Joining Costco for diapers
A Costco membership costs $50 but you get that back in a year even if you only buy diapers, my sister tells me. She has three boys so she's probably right, but I thought I would crunch the numbers to make sure.
At Costco Kirkland diapers for infants up to 15 lbs are $30 for 234. The price goes up to $36 for a slightly smaller pack of bigger diapers.
At Target, a pack of 36 Pampers infant diapers is $10. Buying 234 diapers, the amount in the Costco pack, would cost you $65. So you save for $35 every pack of 234 Costco diapers you buy.
If your baby has an amazing bladder and only uses 2 packs totaling 468 diapers a year, about 1.2 a day, you save $70 over buying them at Target. After the $50 Costco membership you still come out $20 ahead.
My guess is that an average baby uses more like 4.5 diapers a day, which means they need 1,460 a year. That adds up to seven packs of 234 Costco diapers at a savings of $20 for the first two packs and $35 for each additional pack. That equals $195 in yearly savings. Sis, you were right!
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Daily News staff writer Julia Scott loves to find bargains on everything from groceries to Gucci. Her tips will help keep your hard earned cash where it belongs - in your pocket.
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In my experience, diaper brands matter a lot. Huggies seemed a lot better than anything else (at least until they could mostly go in the toilet).
It would be more fair to compare Costco's brand price to other stores (not the Kirkland brand).
Kirkland diapers are not as good as Pampers. They leak. I pay more for Pampers.
Plus driving to Costco, standing in huge lines to check out wastes alot of time & money.
I went through the same thing, and I found it about as cheap and way more convenient to buy the "house brand" of Wal-Mart diapers. They were as cheap as those at Costco, but the packs were smaller, and I didn't have to join Costco or wait in line.
By the way, NO baby uses only 468 diapers a year. Even 4.5 a day is too few. I'd say eight a day ... maybe more.
I make a habit of avoiding Costco (although I'll probably use my mother-in-law's membership to buy a TV at some point soon), but if Costco is convenient, have at it. They have a great deal on baby wipes, too.
Guess no one uses washable cloth diapers anymore... They were great & when the kid finally got out of them, they made good dusting / car waxing cloths. I would think that it would be more of a "conserve the planet" & recycling thing.
well, or you could just go cloth, as johnd38 said, much better for the environment and much less plastic, or not use diapers and go the EC (elimination communication) way, for a diaper free baby!
We went through this whole exercise when we had kids. You can pay less for certain types of diapers. But we were ending up going through way more diapers and washing way more laundry because the diapers were, um, crappy quality.
I think the most important thing is that they fit the shape of your kid properly. I had long skinny kids and I liked Huggies Supreme best for them. I signed up for the Huggies club or whatever on their Web site and got tons of coupons in the mail. Then I "doubled" them at Ralphs and got the diapers I wanted for not much more than Costco's, and I didn't go through twice as many and I didn't have to drive across town and fight the crowds to get them.
I'm a big fan of signing up for specific product coupons online, Gerber, Huggies... whatever you use.
Now there's no Costco where I am, but I did just try out the white cloud diapers from Walmart. They are definitely not as soft as Pampers or Huggies, but surprisingly they are the one diaper I have gotten that poop has not squirted out the back of. Once he gets a little older and starts to crawl, I'm sure I will probably go back to Pampers swaddlers, but for now these seem to do just fine.
As for the whole cloth diaper/ disposable diaper argument- I wish there was a happy medium. While you can be proud of the diapers not in the local dump, you end up doing an extra load of laundry a day which wastes water and electricity. I say someone needs to invent a plastic-ish diaper with biodegradable inserts- just remove the inserts rinse the diaper and viola! Hm mm who can I talk to about patents? lol
Shasta--
See "G-diapers" for biodegrad. inserts in a plastic diaper cover. They sell them online and at Whole Foods