It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday….Okay. No. Now I see why Alex told me “Mommy, don’t sing” yesterday. #lame
I hope you all had a wonderful week! I’ve been busy, busy, busy getting ready for this weekend that is going to be crazy with a capital “C”. Christian is getting baptized on Sunday, so we will have 10 adults (two of which are pregnant — NOT ME!), 3 toddlers, 1 baby, and 4 dogs in our house. Whew! It’s going to be a blast! Alex and Christian are going to have both of their cousins here to play with. Must remember to take a million pictures! Oh! And we are celebrating my parent’s 30 year anniversary! 30 years, y’all! They stuck with it through some really major renovations and raising two not emotional at all girls and everything in between. Love you guys! Here’s to 30 more years of wedded bliss!
Aaaaanyways. Frugal Friday! It’s a thing. I wanted to share an easy way that we save a little cash-a-roo around here.
First, I talked a bit about it a while back, but we like our bums fluffy around here. And by that I mean, our kids wear cloth diapers. Or kid, because big boy is potty trained! High-five! Although, I feel like that high five should go to John and I for cleaning up so much yuck to achieve this potty trained status. But, who’s counting?
We love using cloth diapers because 1) it saves a heap of money, 2) it’s better for the environment, 3) babies are more adorable with big, fluffy bottoms, and 4) I can’t think of another reason right now. My all-time favorite diaper (from what I’ve tried) are the BumGenius Freetimes. They make cloth diapering so easy because it’s an all-in-one diaper so there is no stuffing, wrapping, using snappis/pins…etc. I do have a few other types that I throw into the mix, though. I have three Kawaii Baby Good Night Heavy Wetter diapers (<–That cow print is my FAVORITE) for Christian at night because, well, he’s a heavy wetter. These are awesome because they are super easy on the wallet at only $12 a pop and they get the job done. I also love my gDiapers that I bought from someone who barely used them. I have a bunch of mediums that were Christian’s main diapers when Alex was still using the Freetimes and I still use them quite a bit. It’s been about 6 months that he has fit in the mediums which is way longer than I thought they would last. The cloth inserts make great doublers as well! The last kind I have are Thirsties Duo All-in-One. I have four of those and they are what Alex wears for nap and bedtime. They work really well for him because they are really trim and he is so skinny. So those are the diapers I use! It seems like a lot up front, but in the long run (especially if you are having more than one kid) you save a bunch of money!
Also, I know the extra laundry seems daunting, but really, when you are already doing 25 loads a week, what is a few more?? It’s not as scary as it seems, I promise!
Another way that we save a little money is to use cloth wipes. I was doing this a while back, but found that my wipes were getting a little stinky sitting in water, so I quit using them and started buying the big boxes of disposable wipes from Costco. That is until I came across this post about making your own baby wipes solution. I realized I was leaving out an important part, the disinfectant, and that was making my water stinky. Who knew? Since it seemed like it would be such an easy fix, I decided to forgo buying more Costco wipes when my last pack ran out, and just make some cloth ones.
I had a bunch of receiving blankets (like these) sitting unused that Christian got when he was born (he has some of the Aden and Anais swaddle blankets that he snuggles instead) and we swaddled him in them for a bit, but he was an escape artist, so we set them aside in favor of a straight jacket swaddle blanket with velcro (<– Game. Changer.). I figured since they weren’t being used, I could just cut them up and make some wipes out of them! You can buy flannel wipes, too, if you aren’t into making them. But, you know me. I gotta make all the things, so off I went.
First, fold your blanket in half the hot dog way.
Then fold that into thirds the hamburger way. And cut that tag off while you are at it.
Now, cut all of the folds with your pinking shears.
This will give you 6 large “squares” of fabric that you will then fold into quarters and cut on the folds again. Now you have 24 wipes!
Repeat for as many blankets as you wish (or until you hand is cramping and tired). I used 3 blankets, giving me 72 wipes which I think is plenty!
Then, figure out how you are going to store them. You can keep them dry and use a spray bottle to keep your wipes solution in or store them wet in a wipes contatiner. I opted for just using a regular wipes container. I got super fancy and folded them into each other so they pulled out like normal wipes do. I can pretty much guarantee that I won’t be doing that every time, but it’s fun anyways!
Mix up your solution and pour over the wipes. I used Honest Shampoo & Body Wash, regular old baby oil, and tea tree oil (as my disinfectant). Oh, and water of course. EDITED: I would now suggest using an all natural oil such as liquid coconut oil, grapeseed oil or olive oil instead of baby oil and I only recommend using Young Living essential oils around your babies and family!
When you are already cloth diapering, using cloth wipes is so much easier because you don’t have to worry about having a trash can around to collect disposable wipes. You just toss them in your diaper pail with the dirty diapers and they get washed with everything else on diaper laundry day. Done and done.
I hope this helps you to save a little extra dough. We were spending $25/box on disposable wipes every couple of months. It’ll be nice not having that painful addition to our Costco bill now, even though it doesn’t seem like a ton of money, it adds up fast! I mean, $25 buys a lot of crafting supplies…Oh! The possibilities!
Happy Friday, guys! Have a great, fun, family & friend-filled weekend! I’ll be sure to post approximately 5 million pictures from our big family weekend!
If you have any questions about our diapering situation, let me know in the comments or shoot me an email! I love hearing from you guys =]
xo
Sam
