Way back in December 08 I outlined what I thought were the pros and cons of purchasing reusable nappies. What we’ve found since then is that they have been an effective way to save cash on the wee man’s toiletry needs, and have not been at all onerous.
The main thing is that we haven’t bought into any salespeak on what we need and don’t need to make then safe and hygienic. We did not, for example, use teatree oil to sterilise the inners (FYI, the nappy is made of three parts, a waterproof over, an ‘insert that’s the actual nappy bit, and a ‘liner’ that catches solids making for easy disposal down the toilet).
What we did do is apply common sense, for instance making sure we washed them very regularly, got them into the sunlight whenever possible, and were careful about things like using barrier creams that could ruin the inners. Also, we bought fixings for washing from Moore Wilsons in bulk – baking soda (a bleaching agent, about a tablespoon per wash), and vinegar (a steriliser, about 1/3 cup per wash). I think we can state that this was not detrimental, a claim borne out by not having any ‘incidents’ of ‘gastro’ while many friends using disposables did. Had our method been unhygienic you’d assume we’d have at least one.
So, the process. The main thing was that we’ve found that we can and should change the wee man whenever we wanted or needed to. Usually the loads in the machine are under the minimum fill level, so 5 nappies or 15, it makes no difference to the amount of warm (for days with no solids) or hot water we used. We also were sparing with the detergent, mostly because of our natural frugality. However, I’ve heard from people who will sometimes leave that nappy on “for just a little longer” to save having to pay for another, but none of that for us.
So, costs! The total amount spent on nappies, including disposables (we found the reusables didn’t work so well in the nights, usually resulted in bad rashes, and couldn’t really be used with barrier creams, so switched to Huggies), was Huggies $420, Real Nappies $440. This was between December 2008 and December 2009.
The total cost of all detergents, sterilisers, and bleaching agents was in 2008 (for the entire year) approximately $60. For 2009, $68. So an insignificant change there.
And power. This one was a little tricky. We had a great deal of trouble with our provider – Contact, a completely useless company- and switched to Meridian in early 2009. This meant that I was unable to work out the monthly costs accurately (it’s a long and boring story, ending with “Contact are completely useless”). However, the total cost for 2008 was $1020 – apartment living means very cheap electricity bills, while for 2009 we increased that a whopping $1340. But, the extremely cold winter last year might have contributed.
The short is that a 30% increase in power is not inconsequential.
All this was balanced against the savings from not using disposables. Ignoring the cost to landfills, and cost of manufacture the nappies, actually putting a nappy on a bottom cost you around $0.34 on average. Nappies tend to be a loss-leader in supermarkets, so they’ll range from $8-9 on sale, to the ‘usual’ price of $15. Assuming your wee tacker has a normal consumption rate you can expect to change between 8 and 10 times a day. If you’re changing less than this, you might need to wonder why your child is getting a rash… This gives an approximate weekly cost of $0.34 x 8 changes x 7 days = $18 per week, or approximately $970 a year.
Problematically this is only just more than the amount we spend on the nappies, the consumables, and power in that year… But the good news!! The wee man is 6 months along and still wearing the last size reusables!
The outcome is best summed up that the savings are not huge. Were we to have another the $430 outlay would be saved, but the electricity would still need to be consumed…
In the end the choice on this is probably a lifestyle one. If you’re happy to use reusables you’ll make a slight saving and have a less stinky baby (the difference is very, very noticeable), but if you aren’t you can go on filling landfills with poo for around the same cost.
Che Tibby
Stephen
Frugal Me 