{Co-Op}

So we're going full throttle with this cloth diaper business.  If you know me well, you know that's how I roll.  When I set my mind to something, I have to see it through.  I joined a Mommy co-op tonight.  Basically, they place large orders with companies in an effort to get products at cost.  Tonight's order was for cloth diapers.  You can imagine my excitement :).  My friend Angela has been talking me through all this.  I feel like I need to be paying her.  She has 3 month old twins at home and a deployed husband and yet she still finds the time to walk me through all this.  She's amazing!  Holding those itty bitty babies is making my baby fever even worse.  They're precious!  How were Coach and Fancy ever that small?

This diaper company is VERY budget friendly.  Their diapers range anywhere from $6 to $10 per diaper.  Tonight, with this co-op, I got them for $4.80/diaper.  With the highest quality insert that they offer.  Insane.  I'm trying to stay on the cheaper end of the cloth diaper world to maximize our transition (from disposables to cloth) savings.  Some of the more popular brands can be as much as $25+/diaper.  Whoa!  I'm sure they're amazing, but who can afford that? 

They say with twins you generally need 5-6 dozen cloth diapers.  That's 60-72 diapers.  With the average cost of cloth being somewhere between $15 and $20, you're looking at paying close to $1500 for a "stash".  We got started late, but we hope to use this stash for our next baby, also.  I'm not shooting for 72 diapers.  I'm hoping to land comfortably around 45-50.  I ordered 8 today from a local baby boutique and I have 10 coming from the co-op.  Once the co-op order is placed and paypal goes through we'll have paid $125.5 for 18 diapers.  That's an average of about $7/diaper.  About half of what the average diaper cost is.  I'm hoping to keep the grand total (when its all said and done) to under $350.  I think I can do it. 

Toddlers can go a little longer between changes and I'm anticipating having to test out several inserts/soakers before we find the perfect fit.  I'm hoping we can start getting used to life in cloth when these two orders arrive.  One is coming from China, so it will be an agnoizing wait!  Hopefully the time passes quickly.  We've had a good run in disposables, but there are so many aspects of cloth that I'm looking forward to.  Sure, more laundry, trial and error and its costly up front, but there are pros too. 

Over all savings (even with our late start) are significant, we can use them for our next baby, they won't have chemicals against their skin and they're adorable.  Now, I'm not sure, but I think even the daddy is excited to get them.  It was a little bit of a battle to get him to come around to the idea, but now that he's researching on his own, he's looking forward to getting started. 

The next co-op is Melissa & Doug toys.  I've heard talk about getting as much as 50% off of the asking price.  Whoa!  They haven't started this one yet, but its in the works.  I'm excited.