Did you know that disposable diapers take an estimated 250-500 years to decompose in a landfill?? Kind of interesting to think that your used disposables out live you in some landfill somewhere. hmmm...
Some things have changed in our household in the recent couple of months. Yes, the arrival of our cute little boy is one of them! But other than that we have officially transitioned into cloth diaper users! Of course one reason being for the environmentally friendly cause but the money saving cause was the winner that won us over. Or should I say me. Johnny is not too happy...but he'll get over it once he sees how much it actually does save us.
Johnny and I are doing Financial Peace University at our church and have learned some great financial lessons and are trekkin along the baby steps needed to become a family free of financial bonds. Cloth Diapers are not one of the baby steps mind you but one of the things we have done to help accomplish the very first baby step.
This looks different for everyone but for us we have had to shed and get rid of some things and habits around here. Maybe I'll post our progress on the blog later. But for now we are excited about our cloth diapers! No more last minute trips to the store cause we ran out of diapers! Check it out, I even installed a clothesline in our backyard. I learned online that they last alot longer drying that way and the sun bleaches any stains that the washer might not have gotten. The natural power of God's Creation! Amazing!
So we officially have a clotheline in our backyard! I make Johnny feel better by adding that it's a retractable one! So easy to hide when we are back there. So in addition to our clothesline, we have also cut our TV cable. This one was the toughest for my dear husband. But through some intervention and hand holding he(we)managed to pull the plug. Johnny likes to poke fun at me by saying, "What's next? You wanna get rid of the cars and just get some horses?" He probably shouldn't give me any more ideas:) Well, we are taking it slowly, I am gonna give him some time before I start making an organic garden in the backyard. We'll see what he has to say about that! In the mean time we will be getting used to cloth diapers, and enjoying some local television with the bunny ear antennas! On the road to a simpler life! (Or maybe going back to the 1960's.) Who knows.
Check out that awesome, user friendly cloth diaper and my handy dandy retractable clothesline!
Cloth diapers...you are brave! Ha! Actually, this is something that I've ALMOST considered. I could probably (maybe) be convinced to make the switch myself if I knew the $$ saving data. I'll have to get the scoop from you next time I see you and get your opinion/advice since you've got some experience under your belt.
ReplyDeleteWe cut our cable right at a year ago and I don't really miss it too much. Rick misses some of the sports, but other than that we survive on network tv, hulu, and netflix.
Looking forward to hearing about your other cost-cutting strategies! I know I'm always looking for ways to save $$ as well.
Hey Kelsey! Well, it's been going great so far! As far as how much you actually save I have read that on average disposables run about $1,600/year. Multiply that by how many years you will be diapering and well to me it was well worth making the switch. Just in the first two years of life a baby will use on average of about 6,000 diapers! Wowza! We were lucky as instead of registering for our baby showers we asked for cloth diapers instead. So we haven't actually purchased any ourselves but do see adding a few more to our stash in the near future. We have 11 right now, and are only washing them every other day and a half. Not too bad.
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