The diaper queen saves hundreds of dollars!

I haven't quite decided if I am a fan of this title, but I am giving it to myself anyway.  I am the diaper queen!  Why?  Well, you might remember my recent post entitled Excellent customer service from Bum Genius Cloth Diapers.  In it, I described some of the savings from buying our favorite cloth diapers second-hand and doing the repair work ourselves.  Let me elaborate...

I found a mom online who was willing to sell her stash of 25 pocket diapers for $20.  The only catch was that the velcro needed to be replaced.  I discovered the wonderful people at Cotton Babies (who manufacture Bum Genius diapers) were willing to send me replacement velcro and elastic for each diaper for free!  Free!  FREE!  I detached the old velcro and my wonderful mom did all the sewing.

I found another mom looking to unload her stash of 10 Bum Genius pocket diapers.  Because her diapers were in much better shape, we agreed on $30 for the set of 10.  Cool.  No detaching or sewing!

Then, as if all of the above is not good enough, yet another mom had a stash for me (and she replied to my ad on Craigslist, so there was basically no work on my part in finding her)!  She has a good number of diapers that she will pass on to me for free!  She said they are just taking up space, and she wants to get rid of them and give them to me for free.  (Did I say they are free?!)

Of course, I already had my own little stash of about 10 diapers.  I paid full price for about half of these; the other half were purchased new on sale both online and at The Nesting House.

Let me do the math, just for fun!

I spent a total of $50 for about 45 used diapers and about $130 for my own little stash of 10 diapers.  That's $180 for a total of 55 diapers, which will serve us well when little number two gets here!  But this is my favorite part of the math!  If I had purchased all 55 diapers brand new at retail price ($17.95 each), I would have spent $987.25!

That's a savings of $807.25!  If a penny saved is a penny earned, I think I did pretty well with over $800.

So, yes, I realize I am bragging a bit, but that is not the only purpose of this post.  I am also hoping that this inspires others to shop around and look for bargains.  Craigslist and local parent listservs are great resources for baby bargains.  Not only can you save money buying second-hand baby items, but doing so decreases trash in landfills.  Saving money and the environment is definitely the way to go!  It wasn't that difficult for me, and I'm impatient - when I want something, I want it now.  A little bit of patience and money will truly pay off!