Do Modern Cloth Nappies really save you money?

Like many, when we started our Modern Cloth Nappy (MCN) journey, a huge incentive to use them was the saving everyone promised we would make. We were a bit apprehensive because we didn’t know much about these nappies being our first baby, the savings seemed too good to be true and businesses always seem to only show you a best-case scenario, right? Wrong! If you are having thoughts like we first did, please read below!

Modern Cloth Nappies can literally save you $100’s & 1000’s of dollars. To show you how, we have incorporated our own personal costings with a well-known brand below.

So how much do disposable nappies really cost?

For the purpose of this scenario we will use a popular and well used disposable brand – Huggies. The price can obviously fluctuate depending on the brand, specials and pack sizes purchased so we welcome you to adapt our findings to suit. There is nothing more satisfying then working out how much money you can or will be saving!

According to Choice Magazine

– During the first 6 months of life a new born will require around 8-12 nappy changes a day. We will use 10 as an average

6 months x 30 days x 10 changes = 1800 nappies

– As they start to take on solids their nappies reduce to 5-7 changes per day. We will use 6 as an average.

6 months x 30 days x 6 changes = 1080 nappies

– The following year/s may see another drop due to reduced night wake ups to 4-5 changes per day. The average child will toilet train between 2-3 years. We will use 4 changes per day and average it that a child toilet trains at 2.5 years.

18 months x 30 days x 4 changes = 2160 nappies

NAPPY	PACK SIZE	TIME USED	PACK COST	PRICE PER NAPPY	TOTAL NAPPIES AND COST
Nappies Infant 4-8kg	96pk	6months	$30	$0.31c	$558
Huggies Crawler 8-11kg	81pk	6months	$27	$0.33c	$356
Huggies Toddler 10-15kg	72pk	9months	$30	$0.42	$454
Huggies Walker 13-18kg	64pk	9months	$30	$0.47	$508

Now not only is that over 5000 Nappies into landfill. That is a total of $1876 spent on nappies per child!

---

So what is the cost of Reusable Modern Cloth Nappies?

We made this business with the intention of being brutally honest, and being transparent off all costs associated with MCNs is part of this. There are other costs associated with using reusable nappies such as washing bills and washing liquid required. Yet you are still saving money, let us show you how.

• A ‘’full time Pack’’ of Reusbale MCN’s will cost you $406 through Tiny Tooshes. As these nappies are adjustable, they will fit your child from 3-15kg which is generally new born to toilet training.
• We personally do a pre wash every night, and a main wash twice a week as per the Clean Cloth Nappies We use a 6.5kg LG toploader which according to Energywise would cost us $151.39 per year in energy. Energywise work of 26c per KWH which is slightly higher than the 23.661c per KWH we are currently charged however this could vary depending on where you live and the energy company used. That gives us a total of $378.5 for 2.5 years of nappy cleaning. Remembering babies clothes that would already need to be washed can be added to the main washes and if you have 2 or more children in nappies at the same time, this cost would be shared.
• Again based on the recommendation of Clean Cloth Nappies Detergent Index we changed our washing powder over to OMO Ultimate. A 5kg box of powder sells for $30 (when not on sale). You will get 83 scoops from a box (60g each scoop– yes I did weigh this). We use one scoop per pre wash and 1.5 scoops per main wash. So we would use 10 scoops per week (7 pre washes and 2 main washes). This means the box of washing powder would last us for 10 weeks. 130 weeks (2.5 years) of nappy washing would cost us $390.
• Lastly the water bill. This again can vary largely on where you live and some may be lucky enough to have tank water and not be charged. For us, our 6.5kg LG top loader uses 95L per wash. Based on 9 washes per week, that equates to 855L per week, 3420L per months and 20,520L per 6 months (billing period). That is a total of 20.52 KL at a cost of 99/KL = $20.3 per 6 months and $101.6 for 2.5 years.

In summary for 2.5 years

$406 Full time Nappy Pack + $378.5 Washing Machine Power + $390 Washing Powder + $101.6 Water Bill. This is a total of = $1276.1

** BUT DO NOT FORGET – MCN’s can last 3 sometimes 4 children if well looked after. So, after the first child, you are not requiring to pay the cost of nappies again, just the bills (and only if they are not in MCN’s at the same time)!

Number of Children	Cost of Disposables	Cost of Cloth	Savings
1 child	$1876	$1276.1	599.90
2 children	$3752	$2146.2	$1605.80
3 children	$5628	$3016.3	$2611.7
4 children	$7504	$3886.4	$3617.6

As you can see its not the environmental impact but also the impact on your purse! See our full range of modern reusable nappies here