As a guy, I have no idea how much the upkeep of a vagina is. I know you need to buy tampons and pads and stuff I’ve heard there’s other stuff involved as well. How much, per month do you spend on period related stuff and what do you spend it on?
I’m pre-emotively curious if there are any women of childbearing age who spend zero dollars a month on their menstral stuff. Second hand diva cups from the goodwill…? 
…too rich for my blood.
Well, how do you quantify something like a cup, anyway? It’s a $40 cost or whatever, but it’s a one-time cost and it’s good for several years. So does that count as $40 one month and $0 the next, or do you amortize it out to cost $1 a month or whatever?
Yeah, no kidding. I bought my DivaCup I think 3 years back, but now that I have a Mirena IUD in place, it had the fucking awesome side effect of shutting off my period for the last nearly two years. So I picked $0-5.
I use the Pill, my co-pay is $10 a month, and since I’m on it I have very light periods for which I need only pads, so another $5 tops for the really good ones. If I wasn’t on it, I would likely need up to $15 worth of tampons and pads each month, too.
“Other stuff”? For a menstrual period? 
I’ve been riding the rag on a monthly basis for (counts on fingers and toes twice) nearly 40 years now and I’m not sure what this “other stuff” might be. Tampons and pads seem to do the trick.
Well, OK, but I have asprin/tylenol/paracetamol/ibuprofen type stuff and heating pads for other reasons, I don’t purchase them specifically for that, and don’t even use those “extras” on a regular basis.
I actually had to go check the price tags on my pads… less than $5 on average. And that’s about it, really.
Now that I’m entering perimenopause the monthly event is getting lighter/shorter, and I anticipate it getting irregular at some point, driving the average cost down further.
I’ve bought boxes and bags of pads and/or tampons for less than $5, and they last at least a couple of months, so that’s less than $5 per month.
DivaCup 12 months ago, still good as new, so that’s amortized to $2.50/month and declining. I had my last one (a Keeper) for 5 years until I lost it and it wasn’t anywhere near needing replacing (and of course I found it after I bought a new one).
I do buy one bag of pads a year or so, for heavy days/white pants/road trips to wear in addition to the DivaCup when I don’t want to worry about potential leakage, and also to stick under the sink in case a female friend is over and needs an emergency pad. So that’s another $7 a year or so.
I’m guessing by “other stuff” the OP might mean douches, rinses, deodorants and the like, but I don’t use any of those.
Periods aren’t particularly expensive, unless you’re in prison.
?? What is this prison expense of which you speak ??
Zero dollars for several years now. I don’t have periods. They come back when I take hormonal birth control, but I don’t want them anyway (and am never planning to have children). And since I’m not having sex, and HBC fucks up my mood anyway, I’m avoiding it.
I think of amenorrhea as the one beneficial side-effect of PCOS.
Zero for me, baby! Zero! ZERO! I had my uterus, ovaries, and tubes removed over a decade ago, and I don’t miss them even a little tiny bit. ::happy dance:: No periods! No pain! No pads or tampons. No stained undies. NONE of that shit.
I’ll be 55 next month, by the way. I occasionally get a yeast infection, especially if I take antibiotics, but otherwise I don’t need anything specific for girly bit care.
Back when I owned and operated a uterus, I always had to make sure that I had an open pack of pads and tampons, and a backup pack as well. I used to have to use a tampon AND a pad on most days. I don’t miss those days.
I count the cost of replacing the household ibuprofen gel caps in the monthly period cost; otherwise I’d be in the $5-10 and not the $10-$15 range.
I’m told (by a couple of my patients who used to be in the system) that They don’t provide menstrual supplies (or when they do, it’s not enough in one month) to women in the pokey. There’s apparently a huge black market for tampons, and tampons can be more expensive, in prison dollars and favors, than cigarettes.
I know, right? Who would have thought? Yahoo Health: Advice and Reviews on Nutrition, Fitness, Sleep, Aging, Well Being and More
IUDs, baby. Mirena specifically. Covered by my insurance and completely stops my cycle. I’m having a new one installed this winter and then I won’t have to think about it again for another 5 years.
Due to the wonders of TV ads, he probably is thinking along the lines of douche and/or that deodorant spray, you know the stuff we’re supposed to be brainwashed into thinking we need.
Ummm, what’s a Divacup? Never mind. I just Googled the atrocity. Blech!
So don’t use it.
I’m on the high end of the scale because I prefer those Always infinity pads that are super thin, and they cost more than the regular ones. I had a Divacup for a while but stopped using it for reasons I would prefer not to talk about in a public forum where people are already bitching about how gross this topic is even though you’d figure they’d know better than to read further than the title if they think it’s so gross.
Pre-menopause I spent about $25 a month on pads, a pack or two of cotton panties (I never wore the expensive stuff when I had my period) that I would toss if there was a leak because I would die before wearing less than perfect panties, and a few tropical island scent douches to take away that icky omg I can feel a giant blood clot up there feeling.
Post-menopause, other than the occasional Summer’s Eve two-pack, my cost is zero.
Those are the foam-like ones, right? Sort of like really thin shoe insoles? A man person got them for me once by mistake; they didn’t absorb a thing. Glad you like 'em, but I wonder what’s different about our flow…mine just literally slipped right off the pad like it was waxed!