It's a great feeling to finally be out of the double daycare days. This is the first full summer my oldest daughter, who starts first grade in August, is no longer enrolled in daycare. My mother moved closer to us last year and she and my mother-in-law are both available to watch her. My husband is taking Thursdays off this summer to stay with her and I work from home on Fridays.
This weekend I was lamenting to my sister about how much we were paying in daycare last year and likened it to having a small second mortgage. This year my 3-year-old attends a full-time licensed daycare center for $145 a week, or $7,540 a year, which includes two snacks and a hot lunch. I live in Tennessee, where the average annual cost for daycare for preschool age children is $5,773 and $6,530 for infants, according to statistics quoted in this MSN Money article citing the National Association of Child Care
Resources and Referral Agencies.
There are a few parents with more than two children enrolled at our daycare, but I honestly don't know how they justify the costs. At some point, it seems, the expense would nearly wipe out your take home pay.
With 16 years in my profession I make a good salary and we have our health insurance benefits through my employer, but I can understand the decision for some working moms to stay home with their young children and wait to re-enter the workforce when their kids start kindergarten, simply because of the high cost of daycare.
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This is so true. At some point you are just making money to pay for childcare. I am glad things are working out better for you this summer.
I've been lamenting this for months. My husband and I work full time. He lost his job in August last year and was out of work for 6 months. We have no family nearby and in order for him to interview, etc, we kept our daughter in daycare lest we lose our hard-won spot. It is a good daycare and it's rate is very reasonable in comparison to other centers in our area.
Our daughter is 19 months old and we pay $160 a week- over $8000 a year. She also gets two snacks and a lunch now (only since she turned 18 months does she get their lunch- I had to send food before). Obviously that does not include the disposable diapers I have to send, or the extra sippy cups, clothing, kleenex, sunscreen, towel, etc, etc, that they keep of hers on hand as needed. So I would say the actual cost of daycare including those extra supplies is about $9k per year. We are still breastfeeding so we saved money on that, at least!
At this point, with one child, our incomes are such that it makes financial sense to continue working. However, we do want more than one child. I am hoping to get pregnant early next year. I am hoping to quit working when we have our next child. But my husband makes less than I do at this time. I would hope that he would get a raise or promotion by the time a second child is born. I would also hope our daughter would be out of diapers by then. The daycare cost goes down slightly once they're potty trained, to about $145 a week. But to have two children in full time care would still cost a good $18k a year, because they do a small rate increase each year, plus the supplies and whatnot. In order to pay $18k a year, one has to earn about $25k. That doesn't include the other "costs" of having a job, like transportation, work clothing (I work in a professional work environment at a state agency so I have to wear good clothes), and some convenience items (we rarely eat out, but I do get boxed / frozen things more than I would if I were able to take the time to cook totally from scratch). So for my bus pass, work clothes, and those other small conveniences, that probably costs me another $3k a year. So my work expenses if I had two kids, would be at least $21k/ year. I would have to earn about $30k just to pay for the "privilege" of working, to cover the expenses of having the job. Anything I earn more than that would be the "real" income from the job.
I currently earn in the $50's. We are on a salary freeze. So say it is 2 years from now and I have 2 kids. My direct work costs are roughly $21k assuming minor increases in daycare rates, and no price increases in diapers or other supplies, and that my older child is potty trained. So to pay for that, I need to earn about $30k so that after taxes I have $21k left. So that leaves about $25k of my yearly income. I still have deductions taken out: union dues, retirement (we have a public retirement not social security, and 10% is taken out rather than the 7.5% if you have social security taxes)– plus city, state, federal income taxes. So of that $25k I really only get about $17k. $17k for being gone 10.5 hours a day (transportation+8 hours work + .5 hour lunch break unpaid)…
But that is still on the "+" side. For three kids it certainly wouldn't be worth working, in my case. But for two, it would be a draw.
My husband and I are very fortunate when it comes to daycare. Especially since our boys are so close in age. My husband volunteered for the night shift so he could stay home with our boys during the day. Two days a week, they all did go to daycare because dad had to work an extremely late shift.
Three boys in daycare only two days a week was a little scary on the checkbook, but we could have had it much worse. I am thankful I have a husband who was willing to change his schedule to be with our children.
Now, husband is on days, we have two in school with the last one starting pre-school in the fall. It is nice to finally have our daycare days in the rear view mirror!
My husband and I have a 7 week old right now so day care makes sense, but we're thinking that once we have 2, (I want to keep working), we'll bring in an au pair from a Latin American country. We ran the money and her salary plus room and board with us is cheaper than day care. Plus, our kids will be exposed to Spanish. Some friends of ours have done this for 3 years now (a new au pair every year) and have had a great experience.
I feel your pain. The cost of daycare in the UK is astranomical. It's simply not worth my wife going to work at the moment. It's not a decision we've taken lightly but I think we made the right one.
I hope you don't mind me dropping this link. One of our copywriter's wrote an excellent article on family's and budgeting that I think your readers will find interesting:
http://www.gregorypennington.com/debt-management-blog/1127/debt-management-and-budgeting.asp
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Thanks everyone for your comments. We did the double daycare thing for a year and a half. My oldest was 33 months old when we had baby sister. I managed to negotiate with my boss and work from home until she was 11 months old (tried to put off double daycare as long as possible!) Now that we're back to one fee and my oldest attends public elementary school, things are much easier.
Of course now gas prices are astronomical and I drive an SUV.
Daycare costs have been astronomical for us since our youngest was born. Last summer we were paying well over $300 per week, which ends up being more than our mortgage payment every month. It's a little better now that our oldest is in school full-time and our second daughter is in school for half-days, but the summers continue to just kill us financially. With more than half of my paycheck going to pay daycare, we are looking at other options, especially now that I'm being laid off anyway. In fact, I just turned down a job opportunity because of this. I'll miss our daycare provider – we love her and I'll hate to lose the slots, but for at least the next year, until we have 2 kids in school full-time, it just doesn't make financial sense.
Now I just have to find a way to make up the other part of my income since we definitely can't live only on my husband's… Sigh.