Almost one in two working families in Australia live dangerously close to the financial brink and up to 90% feel uncomfortable with their financial position, according to a recent survey by RaboDirect.

Sobering thoughts when you add in the cost of raising a baby to its first birthday. International baby resource, Babycentre, has calculated that bringing up baby for the first 12 months can cost parents up to $16,000!

One of the biggest expenses parents face with their new baby is nappies, with a cost of up to $6000 per child in disposable nappies!

Most new parents don’t give much thought to the cost of nappies before their baby arrives, but once they take their precious little bundle home from the hospital, the weekly expenditure on nappies really starts to bite, especially when the parents may have just dropped from two salaries to one.

Founder of Cushie Tushies and Telstra Business Awards finalist, Catherine Langman, says that more and more parents are turning to modern cloth nappies as a way to save money. Not only can they save you $3000 to $5000, but will also save up to one tonne of rubbish being generated. And that’s per child compared to disposables!

Financial Counselling Australia suggests people should try to treat savings as if it were a regular bill.

Parents-to-be can take this advice one step further and layby their modern cloth nappies whilst still pregnant – that way, once baby arrives and your household income drops, you already have all your nappies for birth to toilet training and your household budget won’t be under as much pressure.

With over 300,000 babies born in Australia every year, there’s a lot of families who could benefit, potentially saving a combined $900million!

For further information about modern cloth nappies or details of the potential savings parents can make using them, please contact Catherine Langman at cath@cushietushies.com.au or visit their website www.cushietushies.com.au