Prayer Request

Two prayer requests for this week!  My mother-in-law is having her knee replaced today and one of my good friends is having ankle surgery tomorrow!

Prayers for steady hands of the surgeons and a speedy recovery for both!

Thanks!

The Economics of Our Cloth Diapering

We have been cloth diapering, at least on a part-time basis, since July of 2010.  Here's my attempt to document approximately how much money we have saved, or will potentially save.

July 2010:  My first order of cloth diapers and supplies was a grand total of $134.70.  Included in that order was a wetbag (somewhere to store dirty diapers) for $16.50, 6 diapers for $115.68 (~$19 a diaper), a sample of detergent for $1.25, and a free set of flushable liners (I had a coupon code for this).

Since July, we've spent the following amounts on our cloth diaper "habit":

• Diapers: $288 on 21 diaper combinations (Average diaper cost $13.71).  This includes a set of prefolds which we honestly don't use much because of our preference, but those are easily our most inexpensive diapers.  I have also gotten one or two diapers using a free diaper coupon code from Kelly's Closet.
• Detergent: $28 on 2 bags of special cloth diaper safe powder detergent.  We still have enough in our 2nd bag to last us a while!
• Liners: $52 on 6 rolls/packs of flushable liners.  I don't remember what brands we've ordered, I'm guessing they all had a minimum of 100 liners in each, and add (at the high end) approximately 8 cents to each diaper change.
• Accessories:  $61 on 3 additional wetbags and a Snappi closure for the prefolds.  We could probably get away with less wetbags, but we have a total of for simply for convenience and they can be used for lots of other things besides diapers.

I approximate that Jack has had an average of 6-8 diaper changes per day since July, or approximately 1080-1440 diaper changes.  He obviously has about half of the diaper changes than a younger baby would, but that's still a LOT of diaper changes.  Before cloth diapers, we were a Huggies family and he would've been fitting into a size 4 diaper.  The cheapest price I could find online was at Sam's Club and you would get 176 diapers for ~$40; this works out to slightly more than $0.22 a diaper [change].  To date, it would've approximately cost us $246 to $327 to diaper Jack.

Since we have spent ~$404 on the cloth diapers, we are about 2 months or less away from breaking even on the investment on the diapers... that's less than a year of cloth diapering.  Once we break even on the diapers, we'd really only be spending the $0.08 per diaper change along with the detergent cost

We have gone the more"expensive" route in cloth diapering by favoring all-in-ones & pocket diapers and using flushable liners, which will continue to be a recurring cost that we will have, along with detergent.  So far, we are okay with the additional cost of the liners.  I am looking into options like a diaper sprayer (~$45) that is a one time purchase for taking care of the poop on cloth diapers. 

I also did not include wipes in this "analysis" because we still use disposable wipes.  This is a wash financially because we would be are buying them.  I'm open to trying cloth wipes, but the idea is also very overwhelming to me (wet v. dry storage, wipes solutions, etc.) and I need to convince the husband to try them!

We have been very happy with our cloth diapering experience thus far!  If we are ever blessed with another baby, we will need to buy newborn diapers to fit a tinier baby.  But 3 out of 21 diapers we own currently are "one-size" so they should fit a small baby once they are at about 10-12 pounds.

What are we going to do with diapers Jack might outgrow or that don't fit him very well?  I am thinking about selling a diaper and extra inserts that we are never excited to use (the only diaper with which we've ever had a poop explosion ).  You can read about the different brands of cloth diapers we've tried.

I hope you've enjoyed my financial "analysis" of our cloth diapering experience.  You can find calculators out on the web but

$50 Gift Card to Amazon!

Angie over at Blessed Beyond Words is giving away a $50 gift card to her readers!  It is VERY easy to enter... you get one entry just for telling her what you'd buy if you win it (and you don't even have to stick to it if you win)!  There are lots of different ways to get more entries too, so you're not limited to just one shot at winning.

I really need to get a picture frame for Jack's 1 year pictures (I know, he's 19 months old)... and this would be just the motivation for me to do it.  I love the ArtToFrames brand frames & mats on Amazon because there is a lot of variety.  Here is the link to enter and it ends February 23rd.  She also has her weekly "Giveaway Linky" up today if you want to check out a one stop shop for other giveaways to enter!

Friday Fill-ins!

Its been a while since I've done Friday Fill-ins!

1. We are on this earth because of the wonderful gift of life God has given us.

2. I hope to never miss any experience with my son.

3. One of the hardest things for me to learn is that I can not do it alone.
4. At the end of a busy day it is sometimes hard to stay connected.

5. I remember the day Jack came into this world like it was yesterday.
6. My little family is one of the best parts of my life.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to washing diapers & clothes, tomorrow my plans include celebrating my mother-in-law's birthday and Sunday, I want to enjoy Mass with my boys and get some grocery shopping done!

Germany Day 3:Part 3

Thursday of our trip, we went to a very touristy place for dinner, the [original] Hofbrauhaus.  Here are some pictures from our night out at the beer hall!

German folk music being played near our table!  Of course the men were wearing the traditional lederhosen (the women were wearing their dirndls).

Matt enjoying his mas bier (1 liter of beer).

Me working on my mas bier and brezel (soft pretzel) after finishing dinner.  I seriously could have survived the entire trip on brezel!

Group shot!

The keg & all of the glasses.  Servers had to have a key in the entire time they were filling glasses and they essentially locked the taps out after filling what they needed.  I wouldn't be surprised if people had tried to get free refills before!

The shelf of glasses before our meal (plus some random dude).

The shelf of glasses towards the end of our meal... they had already started refilling it with clean ones.  We weren't there longer than 2 hours or so.

Next up: Skiing in the Alps!

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Germany, Day 3: Part 2

The afternoon after going to see some churches in Munich, Matt and I went to the Olympic park.  The 1972 Olympics were held there and perhaps more known for the tragedy of the hostage situation and murder of the Israeli Olympic team.  The day we visited was very rainy and cold, they were also setting up for another event so the pictures probably aren't the best.

The Olympic tower.

Main event indoor stadium... from what we can tell they use it for concerts and other events these days.

The swim hall, we peeked in and it was HUGE!

A really cool view of some awnings over a main walk I believe between the main building and the stadium.

A view of the stadium, every building seemed to be partially in the ground.  Nothing looked that big as you were walking up to it, but it was because over half of the structure was underground!

A close-up of the HUGE awnings... I couldn't tell if they were made of glass or some type of plastic, but they were very cool up close!

The soccer arena.

They were setting up for the downhill speed ice-skating race sponsored by Red Bull.  It looked CRAZY!

Me and the hubby waiting for the U-bahn to head back into town to meet Patch for dinner!