How I Survive (financially) With Two Kids In Diapers

I have two little kids.  My Toddler is 2 1/2 and very slowly potty training.  My Noob is almost 10 months old and ... not potty training.  Diapers are expensive.

When the Toddler was in-utero, I wanted to try cloth diapering.  I also wanted to teach her sign language and breastfeed.  I knew that I would have to return to work after my maternity leave, so I sort of picked my priorities and took into consideration the comfort levels of my babysitter and husband, and cloth diapering fell by the wayside.  Then my sister decided to cloth diaper her son, born in the winter of 2009, and I was able to live vicariously through her and let her figure out a system for me.  She chose to use prefolds and covers.

Prefolds and covers are probably the most economical way to go about cloth diapering.  I use prefolds from Green Mountain Diaper Company, mostly because they're what my sister used and because they're what was recommended to me.  I'm sure that there are less expensive options that are just as great.  I have a friend that uses Little Lions diapers and loves them.  They're a little bit less expensive, and she says that the quality is just as good.

When my Noob was a very small baby, my sister sent me a dozen GMD Orange Edge prefolds, a dozen GMD Yellow Edge Prefolds, and a GMD "Workhorse" Fitted.  She also sent a couple of small Bummi covers.  I purchased a couple Thirsties covers, and 3 Snappi fasteners and I was set to begin my adventure.  I CD on nights and weekends, and a dozen diapers easily gets me 2+ (weekend) days between washes.

The Orange Edged diapers are sized for newborns.  They fit from about 5-10 lbs.  I think I used my orange edged pfs until the Noob was closer to 13 lbs, so it's all kind of relative.

The Yellow Edged diapers are sized for babies from 10-15 lbs, according to GMD's website.  The Noob is 16.5 or so and still has plenty of room to fasten hers. 

The "Workhorse" fitted diaper is probably my very favorite diaper, but I didn't buy any more because I kept thinking that the Noob was going to outgrow this size any time now.  I'm buying a few in the next size, though.  They're more trim and easier to get onto a wiggly baby because there is absolutely no folding involved.  Just position and fasten. 

Red Edged diapers are sized for babies from 15-29 lbs.  My toddler is tipping the scales at 26 lbs, so I'm figuring this will be the last set that I will buy.

I've been using the same small diaper covers this whole time.  Even if I had needed to purchase all of the diapers that we use, I would have spent $28 for the orange edged pfs, $33 for the yellow edged pfs, $9-$12 for each of the covers, and $8 for 3 Snappi fasteners.
Initial Investment: $117. 
Next, I'll buy red edged pfs, and those will probably get me through potty training, if the Noob follows her older sister's growth curve.  My list to purchase now is $36 for the red edged pfs, $7.40x4 for the red workhorse fitteds, $9.75 for a new set of Snappis (they do wear out), and $11.50x3 for some size Medium Thirsties covers.
Secondary Investment:  $110-ish.
You could buy a wetbag, but I just use a plastic grocery bag looped over a doorknob.  Since I do laundry every other day-ish, I haven't run into stink issues yet.

Best of all, since all of my prefolds are 100% cotton, I don't have a complicated laundry routine, like you'll have to come up with if you do microfiber or other types of diapers.  I dump "solids" into the toilet, then, on laundry day, I run one rinse (with extra rinse) cycle, then one hot wash with Charlie's Soap, extra rinse, and then dry on medium.  Easy Peasy.

Since the toddler is in disposable diapers when she's not feeling the potty training mojo and the Noob is in disposeable diapers at daycare, I just search out the best possible deals.  Right now, I'm signed up for Amazon Mom (which gets me free 2-day shipping) and Subscribe and Save (which gives me an additional discount for scheduling automatic deliveries) and a few weeks ago, I got a 228 count case of Size 2 Luvs diapers and a 204 count case of Size 3 Luvs diapers for $49.06 TOTAL delivered to my door.