapering, we went away to teen camp with our church kids for a week. With two girls in diapers, we decided to go the easy route and buy paper diapers for the week instead of worrying about taking the diapers to the laundry mat every day (no-brainer).

After we spent the money on two boxes of (Pampers) diapers, I had to run the numbers. I figured out how many diapers we actually used in the week and then assumed that I would have needed that many diapers every week for 2.5 years. This is two babies in paper diapers until they are 2.5 years old. I included no other numbers in this calculation. $2,600.00 

Then I did the math on how much money we have spent on cloth diapers to have both babies in cloth diapers for 2.5 years. I included the cost of the extra bamboo inserts, the wet bag, the diaper pail, the diaper sprayer, the drying rack, and the diapers themselves (I did not include laundry detergent or water). $567.00

The more children you have, the higher the paper diaper cost gets (because you have to buy more diapers). The cloth diaper shouldn't change, even if we have more children, because they're reusable. 

Obviously, there are variables here. Say you don't buy pampers. Say you clip coupons like it's your job. BUT, cloth diapers go on deep discount on Black Friday and are cheaper when purchased in packs (I calculated as though you bought each one individually at full-price), and I bought a $70 diaper pail in this scenario, so $567 is by no means the floor on cloth diaper costs.

All that to say, "Whoah." 

There's a clear winner here for me, and I love a good comparison.