Endurism Spotlight: The Menstrual Cup

Roughly €144 leaves a Dutch woman's account every year for tampons and pads. Over a menstruating life of about forty years that reaches more than €5.700. The spend repeats every month because the product is built to be thrown away.

The money

A menstrual cup ends the monthly refill. The Mooncup costs €28,95 and lasts for years, commonly five to ten. One purchase replaces what used to be a standing order.

Run the decade. Ten years of disposables at €144 a year comes to about €1.440. A single cup over the same decade costs €28,95. The gap is roughly €1.400 for one product in one drawer. Even at a thrifty €84 a year the disposables still reach €840.

The object

The Mooncup is a single piece of medical-grade silicone, made in Brighton since 2002. It holds around three times what a regular tampon absorbs. There are no seams to split and no coating to wear off. Emptying and rinsing it takes a moment at the sink. Once a cycle you sterilise it in a pot of boiling water.

The cup has no resale value, the way hygiene items never do. The value is cost-avoidance. It shows up as spending that stops happening.

Ownership

Disposables are priced like a subscription nobody signed. The cost hides in supermarket runs of a few euros at a time. It never feels like the €5.700 it becomes. The cup makes that number visible. You pay once, early. The line item disappears.

The running cost on the durable side is honest and small. Water to rinse, a few minutes of boiling each cycle and one replacement cup within the decade. Add all of it and the cup still costs a fraction of a single year of the throwaway habit.

Own better. Pay €28,95 once and delete a €1.400 line item.