Here we pay 7 dollars Canadian a day, it’s government- subsized in a big way, even the “private” or “in-home” services get support and have to charge the same price. The quality of the day-care services is amazing. BTW, there was practically revolt in the streets when the price rose from 5 dollars to 7.
On the other hand, we pay a lot of taxes, but at least young people don’t have to think they can’t afford to have a child.
ETA-- these prices are in effect in the Province of Quebec. I don’t know exactly how much other provincial governments subsidize over and above the Federal programme.
And then it’s things like this that make me glad I live in BFE. We pay $100/week. She’s there 50 hours/week. It was $88 when we started taking her there when she was 6 weeks. She’s 5 1/2 now and it’s an in-home daycare. She goes to kindergarten this fall, so that will drop considerably.
I was wondering when someone from La Belle Province would respond. In Ontario, there are some provincial and municipal grants, but for the most part, they are there to ensure that low income families can get their daycare subsidized for up to free. People who earn too much to qualify for the subsidized spaces can pay around $1000 per month per child under 2 1/2. It’s like a second mortgage, and a major reason that I hate Stephen Harper because he’s the one that killed the national day care program. (And then people claim that he represents the ‘ordinary people’ - GAH!)
Thats a big difference. We’ve been looking at center based places as opposed to home based providers just in terms of convenience to where we work. I think it gets cheaper when they get a little older.
IMHO, both center based and home based providers have pros and cons. We had ours in a center, because I didn’t need someone else’s vacation or illness to become my problem. Because I knew that the TV wasn’t in the room unless they rolled it in during the day. But it was a more expensive choice than licensed home daycare - which was a more expensive choice than unlicensed home daycare. And my kids had an “institutional” experience - which isn’t all bad - process based, age based classrooms, lesson plans at 18 months - but its a DIFFERENT experience than having a “home” experience - having multiple ages in one house run (likely) by someone’s Mom.
Thats the reason that we are looking at a center as opposed to a home run place. Also there aren’t really any home run places near where my wife works. There is a daycare in her building which is what we are most likely going to be using.
My first job out of university, back in 1989, paid $24K annually. Day-care for my two pre-school children was one-fourth of my gross income. I was a single mom.
I made it by living in a low-rent neighborhood, leasing a car instead of buying, using hand-me-down baby clothes, sticking to a draconian budget, using ‘swap time’ with friends for occasional babysitting on weekends, etc. etc. I was able to send them to a decent center that way.
As someone else mentioned, after they get school-aged this cost gets much smaller; and sometime during pre-teen years they can stay home for a few hours after school by themselves.
There are a lot of variations with home care providers, too, though. A couple I visited (we ran an early literacy program for licensed home providers, the occasional center, and day camps) with did do the whole kids of all ages thing, but I also knew two that would only take baby to four. None of them where anyone’s Mom, though, as they had been when I was a kid. Instead they were all women in their 40s to 60s.
Having experienced both center and home care as a child, then worked closely with these same entities as an adult, I’d pick home care providers if I had kids. The kids were consistently happier, and I know for a fact their care cost less than it would at a center - for example in 2000 one of the providers who did all ages charged $75/child for age two and up, and $90/child from birth to two.
In the US one of the best resources for finding out who is “good” (in other words your best fit) and who provides a structure you’ll like is your local community action office - the one I worked through would give recommendations for home care providers and non-profit daycare centers alike. I’m sure they could tell you the range for childcare costs locally, too.
We found both a home care provider and a daycare center via our state’s health and human services web site–they ran a comprehensive database searchable by zip code.
Currently we’re paying $195/week and I haven’t seen much better than that for centers. Licensed home-based care can go as low as $160 or so.
One thing that shocked me (as much as the price) was the level of planning necessary. Almost all places had a 3 month or longer waiting list and many were not flexible regarding the start date. Since my wife is a teacher, this made summers very difficult because most places won’t let you reserve a spot for fall, you have to leave the program and get back on the list, and hope a spot opens up.
However, we lucked out this year and got into a program that is oriented towards teachers, and allows us to take the summer off with only a one-week surcharge to keep his spot open for fall.
We previously tried a home-based provider that was less expensive, but had a problem when she abruptly decided to end our agreement (with two weeks notice). We were fortunate to find a place with an unexpected vacancy starting the next month, but in the meantime I had to rely on the goodwill of my employer who let me work from home entirely during that time, which was really lucky on our part. It was kind of scary.
Regarding budgets, if you had asked me when I was single if I could have freed up the amount of money I currently spend on my children, I would have laughed at the absurdity. Somehow we do it though. I remember watching Francis Coppola on “Inside the Actor’s Studio”, and he was talking about how he started a family before he had any real success to his name… he felt that the popular approach of waiting for your success before having kids was backwards, because he believed it was his family that motivated him to do what he did so well. I’m sure that’s mostly just a platitude, but I can’t help but feel that a lot of the growing up I finally did with regards to finances and my career didn’t occur until I ended up being responsible for another human being 24 hours a day.