The following excerpt is from our good friends at Charlie's Soap...Why rewrite it when they wrote it so well.

"Let’s face it; 2008 is a year we all want to see go into the history books, be stored away forever, and taken out only to tell stories to small children to get them to behave. Prices go up and down and the only things constant are the headaches. But it’s not like you can stop washing clothes. And even though the new cloth bag will cause our prices to change a little in January, Charlie’s Soap will still be easy on the pocket book.
How? It’s simple. Look at the price per large wash load. For instance, Seventh Generation lists the number of medium loads, but Charlie’s Soap lists the number of large loads. A bottle of Seventh Generation 2x Ultra Free & Clear may list 20 loads, but that is only 15 large loads. At $32.91 per 6-pack, that’s $0.37 a load…plus shipping! (source: amazon.com) Since Charlie’s Soap, Inc. is a small company with low overhead, and we don’t make you pay for expensive fillers that don’t actually work, you can do 128 large loads for 19 cents each. Seventh Generation is an expensive product, but Tide isn’t much better on the wallet. Our local Food Lion grocery chain sells the 32 load (really only 24 large loads) Tide 2x Free for just 7.99, but that’s $0.25 per large load! Where’s the savings? It’s certainly not in gas running back to the grocery store every other week.
Charlie’s Soap will let you go green while keeping your budget in the black, and in today’s economy, that is as important as ever."

Now I realize that does not cover every detergent out there, but I think its a fair mix.  please let me know if you have any questions, or would like to submit what you are paying on laundry soap  to be added to the research criteria.

This is something that has been mulling around in my brain for weeks. I wasn't sure how to get it out of my head, or actually prove it. I wanted to know what it costs to wash my diapers, as I never noticed an increase in the utility bill when I started cloth diapering 3 years ago (this time around). I didn't even notice an increase when I had 2 in diapers.

I asked a trusted professional what it costs in water use to run the washer and he came up with $0.01 in water use based on 20 gallons for his area. I also found a figure online of $0.11 based on 40 gallons. So I'm going to split the difference....$0.06 in water use per load. I found it to cost about $0.32 in electricity to heat the water for a warm/cold wash (this is what I do). I'm going to add in another $0.14 for the cold rinses before and at the end of the diapers (about equal to a full cold load), and another $0.06 for the extra water. So the total I am going to go with in water use and electricity for each load of diapers (consisting of pre-rinse, warm/cold wash/rinse cycle, and post rinse) is: $0.58.

I use Charlie's soap to wash all my laundry. I get it at wholesale prices since I am a retailer. But since I am also writing this as a guide for my customers, we will assume the retail price per load of $0.18

$0.76 per load washed.

Now to dry the load....hang it outside. Free! If its raining it will cost about $0.36.

Total $1.12 for about 24 diapers washed and dried. That's less then $0.05 per diaper.
Washing your diapers every other day for 1 year will cost $204.40 ($204.96 on leap year).

That's my very rough estimate according to my household.

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