Burkenomics: Cloth Wipes

So I made the switch to cloth diapers and thought I was done saving money in the diapers department. Then I heard about cloth wipes. All I could think of was how disgusting that sounded. I thought that I could deal with cloth diapering, but these people who were using cloth wipes were taking it a bit too far. I mean, that's what you use to scrape up the cracks to get the ish. And people reused that?! Gross.

But then...being a Burke...I broke out the calculator. I'm not going to bore you with the math this time, I'll just summarize. I calculated that I would save between $450-$650 with four kids. I compared the Huggies Natural Care baby wipes (my favorite disposables) from Costco with the $5 coupon to making wipes with expensive organic baby soap. Plus I'm sure I'll be using baby wipes after I'm done wiping butts. Little kids are mess machines, and I want 4 of them. So I bet I could tack on some more savings if I keep making wipes instead of buying them until the youngest is 5 or so.

Doesn't sound like a lot to pay for the convenience? For some perspective at what I was about to throw in the trash can, I could save enough money to buy each baby a silver spoon from Tiffany's. If I save a little more than I calculated, I could throw in a diamond necklace for myself too (if only my husband would let me buy stuff from Tiffany's with all the money I saved doing cloth diapers and wipes...a girl can only hope...).

So for 1/3 the price of Huggie's Natural Care from Costco, I get organic wipes, plus that's less waste that I'm putting into landfills. And it's not hard to make them and it just takes a minute. It takes me less time to make wipes than it does to fight my way past all those stupid people loitering in the middle of the aisles with their huge Costco carts and get the box of disposables.

If you want to give them a try, I promise they are not as disgusting as they sound. To be honest, it did take me a week or two to really get used to it, but now I don't think I'll ever go back to disposables.

I know for 99.99% of people, a cost savings that small, especially spread out over that many years, is not worth it. At all. And I totally get that. I'm just the kind of person who if you give me $1000 and say, "You can either have baby wipes, or you have baby wipes AND baby heirloom gifts from Tiffany's," I'm going to put in a little bit of work to squeeze the most out of my money.

If you're interested, it's pretty easy to get started. It more mainstream than I thought. You can purchase cloth wipes from cloth diapering stores and websites, Ebay, and I even found them at Target.com and Toysrus.com. You would probably want to purchase 2 dozen. A basic recipe for cloth wipe solution is 1 cup water, 1 tsp. baby oil, and 1 tsp. baby wash.