Flats and Handwashing Challenge Day 2: The Stash

The Washer

In the spirit of the challenge, I tried not to buy much, but ended up “splurging” a little bit.

First of all, I wanted to make the camp washer.  My husband already had the drill bit that he needed, so I just had to buy the plunger, bucket, and lid.  

Camp Washer:

Plunger: $2.98 (Wal-Mart)

5 Gallon Bucket: $2.97 (Home Depot)

Lid: $1.68 (Home Depot)

Total: $7.63

The Stash

The Diapers:

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m a host site for Share the Love, a cloth diaper donation bank.  Our recipients receive the equivalent of 15 diapers changes. One cover and three inserts is equivalent to 3 changes. That means, if I were handing out flats, my recipient would receive 15 flats and 5 covers for each child in diapers.  I wanted to try to stick to this fairly closely, keeping in mind how a recipient might be able to supplement if they needed to.  

I already had 6 Osocozy flats, 1 Hemp Babies flat (I think I paid $8 for it), and 7 cotton flannel receiving blankets (four were baby shower gifts and three were picked up for a quarter each at a yard sale when I was pregnant).  I made one more flat out of some flannel that I had leftover from a sewing project.  For the challenge, I bought one 5-pack of flour sack towels for $4.88 and splurged on two “pretty” flour sack towels at Wal-Mart for $2.78 each. That brings my total “stash” to 22 diapers for my two kiddos. My daughter will be using four of the receiving blankets for naps and nighttime use.    

As for the covers, I previously picked up three Thirsties covers for $10 at a consignment sale, and one Econobum cover came in a mystery pack with my OsoCozy flats for a total of $18.95.  And to round it out for my son, I have two Flip covers that I bought used for $9 each.  I also have a Blueberry cover that I bought for $0.25 at a cloth diaper swap and two WAHM covers that were $12 total. I’ll be using those for my daughter, since she is only in diapers for naps and nighttime.  Finally, for nighttime, I’ll be using two wool covers for my son the heavy wetter. I bought them when my daughter was a newborn.  I think I paid about $29 each for them, making them the most expensive part of this venture.

Changing Station at the Ready

Total Diaper Cost for Two Kiddos: $136.39 ($78.39 without the price of the wool covers). It sounds like a lot, but it's been purchased over two and a half years. That means the cost comes to $4.50/month.

(The only things I purchased specifically for the challenge were the flour sack cloths and the materials for the camp washer.  I purchased the flour sack cloths so I could share my experiences with them).