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Comment by vjvjvjvjghv | Hacker News Reader

“ That's like $3 per day (a coffee).”

Or $1000 per year? That little coffee a day already pays for a vacation flight.

Yeah, or 365 coffees (well for me it's energy drinks). I'm well aware which one of those brings me more total joy in my life and it isn't the flight. It isn't even close.

Diapers and caffeine are not mutually exclusive.

Yeah, but you can hunt for discounts to reduce that bill quite a bit

I was just objecting to the typical phrase "it costs just as much as a coffee" making it sound like nothing worth thinking about. This stuff adds up to real money over time. I have explained to several people that their Starbucks habit costs more than their car insurance (and also may give them diabetes depending on the drink). It's even worse with Doordash or Uber.

Yeah it's an interesting argument. Also, coffees (especially Starbucks coffees) rarely cost $3 anymore. Maybe if you just get a regular brewed coffee but when I think of Starbucks I don't think of their coffees on tap, I think of their $7+ lattes or frapps that are less coffee and more dessert. Anyway, I digress.

Point being, a small expense once is one small expense. A small expense daily can easily become a huge expense.

That being said, I'm not gonna be prescriptive and say that no one should get their daily coffee. But they need to be aware what it costs them. If they know the cost and are ok with it then by all means, order away! I hope your friends are at least now making a conscious choice to spend $1000+ a year on coffee :)

Assuming cloth diapers cost an extra 10 minutes a day, the time savings of disposable diapers are "worth" 60 hours a year.

What do you value more - $1000 or 60 hours of your time?

I's estimating like 30 minutes per day.

It's not only the time to change them, also wash, dry, fold, store. Each part adds like 1 or 2 minutes for all the diapers, in particular folding can't be done in bulk. Probably wash the diapers with shit twice once to remove most of it manually (+ 1 or 2 minute) and one in the washing machine. The 10 minutes go away too fast.

An I remember my mother talking about boiling or blenching the diapers, add like 15 or 20 minutes 2 or 3 times per week (that's like 5 minutes per day). And I may be missing other hidden time sinks.

YMMV but we usually fold diapers while watching TV or during Zoom meetings or whatever. It does take time, but it's not like we'd magically get more sleep if we used disposable diapers, since we usually sleep at a predefined time and wake whenever the little one wakes us. Maybe we get a few more minutes to watch TV or whatever. Not a huge deal IMO. But again, YMMV. If it doesn't work for your lifestyle, it doesn't work! Nothing wrong with it. My comment is merely for folks to not knock if before they try it. We certainly wouldn't have if someone didn't gift us a pack.

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