Parenting Costs and Diapers

Check out this great post:

Vancouver Dad - Fatherhood in Vancouver, British Columbia

It inspired me to do some number crunching of my own. We try to use cloth diapers as much as possible and so I came up with this crude analysis of the costs. I used my memory of the costs that we shelled out about seven and a half months ago, so the numbers may not be precise, but they are in the ballpark.

I figured that we go through about (on average) 7 diapers a day. We bought equipment for 36 diapers. The numbers extrapolate the cost over 12 months. After 5.5 months or so the initial costs of cloth diapers are recouped as the average cost per diaper decreases over time, though the cost per disposable diaper is constant.

I think that the only variable I haven't accounted for is the power used by the washing and drying of the diapers. (If you were wondering the vinegar is used in the diaper pails... you know... odour).

Of course, one of the best reasons for going cloth is the environment. If you know how I can integrate the cost of the landfill and the pollution from the disposables into this let me know. Until then, shall we say the cost to the environment is incalculable?

Here's the information:

• The data used to build the graphs
• The average cost of diapers over 12 months
• The cumulative cost of diapers over 12 months

Please let me know what I've missed or if there are better prices that I could have used. The information is easily updated. If there is interest I will post the excel sheet.

Technorati Tags: environment, parenting, parenting costs, diaper costs

powered by performancing firefox