In our case, we’re lucky enough and thrifty enough that we currently live below our means. When the baby arrives, we’ll need to cut expenses in other areas, but we will be able to afford day care. No matter how carefully we budget, we can’t afford to live on just one salary. I suspect that many, many people put their kids in unlicensed home care. This can be good–grandma is willing to keep the baby–or it can be bad–there are some sketchy home care places out there.
Full-time infant care seems to be around $800 a month. It’s also hard to find places that offer infant care. More places take them at two years and up. My understanding is that the caregiver:child ratios are higher for infants than older kids, so it’s hard for places to break even on infant care.
Anecdotally, coming from a Deep South town and seeing a relative go through this line of reasoning, it seems that “God makes no babies that aren’t in his plan; all babies are His gift” thinking is very pervasive. The whole family pitches in as an act of obedience with very little scolding or emphasis on personal responsibility. Even if birth control is accepted, and the couple in question is married, finances are not a valid reason to not to have kids. I’ve noticed a lot of fundamentalists have trouble with money planning; while they don’t get in debt, they don’t save much either nor do they ration in money for big decisions like children–it is almost a sign that you do not trust God.
I’m currently paying about $1000 a month for the baby, who is at an in-home daycare. His 4-year old sister is now in preschool full time, and that’s about $700 a month. It’s pretty tough on the ol’budget, that’s for sure.
We figure, though, that if I keep working and getting a raise from time to time, it will still be better for us financially in the long run. That, and with my husband traveling 4 days a week, it’s better for my sanity.
I now feel like there’s no way we can afford to have a kid, ever. There’s just not $10,000 per year extra in our finances for child care, and we need both of us to work. My husband has debt and I have a good pension we can’t let go of. We have no family locally who can do child care. I’m 36, so it’s not like we can wait a decade until our finances get better.
Don’t get discouraged, Rubystreak…do some research in your area. I live in a high-cost-of-living area, and I didn’t pick the least expensive option. You are a teacher, so is it possible that you won’t need daycare in the summer? That will save quite a bit.
Isn’t the least expensive option likely to be sketchy? I don’t want to just pitch my infant into the arms of the cheapest daycare option I can find.
As a teacher, it’s true that I work about 184/365 days per year, which is like 8.5 months/year with all the holidays and vacations. This will probably save us a good bit on the child care, you’re right. Still, the amount of money seems like a daunting figure. So, probably will postpone for a couple of years, even though my gynecologist says not to wait. I’m not even in a big hurry to do it except for my age.
There are very few people that find these things easy. If you really want a child, you have to do it and make things work. If you want more than one, you better start working on it tonight because your prime fertility window is starting to close. Women that have children past age 40 often don’t do it the old fashioned way. There is nothing wrong with donated eggs or adoption but many perspective parents don’t find those options ideal.
Many parents make a mix of sacrifices to make things work. A 10 hour/4 day work week may help or mixed schedules for the mother and father. Relatives or someone else may be able to help. $10,000 a year isn’t really that much. Care up through kindergarten might cost less than a nice car and some of it can be offset with any other creative plans you can come up with. Maybe your spouse could take an extra job for example.
Parenting isn’t supposed to be painless ever. Even after the kid(s) get into kindergarten, you need to start saving for college right away and medical care can cost a ton even if you have good insurance. On the other hand, there are tax advantages that help pay for some of this.
My 11 week old just started day-care today. The wife starts back at work on Wednesday and she wanted to test out the time to get him ready and drop him off before the actual day.
He is only going 3 days a week and we are paying $240 a week. The full week would have been $325 (i think). They have a monthly rate that is $900 a month (again for the 3 days a week plan). We are in the Denver metro area.
We looked into other places and the range was $225 -$300 for what we needed. The place we decided on was based on location and how both my wife and I felt about the place and staff, not cost.
Each place had slightly different cost structure and ‘perks’. One place you had to supply baby wipes, another you didn’t. That is not a huge cost, but it would be a couple extra bucks a week to provide wipes vs. they provide them. The 1 perk we really look forward to using is the one Saturday night a month babysitting they provide.
Remember, at your (and somewhat soon to be my) age, it takes roughly a year on average to conceive, and then you’ll have baking time past that. It’s most likely to be two years out that you’ll need to budget for, not tomorrow.
That year to conceive might be one of the reasons why your gyn is saying that you’ll have to decide soon, by the way.
As to your OP, a few years back, I happened upon one of my work friends as he was paying his bills. He had a new infant and two other children under the age of four. I was shocked to learn that he was paying almost $3000 a month for childcare; he had found a new, cheaper, place closer to the office a few months before, but his son hadn’t coped well with the change so they switched back.
Part of me just wants to say fuck it, let’s do it and figure it out as we go. It’s never going to be a “good time” for it, money-wise, and people with fewer resources do manage somehow. Part of me thinks, do I really want to do this at all? Life as we know it will be over. And the clock is ticking…
Perhaps I phrased that wrong…I’m not suggesting finding THE cheapest option, I just mean that in some places, in-home is generally less expensive, and in some places, a center is generally less expensive. I pay $6 an hour at my in-home daycare, but my daughter’s preschool is more like $4 an hour. I’m not necessarily opposed to using a center, I just happened to find this lady who does in-home that I really thought was great. I’m sure I could have found a less expensive center that I liked, too.
I ran into the age problem, too. That was basically the thing that pushed us into doing it. Once you go for it, you find ways to make it work, you really do.
We don’t take vacations, except for one week on Cape Cod in the summer that my in-laws subsidize. I’d have to be nuts to fly my 2 kids anywhere. We’ve never paid a babysitter beyond regular daycare, but we have done a “swap” with friends—I’ll sit for your kids this Saturday; you sit next Saturday. We’ve only done that once, since actually going out is expensive. We get passes to the children’s museum or zoo from the library. Etc, etc. And we’re not poor. I know we’ re fairly fortunate, in fact.
As a hijack, though, why is it that I am pounding my head against the wall trying to determine if I can work and have my daughter in public school?! There are school fees, yeah, but then there’s also before-school and after-school care, and all of that is turning out to be hugely expensive!
Why not start talking to other people in your area? Coworkers with kids. Neighbors.
Cheaper arrangement are not necessarily dodgy - but they are often based on relationships…the neighbor who wants to stay home with her own kids - doesn’t want to open a full fledged daycare, but wouldn’t mind watching one or two extra kids. The person who runs a perfectly respectable daycare, but doesn’t want to bother with licensing.
This describes the point I finally got to. In an ideal world, I’d stay home with my kids while they were babies. Realistically, given our financial situation, I’d be pushing 40 by the time that could happen. As lorene says, it’s frustrating. We have a combined income of around 60K, not rolling in dough, but not terrible for our neck of the woods. And, really, we are lucky. We have jobs, we have health insurance, we have a relatively low mortgage. It’s just hard to *feel *lucky when you read about $400 strollers and parents who can afford to spend decades out of the workforce.
This is good advice. And as a teacher, you’ve got a better in with this than most people. It seems like most teachers are women with children, and I’m sure they’d be happy to give you tips and leads for your area.
See, now, without the *relatively low mortgage *part, this is how I feel. And we did not have all of our ducks in a row before having kids, far from it. With my first, my husband was out of work for my entire pregnancy and the baby’s first 5 months (at least he did the childcare in the beginning!) But we made it work. (Note to anyone who feels like giving me a hard time—sometimes you’re in that 5%, OK?)
Another thing that has saved us is family. My inlaws take the kids one weekday each week, thus shaving $100.00 off our daycare bills. That adds up. Asking around trusted neighborhood friends brought us to a wonderful, loving family daycare provider who has been a godsend to us, and is in the lowest price range. Sometimes low fees don’t equal bargain-basement quality, but I can understand that caution.
Well in our city, full time infant daycare at a professional licensed facility is $1040 per month, the last time I checked. The rate for toddlers (18 months-3 years) is $920.
We pay a little over $1200 a month, and that is right around the average for care inside the Perimeter in Atlanta. We know people who pay more. I’m not looking forward to paying for daycare when #2 arrives this Christmas. We may nanny-share with some friends.
Rubystreak, you’d be surprised at the number of ways you can free up capital if you absolutely have to. Some friends of ours have moved to cheaper neighborhoods, traded their current car for a $2000 used Honda, etc. Of course, it often means a change in lifestyle, and it just isn’t worth it for some folks. Remember, the daycare expense goes down a good bit once they turn 5 and head off to school
No kidding? I live less than 2 hours from D.C., and the prices around here range from $90-$150 per week for an infant, about $20 less for a potty-trained toddler.
That’s one reason I stayed home when we had our third; it just didn’t pay for me to work outside the home anymore.
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