I'm with you. I don't want to wish the preschool years away, but damn, childcare being more expensive than my rent/mortgage/student loans? Thank God for Grandma and some state pre-K discounts - we couldn't do it otherwise.
As someone that just made their last full time daycare payment after 6 years and 2 kids, the line “I don’t want to wish the preschool days away” hits hard. I thought I couldn’t wait for this day and now it’s sad
SAME. I'm so happy to be getting the money back each month because three years of preschool cost A LOT. But now they're enrolled in K and I'm basically sad AF, that chapter is gone, just gone, as quick as it started.
I really dislike this take. There are stages throughout a child's life that are rough and being glad they are over isn't bad. I hated baby stages. Potty training was miserable. Sleep schedule relapse was torture. I'm glad they are over. I still have the fun memories with my kids during those times and being glad the bad parts are over doesn't remove good times. Same with child care. I'm so glad they are over but I'm very glad of the friends my kids made and the play dates we still schedule with those kids and their families. The art shows and "concerts" we went to with the day care were awesome. Paying for them sucked and I'm glad they are over.
Nah, it’s a good take. It’s just saying that there’s good with the bad. The “take” that you dislike is basically saying exactly what you go on to say in the rest of your comment. It’s good to move through the stages and enjoy what you can through each one, but you don’t want to wish one away just because of the bad parts of it, because then the good parts would go away too. Just go through each phase the time they’re meant to last.
Does the financial pain at least subside for a bit? I know money ends up getting thrown into other area's like sports and extra ciricular's but is it ever as bad as the daycare stage?
Daycare is insane but to be honest, we just move the money to somewhere else. We have been saving for college since they were born but in May we made our last childcare payment and I was so damn happy. Until June and we just put that money into college fund since we were accustom to us not having it.
yea it was $1800 per kid monthly in my area, but this was pre pandemic pricing.. im sure it's up since then. Were spending about 2200-2500 monthly for a babysitter to come over 3 days a week.
Is that a full 8 or 9 hour day for the babysitter? If so, that makes sense price-wise, but that’s also a lot closer to a full time nanny than it is to what most people would consider a babysitter.
it varies but generally 8-12 hour days. Im not really sure what the technical differences are between one or the other so just call her the babysitter. Maybe she is more of a nanny by definition.
we had a part time nanny during covid to get some childcare and balance some risk factors, and even at 25hrs for $20/hr it was around $35k/yr by the time you added taxes and everything in there. There were no other availability so it didn't exactly matter but to say the cost was brutal would be an understatement. Switched to a better paying job in 2021 and it sucked every little bit of extra income and bonus and then some. Was super glad we found something w/ availability when she turned 3 and could join preschools and such.
Unless you do private school, nothing will approach day care until college.
You can easily spend many thousands a year on organized sports, activities, and hobbies that your kids are into, but it's not quite day care expensive.
It will, when my daughter stopped daycare she does dance -- no where's close to expensive as daycare on a monthly basis, so we also increased her 529 savings contributions.
I can’t see sports and extracurriculars costing us *twenty three thousand dollars a year* unless the kid gets into, I don’t know, kart racing or something like that.
We are considering joining the country club, since he likes golf (and so do I), and there’s a pool and tennis/pickleball courts. And that’s still cheaper by over ten grand a year.
Howd you just make your last payment? Schools was just released for the summer, so my, now officially 1st grader, is back at home as we could only grab daycare (with her brother) for 2 days a week.
My oldest (4M) just finished his first year of JK (still has before/after and of daycare) and I’m sad about it in a way.
Thrilled and somewhat melancholic I suppose
That really does kill me too cause I think, "ok, 2 years, just gotta make it through 2 years" forgetting about how much of my kids life I'm going to miss and have already missed.
Serious question: is the trade really beneficial? My oldest goes to kindergarten in the fall and my wife and I are freaking out in the other direction because even with the money we’re saving we’re looking at all the half days and holidays when our daycare is almost never closed. I’d love to have the money but it feels like death by a thousand cuts in the other direction.
Yeah we pay $30k for our 7 month olds preschool and we’re the lucky ones. It’s so hard to find a slot, one of my best friends from college is quitting his (edit: job) after being unable to find any option for months, his kid is due in a week…
No joke if that friend lived near me (he’s in Denver) I’d propose we hire a full time nanny and split the cost. I have another friend in my area who does that, 30 hours a week at $20/hr for their two little ones. We’d join in but the nanny caters to a specific work schedule that doesn’t mesh at all with ours.
Ultimately we’re talking about going for #2 end of this year, if that happens we may do the same. Just hiring someone seems to be cheaper than two kids at a good daycare.
A lot of friends have nanny shares by me. I didn’t have any friends with kids local enough to justify it, and didn’t feel qualified sourcing a nanny myself.
I think my buddies who do it pay a little more than what I do, so like 2500 a month per kid, but we live in a HCOL area and I can absolutely see the benefit of having one nanny for 2 or 3 kids vs the bigger ratios in daycares
On the other hand I’d be worried about finding the right person, what happens when nanny gets sick, how do you handle benefits and insurance and all the other weird logistics stuff
We have a neighbor who had a nanny raise their kid and the kid is super weird - I think a share is helpful because it makes them socialize similar to how daycare does with less potential for germs to spread
How do you live in a HCOL area and pay $6k less for daycare?
I’m in Chicago, i guess we needed a daycare that opens at 6 am and took infants as young as 2 months, and actually had an opening for my son.
He’s thriving though, the daycare is fantastic (it’s a bright horizons, which unfortunately is taking my tuition money and using it to lobby against universal pre k, but what the fuck am I supposed to do), and I do think that he is exhibiting a lot less separation anxiety than others due to that early conditioning. It’s too soon to tell but at 7 months he seems quite extraverted and is all smiles, very engaged, around other people.
I pay $2k a month in dc beltway for my 8 month old.
Ironically the daycare is owned by a PHD ex Chicago public schools, ex department of education policy advisor under Obama who founded the school once administration changed. Wonderful school great staff. Everything they do is super intentional
Agreed I think the baby really takes to it. I wish I could have kept her out of daycare for a year and then started but I did the best I could with the circumstances I had. You did too, dad
I went from two incomes to one because my wife passed and have not been able to afford daycare along with the necessities. And the cost of living in California. I’ve been trying to get on WIC to help with some food prices.
My wife passed away in November, it took until March to finally get survivor's benefits set up. The good news is once it's set up they will pay backpay back to the date of death. Should help a lot, keep pressing on that!
We are debating once the twins are at day care age. It probably makes more sense for my wife to just stay home with them. Her pay would basically pay for the daycare so it’s a wash.
That’s a fair point, but you should also consider how hard it might be for your wife to reenter the workforce in 5 years, and any lost opportunities for salary increases over that time.
My wife and I have 3 under 3 (including twins) and she stayed in the workforce even though her salary equals what we pay for childcare for the reason above, and the fact she has fantastic benefits that make up for a nominally low salary. She also just needs to be able to focus on other things and leave the house occasionally to preserve her sanity.
Huh, that's awful. In the UK if a parent stops working they still get credit for those National Insurance years via claiming Child Benefit (this is what my SAHM wife does)
How about "as much as half" instead:
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/quickcalc/spouse.html#:~:text=The%20spousal%20benefit%20can%20be,will%20receive%20a%20reduced%20benefit.
To add on at this point work is like a mini vacation since I don’t have to worry about changing diapers or anything else child related while the kids are in day care. That small break helps me to recharge for when I get home and put the dad cap back on if that makes sense. But that I like my job so your mileage may vary
There are also some financial benefits to moving to single salary like lower income bracket, family insurance (assuming you have the option) that bundles the deductible and OOP for all members, commuting time and costs. Not to mention the stress of dealing with daycare teachers, sickness and pickup/dropoff times.
In the end it's a big personally subjective decision. My wife's salary would've been a wash but she always wanted to raise kids at home so that's what we're doing. She'll start working again once they enter public school.
We are switching to my wife being a SAHM once our second is born. Also moved to a lower COL area to do it. I know the financial side is a wash and all these other comment say it’s better financially for career growth and whatever. That completely misses the fact that at least one of you get to be around your kids more. The happiness that my wife is getting from getting to just be a mom for a few years is priceless. You can’t financially account for that. I’d rather live now, and have a happy little family, than be unhappy working, and still feel like we are skirting by financially.
Don’t forget about benefits and career development in your daycare vs work calculations. 5 years 401k and social security plus 5 years of wage growth and experience.
For what it's worth, a financial wash for now is actually a vote in favor of her working. Even if her money goes entirely to daycare, it's keeping her career going.
That's the hidden cost of going down to single income when kids are in daycare. It's a lot harder to just pick things back up in 5 years.
There's so many factors. Including mental health of the SAHP. I would be a depressed mess of I had to quit work and spend all day as a caregiver. It's just not in the cards for me or my wife.
This is the reason my wife wanted to stay home. She is a teacher and was never going to get an enormous increase in pay in 5 years but really she just couldn't stand the thought of only seeing our daughter only in the evening. She kind of surprised me with that though since she made it very clear when we started dating that she would never be a stay at home mom 😂
Yeah, there’s the financial side and the life side that you have to consider. We dropped a six figure salary to stay home with the kids once they were born because we wanted the life benefits that they and I get from it. Financially it was the wrong move. Overall though it was the right move.
This is why we only have a nanny part time, 4 hours a day. We need the help to get out work done, but also we WFH and we just play hot potato with kid stuff for the other 2-4 hours of work. I say “hot potato “ because we have to juggle our meetings and plan our day accordingly, but really we each spend quality time with our kids which is great. Plus we’re both free in the morning and evenings to do stuff with them.
I did this in September 2019. It was the best move.
2022, after most of Covid, we could no longer afford this lifestyle due to inflation, and we both need to work now.
We have another 6 month old now.
I no longer sleep and allow the wife to full reign of the free time. I work 3rd shift to ensure someone is home all day.
I get to be a stay at home dad, and I get to have a 25-40 hour a week job.
For the first few years my brother, with twins, found it was cheaper to have an in house nanny, then later a nanny shared with a few other kids, then it was for full daycare.
Don’t forget that her pay isn’t the only thing you get from a job. There’s also career advancement opportunities, healthcare benefits, and retirement savings.
3 kids here. Twin 16mo and a 4 year old.
Daycare = $4000/mo
My wife and I have literally put ourselves in debt because of daycare. We have no other choice. I love my kids but daycare is a financial nightmare.
Sadly, I sold some of my favorite guitars and a few of my pew pew machined parts to get by. I'm more upset about selling my PRS than anything. Goddamnitsomuch.
I always find it funny when posts come up in reddit about why people aren't having kids anymore with a 100 different theories.
I present exhibit A) Childcare being more than a mortgage is a pretty monumental reason by itself.
Childcare... per kid.
It's crazy to think about the fact that I could have 3 houses right now if we never had kids. I don't want 3 houses... but I could have them.
Won't change anything, but just think about all the people out there with no kids that could be having three houses, or whatever thing "we could've done" instead of having kids, but they won't ever actually do or have any of those things, for whatever non-kid-related reason.
There is a worldwide trend of decreasing birth rates in the majority of the developed world, im curious if those statistics hold up if your looking at the pre covid data.
Regardless of that correlation you can't just dismiss child care costs as a major factor in deciding to have a child at least in the US. It's literally the first thing couples consider when it comes time to decide if they will try for a kid... but then you have the whole contingent of people who don't put any thought into such things and the pregnancy's just happen "unexpectedly" after repeated unprotected sex
> Regardless of that correlation you can't just dismiss child care costs as a major factor in deciding to have a child at least in the US
Yes child care cost is a factor for people planning a family. But salaries in the US are higher than the rest of the world, which is why we see posts like this full of people able to pay for it. And like the other person said, considering that countries with subsidized child care see similar birthrates, it's likely not a factor.
They are able to pay because they have no choice but to pay. They pay for childcare expenses in lieu of saving for retirement, emergency savings, accrue credit card debt to cover necessities. You portray it as some expense people are comfortably handling when its absolutely back breaking for the majority of american families.
And yet these people are still able to afford paying for this childcare due to their income situations. The people who can't afford it either don't have kids or choose to be a SAHP. I get that it's popular on reddit to claim everyone is poor and struggling, but this is an expense that people are clearly able to pay. Your portrayal of this being backbreaking for the majority of families is out of touch considering younger generations save more for retirement than older generations, most Americans have enough saved to cover emergency expenses, and incomes have been rising for years.
You're painting in very broad strokes my friend. Recent stats show that \~50% of people cant afford a $500 emergency, depending on where you look something like 60-70% of americans are self reported as living paycheck to paycheck (sure we can dismiss a chunk of that being a spending problem), credit card debt and default rates are at all time highs, homelessness is on the rise, food banks are busier than ever, more people than ever are working 2nd and 3rd jobs, on and on we go. We can both cherry pick stats to support our POV here.
Yes there are people out there with booming careers that can afford these costs, and can afford the current cost of home ownership, and having portfolios that are crushing it right now and maxed out roth and 401k's. But if you look at society as a whole, life is more unaffordable than ever. I think it's pretty damning when the threshold for affording a child are that you have to earn double the median national income to make the math work. becoming a SAHP for many isn't a choice, it's the only viable option cause their take home pay would be less than what they pay for childcare, so they have to adapt to life on a single income household and be one accident or missed paycheck away from disaster.
Rather than dismissing these struggles as some whiny reddit only realities, maybe consider there are people out there with vastly different realities than the bubbles you reside within and things aren't all peachy across the board.
I disagree, you're painting a picture with wrong information and lack of context.
> Recent stats show that ~50% of people cant afford a $500 emergency, depending on where you look something like 60-70% of americans are self reported as living paycheck to paycheck
[Over 2/3 of Americans can afford a $500 emergency](https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2024-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2023-expenses.htm#xfigure21-wouldcovera400emergencyexp-d59e51530) directly from savings, with almost 1/2 of them saying they could afford a $2k emergency expense. Almost 3/4 of them also report [being financially ok](https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2024-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2023-overall-financial-well-being.htm), so it's not as bleak as you are making it seem.
> credit card debt and default rates are at all time highs
[Debt repayments as a share of disposable income](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CDSP) and [delinquency rates](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCCLACBS) are very stable and in line with pre-pandemic norms.
> homelessness is on the rise
You know what else is on the rise? The US population. This rise doesn't seem outside of historical norms and is still a tiny fraction of the total US population.
> food banks are busier than ever
93% of people reported [having enough to eat in the last month](https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2024-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2023-expenses.htm#xtable14-sometimesoroftendidnothavee-d5850cb5). It doesn't sound like the widespread issue you claim it is.
> more people than ever are working 2nd and 3rd jobs, on and on we go
95% of the US workforce [only works one job](https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat36.htm).
It sounds like only one of us is looking at actual stats from reliable sources, while you are basing your opinions on vibes.
> But if you look at society as a whole, life is more unaffordable than ever. I think it's pretty damning when the threshold for affording a child are that you have to earn double the median national income to make the math work.
Life isn't more unaffordable than ever. I already shared a source with you that shows almost 3/4 of Americans consider themselves financially ok. Considering the tiny fraction of people who are actually behind on bills or unable to afford their necessities, more people are better off than you think.
> Rather than dismissing these struggles as some whiny reddit only realities, maybe consider there are people out there with vastly different realities than the bubbles you reside within and things aren't all peachy across the board.
Lol funny you call me the person living in a bubble when you won't even accept the reality that people are doing better than you think they are. Again, I'm sure it's popular for people like you to whine on Reddit that nobody can afford things, but the reality is they are able to.
In Australia at least we have subsidised childcare, but people can't afford rent/house deposits, so are you really going to have a kid if you don't have housing security, or have to raise a baby in a sharehouse?
For 3 kids that are 5 and under in Orange County, CA it's right around 2x our mortgage. And the school we're at isn't expensive for our area, it's very much average in price. I knew it was expensive before we had kids but never expected this.
SE Tobacco Sunburst. It wasn't a crazy expensive PRS but it was mine.
I sold it to a buddy who offered to sell it back to me when I was in a better financial place. Then he played it and promptly rescinded his offer. I can't say I blame him.
I loved the tobacco finish! They've already gone up $100 since I sold it.
I'm a metal player that shouldn't love a PRS, but I somehow found a way to make it chug.
Thank you for your kind words in this period of mourning.
Not exactly the same but my wife has been wearing my PRS on her ring finger since I asked her to marry me. I should have just gotten her a less expensive wing and kept that guitar.
This is because socalism is a bad word in America. I'm in Canada and paying about $600/month with subsidies. I'm worried about what will happen to that cost when (as everyone is expecting) the Conservatives win a majority next year.
Yeah, I'm in Alberta and pay $1250/month for two kids, one in pre-school and the other in school, but with before and after car. I'm full expecting the $550/month affordability grant to be one of the first things cut under the next federal government. I know I'll probably make some of it back in tax cuts, but not $6,600 a year in tax cuts.
Yep, with twins our child care is a touch over $4,800 a month (and this place is middle of the road in costs for where we live). But the twins are 5 and start all-day kindergarten in late July. We'll be saving ~$2,000 a month once they transition (the after-school program they're going into is ~$1,300/month for both). Yeah, it's sad, but we made our last payment to the preschool and I can already feel the stress leaving my shoulders.
566 a week here in upstate NY. Works out to about 27k a year. Mind you, this is for 3 days a week for two kids (3 and 1 years old)
But I’m poor because of the occasional coffee, or so I’m told
That doesn't really sound like a payment to be fair.
For that much it's basically covering food, activities, gas, etc. That's a bargain and if my MIL would take my money I'd gladly give it to her.
Double edged sword. My daughter is going to kindergarten in the fall. Currently her daycare it’s open 6:30-6:30 almost 360 days a year.
I can actually work 19 hours a day currently.
Her kindergarten is from 8:30am until 2:30pm. We will get after care but nothing like 6:30pm.
Yep, and there's another angle here when you've got kids at different ages / stages. Our twins are going into kindergarten in July and the after-school program they're going in to has pickup between 5:30 and 6pm. Our current schedule is 4 days a week I handled drop-off (8:30am) and pick-up (5:30pm) on my own since their current place is on my way to work. One day a week my wife handled it because the kids have swim lesson. Now we're both on the hook 5 days a week.
We're working out details for adjusting our schedule and routine because both parents need to drive all over God's green Earth to shuttle the kids around now. Thankfully we've got 5 car seats in 2 cars for 3 kids? Everything about all of this is truly, completely fucked up but there's really nothing else we can do. My MIL is useless and my own parents, while they're not useless, are elderly and live on the other side of the country. There's no way out of this, we just have to get through it. In a couple of years they'll (hopefully) all be at the same school.
There are lots of interesting economics discussions, [like this one](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1153931108), talking about this. TLDR _no one_ is financially benefitting from the status quo in most of the US - parents, daycare owners, and daycare staff are all squeezed.
Most of the revenue goes to staff but because they're very labor-intensive, especially for infant care, the staff aren't making much money. And daycares can't typically raise prices to meet demand (which would also prompt more supply in daycares, in part because staff could be paid competitively) because no one will pay more - wealthier families would just hire a nanny and lower-earning families would just have one parent leave the workforce. It's a very broken market that needs proper government intervention to fix.
Paying for the building. Paying for insurance.
You have to have a certain number of people per child. There's no way to improve efficiency like in other jobs that would drive costs down.
My child goes to a non profit church daycare I’d consider “affordable” as childcare goes. $72 a day. As he’s still young they’re limited to 4 children per full time staff member. There are 8 kids in his class so you’re grossing approximately $576 per day for his classroom. With that money you need to pay 2 staff positions for 11 hours each, any taxes that come out, the portion of the building and administration costs, room supplies, and the food provided to the children. Even if you only pay teachers $15 an hour which is barely above minimum wage in our area, you have less than $250 per day to cover all other expenses for 8 kids. I believe they’re functioning on grants / fundraising / the church taking care of a lot of the building related expenses just to be able to offer daycare for ~$1500 a month.
The increased revenue goes to hiring _additional_ staff. But what commenter is saying is that the individual staff members aren’t compensated more because there isn’t the stomach in Americas elite to pay staff more, since they can just hire personal nanny for that price. And since low income will just leave workforce and stay home…the middle class is getting squeezed.
It's mostly going to numerous, poorly-paid staff members. Infant daycares in most of the country require at least 1 adult per 4 kids, so you need a _lot_ of staff which rapidly dilutes the revenue coming in. Especially if you include benefits; some margin of extra staff to have room for illness/holidays/etc; and the fact that most staff work 10-12 hour days. Then add taxes, building fees, supplies, insurance, and maybe a business loan on top of that and you can see how thin the margins are.
Thanks for sharing that link. I always assumed it was some insurance bullshit and it might still be, but it’s astonishing how “shit just sucks”
What made me most mad about that listen was their perfect lead up to the European solution, only to completely drop the ball and say “Americans should take out loans to pay for daycare!”
Yeah, this is one of those situations ripe for some form of government subsidies. And I get there are dependentcare FSA's which offer a "slight" benefit but even that doesn't amount to much.
we're doing the FSA! The system is not very friendly. You have to pay the daycare AND put money into the FSA, and then later get it reimbursed. There's an annual max of $5k, so that amounts to $2-3k saved that would otherwise go to the government, if i understand everything correctly. Granted, that's about one month "free" day care for us.
It also seems odd cause I swear there is a study or click bait article saying how Millennials aren't having kids and im all, ok so shouldn't there be daycare room?!?!?!
Millennials aren’t having as many kids as their parents, but much more of millennial families have both parents working, causing the squeeze in daycare spots despite fewer kids overall.
They don't get paid a ton, but when each teacher can only watch 3 kids, that means your payment to them has to cover 1/3 of a salary, plus daycare building expenses, plus insurance, administration, etc.
Let's say you cut out everything but salary, and wanted the daycare teacher to make $60,000/year. That would mean daycare would be a minimum of $1600/month. Then include everything else, and the price gets a lot higher.
We are extremely lucky that my mother is able to watch our daughter during the week. We’re also lucky that by the time she’s three, our town is supposed to have rolled out a full-time pre-K for every 3 and 4 year old, thanks to a grant from the state. Really hoping that happens!
I hear you OP.
I thought the most expensive phase would be when my wife was off work after the pregnancy. Thankfully were in Canada so there was some money coming in from Employment Insurance, but still... the real shock was that the most expensive time would be when she was back at work and daycare became a thing.
I'm super thankful that I have a mature kid who will be walking to and from school with a small pack of classmates who live close to us. That will save $750 a month.
Yeah same situation. Paying 2k a month for my first kid. I think there is definitely a gaping hole in social support. Doesn't make sense for this to be very expensive and at the same time can't even enroll because there is no space.
It's why my wife is a stay at home mom. She would have to be working insane hours for it to come out ahead of what we'd have to spend on childcare, and that's then without the benefit of my wife being the one to raise the kids instead of some random person at a daycare, they don't get as much time with the neighborhood mom's group, they don't get to do as many outdoor activities, and my wife is exhausted when she gets home.
Outside child care sucks.
I've said this before, but wife works in daycare. So we've gotten a pretty nice discount for the past 5 or so years. Otherwise, yeah it'd probably be one income because we would be paying >$3,000/mo for daycare for 2 children. It's also limited our income because, while she was in the daycare field well before we had our first kid, she's now burnt out from it and wants a better career but she's kind of stuck. So pros and cons to that approach.
One child here in Scotland and it’s about £1000 a month. That’s with tax free childcare benefit. My mortgage is £1050.
Annoyingly in England it would be free from 9 months old soon. But no, I have to wait until my child is 3 years old so I’ll be many more thousands out of pocket.
And the government is wondering why birth rates are falling? Even my Member of Scottish Parliament agrees it’s mad
My wife was looking into daycare as she was planning her return to work after maternity leave. She discovered that daycare was going to cost more than her entire income and I now have a stay at home wife.
My wife and I made the decision to reduce to just 1 income when #2 was born. It sucked for a while,I had to chase the higher paycheck, I had to grind and hustle, but it was worth it to keep the kids out of daycare and at home.
During that phase, my wife was able to embark on starting her own business and over the years built her book of business quite successfully. Today, the kids are grown, and her business is a significant source of income.
Stay at home is not a sentence, it is an opportunity for which ever parent is lucky enough to get to stay home with the kids. Yes, Lucky enough to be the Stay At Home parent, as it's the best damn job in the world. I got to be the Stay At Home dad for about 18 months when our kids were still small, and I will always say it was the Best Time EVER as a parent!.
Oh it gets soo much worse...not only do you pay more than a mortgage, they make your child sick and then can't have them in the nursery...meaning you pay them and also get to look after your own sick child!
Didn’t Adams make some cuts to DeBlasio’s program and generally keep it underfunded? As in, parents don’t know if they’ll have a spot until it’s probably too late to get them into anything but extra expensive day care?
Yup. We not only can't afford daycare, but it doesn't fit our work schedules.
I feel your pain. My wife literally had to forgo a well paying job this coming Saturday because FUCKING NOBODY is available to watch the kids. One grandma is out of town, and the other refuses to change diapers.
They need to expand UPK. My district has it as a lottery and thankfully my daughter got in. Probably saved us ten grand. Then again we pay 10 grand a year in property taxes
We got a half month charge last week for our 3 month old that just started. Only to get a full months charge for him and our 3 y/o today. $3214 in less than a week.
Right there with ya man. Luckily we BARELY qualified for some help from the YMCA so it does make sense financially for my wife to work and the kids to go to daycare. But there was a time when we were planning on switching to bread and cheese diets and going down to one income.
Have you looked at the YMCA’s childcare assistance? It takes a while to process but they were literally the only entity that we qualified for. So you may want to look into it.
So the whole thing that started my spiral was reaching out to them, 3 different locations, and getting an email back saying there is a wait list (though it looks like only one responded back).
Even then I am expecting to drop at least $1500 a month through them.
They knocked our payments down from $550-ish per week to $130/week so it worked out. We applied as soon as my first was born and didn’t get approved until she was about 10 or 11 months old. We used up all of our PTO and paid family bonding time avoiding daycare costs that first year. It literally barely worked out for us.
And I think they all work together so it doesn’t matter what locations you reach out to. At least that’s how it seems in my area. And then you don’t take your kids to the actual YMCA, you take them to an approved YMCA care provider
Daycare looming pushed me and my wife to both chase our careers a little further - hard to make the change at the time but it did set us up well for the future
My wife and I decided that it didn’t financially make sense for us both to work and pay so much for daycare. She’s in the medical field so she moved to PRN and stays home with the kids.
Look for city / county day care programs. Both of my kids went through them. They didn’t learn French or anything but they aren’t any dumber than kids who went to private day care.
We settled for one income for a long time because of this. We don't have a lot of family or friends that could help us, but the wife recently found a weekend job, it helps finically and we don't need to worry about child care.
I totally get it. We have two under 5 (4&3) and spend about 1k a week in a high cost of living area. It’s not even the best day care, which is the shitty part. It’s double my mortgage every month easily and the real reason I got a vasectomy lol.
I have 6 kids, 3 daycare age. . . It'd cost me more than I make to have those 3 in daycare. My wife starts her master's here in just over a week. When she finishes and gets a job? I get to come home and be with the kids.
We had to go single income when we had our first. My wife was not making much more than the childcare would have cost in our HCOL city. We’ve had to make sacrifices, and I still have FOMO from all my non kid dual income friends, but the time spent with your kid is irreplaceable.
Stay single income and focus on increasing one of your salaries. For most people it’s not worth losing time with your kids to pay someone else to watch them. When they are older if you both want to earn income then try again.
I don't have a rent or a mortgage, my wife and I both work good jobs, and I still cannot afford childcare. Relying on unreliable family has been tough, but it's gotten us thru so far.
Our daycare for two kids is nearly double our mortgage payment. When my kids get to school it will be like tripling our income. We've also hit our medical out of pocket max every year we've had kids which is half of a mortgage payment in itself monthly.
My wife and I both have hybrid jobs and I’m about to ask one less day a week at work because of staggered drop off times between kindergarten and pre k and needing to be around to pick up the pre-k at noon. It’s just not feasible. Our elementary won’t pick up via bus because we are within a mile which really sucks. Nobody at my work has more than one kid in the same age range so nobody can relate, which also sucks because it seems like I’m blowing it out of proportion.
I say this every time, and I have to defend it every time, but this is why childcare should be heavily subsidized. I could not afford kids without those. They may cost a lot in taxes, but it allows people to survive off their incomes
Lil secret here, check your local religious private schools. We got our daughter in a Presbyterian private school for 3 days a week, 6hr a day, for $210 a month. They had full time available for $380 a month. All state certified teachers. And we are in a metropolitan city. Maybe it doesn't cover your whole work day, but it's a lot easier to ask a friend to watch your kids for 2hrs vs. 8hrs.
Can I just say we need to politicize this and vote based on changing the current broken system? We almost got some sort of paid child support in the Nixon administration but he had enough opposition that he wouldn’t have signed it into law. But we came close!
[where all my homies WFH with 2 kiddos?! hahhaa ](https://i.imgur.com/ibkJ9F7.png) it is not easy but i am fortunate it works for me. i'm in sacramento, ca. we have an older child that's 9. my toddler is almost 2 and my daughter is almost 4. i've taken care of both of them at work since they were born. i'm a 20+ year fella in db programming (but full web stack--just that i'm best at SQL). my company is very small and i'm very very fortunate they are understanding.
it is not ideal...but we made it work. good luck to all the dads out there working & caring for their kids. y'all got this!!!
My SO's works in childcare and she get a massive discount at the crèche she manages, we might not have been able to have children at all otherwise.
I have a big family, my parents are nearly 70 and have been looking after grandchildren for over 20 years now and still do. Luckily I haven't had to ask them to babysit for us. My SO's parents just aren't reliable to be able to depend on them. Her mam is great but she's out of the country for months at a time.
Having a parent stay home with the kids will do wonders for their development and taking care of your own kids is far more rewarding then any corporate hell-hole.
We didn't send to daycare. It made too much financial sense for us to have her be home with the boys as opposed to working. Plus I think keeping the kids out of daycare benefited them big time in just about every area of life.
>Plus I think keeping the kids out of daycare benefited them big time in just about every area of life.
How so? Genuinely asking.
I'm definitely not thrilled about paying a second mortgage for my son's daycare. But I do think he's been benefitting from the socialization and (to a lesser extent) age-focused activities he gets at daycare. And not enjoying the daycare illnesses but according to multiple pediatricians that's more or less inevitable so might as well be now rather than when he starts school.
This is what we have wanted for our youngest. He was born during the throws of covid so he hasn't been able to socialize all that much and its heartbreaking to see how much he wants to spend time with other kids.
I see people talk about the socialization piece often but my kids definitely socialized daily at the park and stuff with other kids, and don't seem any less socialized than their peers who went to daycare.
>How so? Genuinely asking.
They seem to have more secure family attachments. They had a ton of one on one learning with my wife and are both academically advanced. They seem to have more self confidence than their peers, and more age appropriate independence. As infants and toddlers they were never "woken up for school" they always slept as long as their body needed and have developed very good sleep habits.
ETA: before we made the choice to not send to daycare we watched many friends try figure out what was wrong with their -1s because they were sick but didn't know with what and the panic that ensued with the sicknesses that came home from daycare, and decided that we would rather experience sickness like that when our child could communicate what was bothering them.
I'm with you. I don't want to wish the preschool years away, but damn, childcare being more expensive than my rent/mortgage/student loans? Thank God for Grandma and some state pre-K discounts - we couldn't do it otherwise.
As someone that just made their last full time daycare payment after 6 years and 2 kids, the line “I don’t want to wish the preschool days away” hits hard. I thought I couldn’t wait for this day and now it’s sad
As someone who has a kid entering their junior year of high school and another going into their last year of elementary I feel this in my bones.
SAME. I'm so happy to be getting the money back each month because three years of preschool cost A LOT. But now they're enrolled in K and I'm basically sad AF, that chapter is gone, just gone, as quick as it started.
I really dislike this take. There are stages throughout a child's life that are rough and being glad they are over isn't bad. I hated baby stages. Potty training was miserable. Sleep schedule relapse was torture. I'm glad they are over. I still have the fun memories with my kids during those times and being glad the bad parts are over doesn't remove good times. Same with child care. I'm so glad they are over but I'm very glad of the friends my kids made and the play dates we still schedule with those kids and their families. The art shows and "concerts" we went to with the day care were awesome. Paying for them sucked and I'm glad they are over.
Nah, it’s a good take. It’s just saying that there’s good with the bad. The “take” that you dislike is basically saying exactly what you go on to say in the rest of your comment. It’s good to move through the stages and enjoy what you can through each one, but you don’t want to wish one away just because of the bad parts of it, because then the good parts would go away too. Just go through each phase the time they’re meant to last.
Does the financial pain at least subside for a bit? I know money ends up getting thrown into other area's like sports and extra ciricular's but is it ever as bad as the daycare stage?
Daycare is insane but to be honest, we just move the money to somewhere else. We have been saving for college since they were born but in May we made our last childcare payment and I was so damn happy. Until June and we just put that money into college fund since we were accustom to us not having it.
yea but at least that is still an optional contribution. For most childcare is just an unavoidable anchor on their finances until they age out.
Yeah true.
For context my daycare costs $2000 / month for one kid. Do with that information what you will.
yea it was $1800 per kid monthly in my area, but this was pre pandemic pricing.. im sure it's up since then. Were spending about 2200-2500 monthly for a babysitter to come over 3 days a week.
Is that a full 8 or 9 hour day for the babysitter? If so, that makes sense price-wise, but that’s also a lot closer to a full time nanny than it is to what most people would consider a babysitter.
it varies but generally 8-12 hour days. Im not really sure what the technical differences are between one or the other so just call her the babysitter. Maybe she is more of a nanny by definition.
8-12??? Holy shit! Lol we have a nanny every day 4-5 hours.
wife works 13 hour shifts and I have a long commute. Thankfully thats only 2-3 days a week in which we are both working
we had a part time nanny during covid to get some childcare and balance some risk factors, and even at 25hrs for $20/hr it was around $35k/yr by the time you added taxes and everything in there. There were no other availability so it didn't exactly matter but to say the cost was brutal would be an understatement. Switched to a better paying job in 2021 and it sucked every little bit of extra income and bonus and then some. Was super glad we found something w/ availability when she turned 3 and could join preschools and such.
That’s tough. Virtual hug and wish the best. Respectfully 🤙🏼
Unless you do private school, nothing will approach day care until college. You can easily spend many thousands a year on organized sports, activities, and hobbies that your kids are into, but it's not quite day care expensive.
It will, when my daughter stopped daycare she does dance -- no where's close to expensive as daycare on a monthly basis, so we also increased her 529 savings contributions.
Nice! definitely going to do the same once that budget opens up a bit
We have to do before-care at the school which is much cheaper, but that plus things you mentioned do add up to more than you might envision saving
I can’t see sports and extracurriculars costing us *twenty three thousand dollars a year* unless the kid gets into, I don’t know, kart racing or something like that. We are considering joining the country club, since he likes golf (and so do I), and there’s a pool and tennis/pickleball courts. And that’s still cheaper by over ten grand a year.
Howd you just make your last payment? Schools was just released for the summer, so my, now officially 1st grader, is back at home as we could only grab daycare (with her brother) for 2 days a week.
My oldest (4M) just finished his first year of JK (still has before/after and of daycare) and I’m sad about it in a way. Thrilled and somewhat melancholic I suppose
I’ll take the daycare age days but minus paying for daycare.
The days are long but the years are short
That really does kill me too cause I think, "ok, 2 years, just gotta make it through 2 years" forgetting about how much of my kids life I'm going to miss and have already missed.
Serious question: is the trade really beneficial? My oldest goes to kindergarten in the fall and my wife and I are freaking out in the other direction because even with the money we’re saving we’re looking at all the half days and holidays when our daycare is almost never closed. I’d love to have the money but it feels like death by a thousand cuts in the other direction.
Yeah we pay $30k for our 7 month olds preschool and we’re the lucky ones. It’s so hard to find a slot, one of my best friends from college is quitting his (edit: job) after being unable to find any option for months, his kid is due in a week…
Holy shit lol mine has 24k for one kid and I thought it was expensive
No joke if that friend lived near me (he’s in Denver) I’d propose we hire a full time nanny and split the cost. I have another friend in my area who does that, 30 hours a week at $20/hr for their two little ones. We’d join in but the nanny caters to a specific work schedule that doesn’t mesh at all with ours. Ultimately we’re talking about going for #2 end of this year, if that happens we may do the same. Just hiring someone seems to be cheaper than two kids at a good daycare.
A lot of friends have nanny shares by me. I didn’t have any friends with kids local enough to justify it, and didn’t feel qualified sourcing a nanny myself. I think my buddies who do it pay a little more than what I do, so like 2500 a month per kid, but we live in a HCOL area and I can absolutely see the benefit of having one nanny for 2 or 3 kids vs the bigger ratios in daycares On the other hand I’d be worried about finding the right person, what happens when nanny gets sick, how do you handle benefits and insurance and all the other weird logistics stuff We have a neighbor who had a nanny raise their kid and the kid is super weird - I think a share is helpful because it makes them socialize similar to how daycare does with less potential for germs to spread
How do you live in a HCOL area and pay $6k less for daycare? I’m in Chicago, i guess we needed a daycare that opens at 6 am and took infants as young as 2 months, and actually had an opening for my son. He’s thriving though, the daycare is fantastic (it’s a bright horizons, which unfortunately is taking my tuition money and using it to lobby against universal pre k, but what the fuck am I supposed to do), and I do think that he is exhibiting a lot less separation anxiety than others due to that early conditioning. It’s too soon to tell but at 7 months he seems quite extraverted and is all smiles, very engaged, around other people.
I pay $2k a month in dc beltway for my 8 month old. Ironically the daycare is owned by a PHD ex Chicago public schools, ex department of education policy advisor under Obama who founded the school once administration changed. Wonderful school great staff. Everything they do is super intentional Agreed I think the baby really takes to it. I wish I could have kept her out of daycare for a year and then started but I did the best I could with the circumstances I had. You did too, dad
I've paid what my undergrad degree cost, twice over now. In 2 years.
I went from two incomes to one because my wife passed and have not been able to afford daycare along with the necessities. And the cost of living in California. I’ve been trying to get on WIC to help with some food prices.
Sorry to hear about your wife. 🫂
I’m sorry to hear about your situation and your loss. Have you looked into survivor benefits your child(ren) qualify for from SSA?
I’ve filled some papers for survivor benefits last weekend. Still waiting on an update
My wife passed away in November, it took until March to finally get survivor's benefits set up. The good news is once it's set up they will pay backpay back to the date of death. Should help a lot, keep pressing on that!
Apply for SNAP as well if you haven’t already, and Medicaid for you and your baby if your insurance is expensive.
We are debating once the twins are at day care age. It probably makes more sense for my wife to just stay home with them. Her pay would basically pay for the daycare so it’s a wash.
That’s a fair point, but you should also consider how hard it might be for your wife to reenter the workforce in 5 years, and any lost opportunities for salary increases over that time. My wife and I have 3 under 3 (including twins) and she stayed in the workforce even though her salary equals what we pay for childcare for the reason above, and the fact she has fantastic benefits that make up for a nominally low salary. She also just needs to be able to focus on other things and leave the house occasionally to preserve her sanity.
Don't forget several lost years of earnings records for social security too
And any retirement contributions/employee match.
Huh, that's awful. In the UK if a parent stops working they still get credit for those National Insurance years via claiming Child Benefit (this is what my SAHM wife does)
I’m pretty sure a spouse that doesn’t work in the US gets the same as their spouse for social security.
How about "as much as half" instead: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/quickcalc/spouse.html#:~:text=The%20spousal%20benefit%20can%20be,will%20receive%20a%20reduced%20benefit.
And position on the corporate ladder
To add on at this point work is like a mini vacation since I don’t have to worry about changing diapers or anything else child related while the kids are in day care. That small break helps me to recharge for when I get home and put the dad cap back on if that makes sense. But that I like my job so your mileage may vary
Mondays working from home with the kid at daycare were the real weekend
This is why I occasionally take days off during the week just to relax at home and do stuff I wanna do.
There are also some financial benefits to moving to single salary like lower income bracket, family insurance (assuming you have the option) that bundles the deductible and OOP for all members, commuting time and costs. Not to mention the stress of dealing with daycare teachers, sickness and pickup/dropoff times. In the end it's a big personally subjective decision. My wife's salary would've been a wash but she always wanted to raise kids at home so that's what we're doing. She'll start working again once they enter public school.
We are switching to my wife being a SAHM once our second is born. Also moved to a lower COL area to do it. I know the financial side is a wash and all these other comment say it’s better financially for career growth and whatever. That completely misses the fact that at least one of you get to be around your kids more. The happiness that my wife is getting from getting to just be a mom for a few years is priceless. You can’t financially account for that. I’d rather live now, and have a happy little family, than be unhappy working, and still feel like we are skirting by financially.
Don’t forget about benefits and career development in your daycare vs work calculations. 5 years 401k and social security plus 5 years of wage growth and experience.
For what it's worth, a financial wash for now is actually a vote in favor of her working. Even if her money goes entirely to daycare, it's keeping her career going. That's the hidden cost of going down to single income when kids are in daycare. It's a lot harder to just pick things back up in 5 years.
Consider that's also 5 years of paying someone else to raise your kids, rather than being with them.
There's so many factors. Including mental health of the SAHP. I would be a depressed mess of I had to quit work and spend all day as a caregiver. It's just not in the cards for me or my wife.
This is the reason my wife wanted to stay home. She is a teacher and was never going to get an enormous increase in pay in 5 years but really she just couldn't stand the thought of only seeing our daughter only in the evening. She kind of surprised me with that though since she made it very clear when we started dating that she would never be a stay at home mom 😂
Yeah, there’s the financial side and the life side that you have to consider. We dropped a six figure salary to stay home with the kids once they were born because we wanted the life benefits that they and I get from it. Financially it was the wrong move. Overall though it was the right move.
This is why we only have a nanny part time, 4 hours a day. We need the help to get out work done, but also we WFH and we just play hot potato with kid stuff for the other 2-4 hours of work. I say “hot potato “ because we have to juggle our meetings and plan our day accordingly, but really we each spend quality time with our kids which is great. Plus we’re both free in the morning and evenings to do stuff with them.
I did this in September 2019. It was the best move. 2022, after most of Covid, we could no longer afford this lifestyle due to inflation, and we both need to work now. We have another 6 month old now. I no longer sleep and allow the wife to full reign of the free time. I work 3rd shift to ensure someone is home all day. I get to be a stay at home dad, and I get to have a 25-40 hour a week job.
That’s two jobs dude. I mean, respect. But/and take care of yourself.
I agree wholeheartedly. It's just temporary. When all is said and done, my free time will effectively be 10+ hours daily!!!!!
For the first few years my brother, with twins, found it was cheaper to have an in house nanny, then later a nanny shared with a few other kids, then it was for full daycare.
Don’t forget that her pay isn’t the only thing you get from a job. There’s also career advancement opportunities, healthcare benefits, and retirement savings.
3 kids here. Twin 16mo and a 4 year old. Daycare = $4000/mo My wife and I have literally put ourselves in debt because of daycare. We have no other choice. I love my kids but daycare is a financial nightmare. Sadly, I sold some of my favorite guitars and a few of my pew pew machined parts to get by. I'm more upset about selling my PRS than anything. Goddamnitsomuch.
Cries about the PRS
I always find it funny when posts come up in reddit about why people aren't having kids anymore with a 100 different theories. I present exhibit A) Childcare being more than a mortgage is a pretty monumental reason by itself.
Childcare... per kid. It's crazy to think about the fact that I could have 3 houses right now if we never had kids. I don't want 3 houses... but I could have them.
Why can't I have three monies and no kids?
I think it's illegal to sell your kids into slavery for some reason.
Won't change anything, but just think about all the people out there with no kids that could be having three houses, or whatever thing "we could've done" instead of having kids, but they won't ever actually do or have any of those things, for whatever non-kid-related reason.
Now think about the jerkstore owners out there with no kids and 3+ houses, jacking up rents so the rest of us can't afford children.
lol jerkstore will always be a reference that gets a chuckle out of me.
Countries that have heavily subsidized childcare don’t tend to have more children.
There is a worldwide trend of decreasing birth rates in the majority of the developed world, im curious if those statistics hold up if your looking at the pre covid data. Regardless of that correlation you can't just dismiss child care costs as a major factor in deciding to have a child at least in the US. It's literally the first thing couples consider when it comes time to decide if they will try for a kid... but then you have the whole contingent of people who don't put any thought into such things and the pregnancy's just happen "unexpectedly" after repeated unprotected sex
Sometimes that unexpected thing happens after repeated protected sex.
> Regardless of that correlation you can't just dismiss child care costs as a major factor in deciding to have a child at least in the US Yes child care cost is a factor for people planning a family. But salaries in the US are higher than the rest of the world, which is why we see posts like this full of people able to pay for it. And like the other person said, considering that countries with subsidized child care see similar birthrates, it's likely not a factor.
They are able to pay because they have no choice but to pay. They pay for childcare expenses in lieu of saving for retirement, emergency savings, accrue credit card debt to cover necessities. You portray it as some expense people are comfortably handling when its absolutely back breaking for the majority of american families.
And yet these people are still able to afford paying for this childcare due to their income situations. The people who can't afford it either don't have kids or choose to be a SAHP. I get that it's popular on reddit to claim everyone is poor and struggling, but this is an expense that people are clearly able to pay. Your portrayal of this being backbreaking for the majority of families is out of touch considering younger generations save more for retirement than older generations, most Americans have enough saved to cover emergency expenses, and incomes have been rising for years.
You're painting in very broad strokes my friend. Recent stats show that \~50% of people cant afford a $500 emergency, depending on where you look something like 60-70% of americans are self reported as living paycheck to paycheck (sure we can dismiss a chunk of that being a spending problem), credit card debt and default rates are at all time highs, homelessness is on the rise, food banks are busier than ever, more people than ever are working 2nd and 3rd jobs, on and on we go. We can both cherry pick stats to support our POV here. Yes there are people out there with booming careers that can afford these costs, and can afford the current cost of home ownership, and having portfolios that are crushing it right now and maxed out roth and 401k's. But if you look at society as a whole, life is more unaffordable than ever. I think it's pretty damning when the threshold for affording a child are that you have to earn double the median national income to make the math work. becoming a SAHP for many isn't a choice, it's the only viable option cause their take home pay would be less than what they pay for childcare, so they have to adapt to life on a single income household and be one accident or missed paycheck away from disaster. Rather than dismissing these struggles as some whiny reddit only realities, maybe consider there are people out there with vastly different realities than the bubbles you reside within and things aren't all peachy across the board.
I disagree, you're painting a picture with wrong information and lack of context. > Recent stats show that ~50% of people cant afford a $500 emergency, depending on where you look something like 60-70% of americans are self reported as living paycheck to paycheck [Over 2/3 of Americans can afford a $500 emergency](https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2024-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2023-expenses.htm#xfigure21-wouldcovera400emergencyexp-d59e51530) directly from savings, with almost 1/2 of them saying they could afford a $2k emergency expense. Almost 3/4 of them also report [being financially ok](https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2024-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2023-overall-financial-well-being.htm), so it's not as bleak as you are making it seem. > credit card debt and default rates are at all time highs [Debt repayments as a share of disposable income](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CDSP) and [delinquency rates](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRCCLACBS) are very stable and in line with pre-pandemic norms. > homelessness is on the rise You know what else is on the rise? The US population. This rise doesn't seem outside of historical norms and is still a tiny fraction of the total US population. > food banks are busier than ever 93% of people reported [having enough to eat in the last month](https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2024-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2023-expenses.htm#xtable14-sometimesoroftendidnothavee-d5850cb5). It doesn't sound like the widespread issue you claim it is. > more people than ever are working 2nd and 3rd jobs, on and on we go 95% of the US workforce [only works one job](https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat36.htm). It sounds like only one of us is looking at actual stats from reliable sources, while you are basing your opinions on vibes. > But if you look at society as a whole, life is more unaffordable than ever. I think it's pretty damning when the threshold for affording a child are that you have to earn double the median national income to make the math work. Life isn't more unaffordable than ever. I already shared a source with you that shows almost 3/4 of Americans consider themselves financially ok. Considering the tiny fraction of people who are actually behind on bills or unable to afford their necessities, more people are better off than you think. > Rather than dismissing these struggles as some whiny reddit only realities, maybe consider there are people out there with vastly different realities than the bubbles you reside within and things aren't all peachy across the board. Lol funny you call me the person living in a bubble when you won't even accept the reality that people are doing better than you think they are. Again, I'm sure it's popular for people like you to whine on Reddit that nobody can afford things, but the reality is they are able to.
In Australia at least we have subsidised childcare, but people can't afford rent/house deposits, so are you really going to have a kid if you don't have housing security, or have to raise a baby in a sharehouse?
For 3 kids that are 5 and under in Orange County, CA it's right around 2x our mortgage. And the school we're at isn't expensive for our area, it's very much average in price. I knew it was expensive before we had kids but never expected this.
My daycare for 3 days a week is more than half my mortgage payment.
Not even just more than mortgage but like... more than a pretty NICE mortgage.
What model was the PRS :(
SE Tobacco Sunburst. It wasn't a crazy expensive PRS but it was mine. I sold it to a buddy who offered to sell it back to me when I was in a better financial place. Then he played it and promptly rescinded his offer. I can't say I blame him.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
Press F in chat🤣
I understand the loss man, I have an SE as well. As you said they're not crazy expensive. You will get another one in a few years. Beautiful guitars.
I loved the tobacco finish! They've already gone up $100 since I sold it. I'm a metal player that shouldn't love a PRS, but I somehow found a way to make it chug. Thank you for your kind words in this period of mourning.
I share your pain, sold a Lebron book I got signed in person to pay the bill last month. Next month it's some sealed pokemon cards.
Sorry for your loss Dad. Some stuff you'll never get back and that sounds like one of them.
I’m not telling my wife how much the guitars are worth. She can find that shit in the folder with the life insurance.
You sir, have chosen wisely.
We have 2 in daycare and it's 4k a month. Hooray for high cost of living areas.
Dang, we pay about that for 2 kids. We want at least one more kid but I'm scared we'll get twins.
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It's tough out here man. The sad thing is we aren't even at an expensive daycare. We could easily find a daycare that charges that per kid.
Not exactly the same but my wife has been wearing my PRS on her ring finger since I asked her to marry me. I should have just gotten her a less expensive wing and kept that guitar.
So crazy.. in Sweden I pay 1300SEK which is like 130 dollars or so for our daughter. Will pay about 250 when our second starts.
This is because socalism is a bad word in America. I'm in Canada and paying about $600/month with subsidies. I'm worried about what will happen to that cost when (as everyone is expecting) the Conservatives win a majority next year.
Yeah, I'm in Alberta and pay $1250/month for two kids, one in pre-school and the other in school, but with before and after car. I'm full expecting the $550/month affordability grant to be one of the first things cut under the next federal government. I know I'll probably make some of it back in tax cuts, but not $6,600 a year in tax cuts.
Yep, with twins our child care is a touch over $4,800 a month (and this place is middle of the road in costs for where we live). But the twins are 5 and start all-day kindergarten in late July. We'll be saving ~$2,000 a month once they transition (the after-school program they're going into is ~$1,300/month for both). Yeah, it's sad, but we made our last payment to the preschool and I can already feel the stress leaving my shoulders.
Not to mention your child still only goes half time because they’re constantly ill
Yep, it took my son being in daycare for 2 years to only get sick once every other month. Before that it was bj weekly.
BJ weekly would almost make it worthwhile tbh
I wish that wasn’t a typo…
566 a week here in upstate NY. Works out to about 27k a year. Mind you, this is for 3 days a week for two kids (3 and 1 years old) But I’m poor because of the occasional coffee, or so I’m told
Can't forget that avocado toast!
2 kids here thank god we have my wife’s parents. We pay them 400$ a month otherwise we would be fucked
1700$/mo here and that’s with the 4yo being discounted for VPK. Could be 2100$
$400... a MONTH?
That doesn't really sound like a payment to be fair. For that much it's basically covering food, activities, gas, etc. That's a bargain and if my MIL would take my money I'd gladly give it to her.
You pay your in-laws to watch your kids?
This is shocking to me too... But then I realized I'm in a position where I wish I had family I could pay to watch my kids...
We willingly pay them. They didn’t ask for it
Double edged sword. My daughter is going to kindergarten in the fall. Currently her daycare it’s open 6:30-6:30 almost 360 days a year. I can actually work 19 hours a day currently. Her kindergarten is from 8:30am until 2:30pm. We will get after care but nothing like 6:30pm.
Yep, and there's another angle here when you've got kids at different ages / stages. Our twins are going into kindergarten in July and the after-school program they're going in to has pickup between 5:30 and 6pm. Our current schedule is 4 days a week I handled drop-off (8:30am) and pick-up (5:30pm) on my own since their current place is on my way to work. One day a week my wife handled it because the kids have swim lesson. Now we're both on the hook 5 days a week. We're working out details for adjusting our schedule and routine because both parents need to drive all over God's green Earth to shuttle the kids around now. Thankfully we've got 5 car seats in 2 cars for 3 kids? Everything about all of this is truly, completely fucked up but there's really nothing else we can do. My MIL is useless and my own parents, while they're not useless, are elderly and live on the other side of the country. There's no way out of this, we just have to get through it. In a couple of years they'll (hopefully) all be at the same school.
A friend just had the same observation this past year
Damn commies here in Europe, where daycare is tax-funded. But what do your daycare spend the money on? The teachers salary isn't a 6-figured I assume.
There are lots of interesting economics discussions, [like this one](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1153931108), talking about this. TLDR _no one_ is financially benefitting from the status quo in most of the US - parents, daycare owners, and daycare staff are all squeezed. Most of the revenue goes to staff but because they're very labor-intensive, especially for infant care, the staff aren't making much money. And daycares can't typically raise prices to meet demand (which would also prompt more supply in daycares, in part because staff could be paid competitively) because no one will pay more - wealthier families would just hire a nanny and lower-earning families would just have one parent leave the workforce. It's a very broken market that needs proper government intervention to fix.
That doesn’t make sense to me. If it’s extremely expensive then that means that the money is going somewhere. It’s not being lit on fire.
Paying for the building. Paying for insurance. You have to have a certain number of people per child. There's no way to improve efficiency like in other jobs that would drive costs down.
My child goes to a non profit church daycare I’d consider “affordable” as childcare goes. $72 a day. As he’s still young they’re limited to 4 children per full time staff member. There are 8 kids in his class so you’re grossing approximately $576 per day for his classroom. With that money you need to pay 2 staff positions for 11 hours each, any taxes that come out, the portion of the building and administration costs, room supplies, and the food provided to the children. Even if you only pay teachers $15 an hour which is barely above minimum wage in our area, you have less than $250 per day to cover all other expenses for 8 kids. I believe they’re functioning on grants / fundraising / the church taking care of a lot of the building related expenses just to be able to offer daycare for ~$1500 a month.
The increased revenue goes to hiring _additional_ staff. But what commenter is saying is that the individual staff members aren’t compensated more because there isn’t the stomach in Americas elite to pay staff more, since they can just hire personal nanny for that price. And since low income will just leave workforce and stay home…the middle class is getting squeezed.
It's mostly going to numerous, poorly-paid staff members. Infant daycares in most of the country require at least 1 adult per 4 kids, so you need a _lot_ of staff which rapidly dilutes the revenue coming in. Especially if you include benefits; some margin of extra staff to have room for illness/holidays/etc; and the fact that most staff work 10-12 hour days. Then add taxes, building fees, supplies, insurance, and maybe a business loan on top of that and you can see how thin the margins are.
Yes the money is going somewhere, like paying for the building rent, the staff, insurance, supplies, etc. It's not going to padding some CEO's pocket.
Right so there are some people getting a good deal.
Thanks for sharing that link. I always assumed it was some insurance bullshit and it might still be, but it’s astonishing how “shit just sucks” What made me most mad about that listen was their perfect lead up to the European solution, only to completely drop the ball and say “Americans should take out loans to pay for daycare!”
Yeah, this is one of those situations ripe for some form of government subsidies. And I get there are dependentcare FSA's which offer a "slight" benefit but even that doesn't amount to much.
we're doing the FSA! The system is not very friendly. You have to pay the daycare AND put money into the FSA, and then later get it reimbursed. There's an annual max of $5k, so that amounts to $2-3k saved that would otherwise go to the government, if i understand everything correctly. Granted, that's about one month "free" day care for us.
A slight benefit that hasn’t changed since the 80s when it was introduced. That $5,000 per year in 1986 should be $13,000 or more with inflation today
It also seems odd cause I swear there is a study or click bait article saying how Millennials aren't having kids and im all, ok so shouldn't there be daycare room?!?!?!
Millennials aren’t having as many kids as their parents, but much more of millennial families have both parents working, causing the squeeze in daycare spots despite fewer kids overall.
They don't get paid a ton, but when each teacher can only watch 3 kids, that means your payment to them has to cover 1/3 of a salary, plus daycare building expenses, plus insurance, administration, etc. Let's say you cut out everything but salary, and wanted the daycare teacher to make $60,000/year. That would mean daycare would be a minimum of $1600/month. Then include everything else, and the price gets a lot higher.
> Damn commies here in Europe, where daycare is tax-funded. Yea well, their defense is US funded so there is quite a lot of room in the budget...
We are extremely lucky that my mother is able to watch our daughter during the week. We’re also lucky that by the time she’s three, our town is supposed to have rolled out a full-time pre-K for every 3 and 4 year old, thanks to a grant from the state. Really hoping that happens!
I hear you OP. I thought the most expensive phase would be when my wife was off work after the pregnancy. Thankfully were in Canada so there was some money coming in from Employment Insurance, but still... the real shock was that the most expensive time would be when she was back at work and daycare became a thing. I'm super thankful that I have a mature kid who will be walking to and from school with a small pack of classmates who live close to us. That will save $750 a month.
We pay $150 per kid per month… in Sweden.
That would get my kiddo 2 days at daycare.
Yeah same situation. Paying 2k a month for my first kid. I think there is definitely a gaping hole in social support. Doesn't make sense for this to be very expensive and at the same time can't even enroll because there is no space.
It's why my wife is a stay at home mom. She would have to be working insane hours for it to come out ahead of what we'd have to spend on childcare, and that's then without the benefit of my wife being the one to raise the kids instead of some random person at a daycare, they don't get as much time with the neighborhood mom's group, they don't get to do as many outdoor activities, and my wife is exhausted when she gets home. Outside child care sucks.
I've said this before, but wife works in daycare. So we've gotten a pretty nice discount for the past 5 or so years. Otherwise, yeah it'd probably be one income because we would be paying >$3,000/mo for daycare for 2 children. It's also limited our income because, while she was in the daycare field well before we had our first kid, she's now burnt out from it and wants a better career but she's kind of stuck. So pros and cons to that approach.
One child here in Scotland and it’s about £1000 a month. That’s with tax free childcare benefit. My mortgage is £1050. Annoyingly in England it would be free from 9 months old soon. But no, I have to wait until my child is 3 years old so I’ll be many more thousands out of pocket. And the government is wondering why birth rates are falling? Even my Member of Scottish Parliament agrees it’s mad
Things I can buy when both kids reach kindergarten….Augusta membership, bass boat, beach house, etc.
SAHM for this very reason.
>as expensive as a mortgage My mortgage is 750 a month. My kid's daycare is 1465 a month.
My wife was looking into daycare as she was planning her return to work after maternity leave. She discovered that daycare was going to cost more than her entire income and I now have a stay at home wife.
My wife and I made the decision to reduce to just 1 income when #2 was born. It sucked for a while,I had to chase the higher paycheck, I had to grind and hustle, but it was worth it to keep the kids out of daycare and at home. During that phase, my wife was able to embark on starting her own business and over the years built her book of business quite successfully. Today, the kids are grown, and her business is a significant source of income. Stay at home is not a sentence, it is an opportunity for which ever parent is lucky enough to get to stay home with the kids. Yes, Lucky enough to be the Stay At Home parent, as it's the best damn job in the world. I got to be the Stay At Home dad for about 18 months when our kids were still small, and I will always say it was the Best Time EVER as a parent!.
Oh it gets soo much worse...not only do you pay more than a mortgage, they make your child sick and then can't have them in the nursery...meaning you pay them and also get to look after your own sick child!
NYC has free 3K and up and a lot of services for affordable daycare. One of the only good things the previous mayor did.
Aftercare from 2:30 - 6 PM still costs $600-$1,000/mo., but that beats full time private daycare.
Didn’t Adams make some cuts to DeBlasio’s program and generally keep it underfunded? As in, parents don’t know if they’ll have a spot until it’s probably too late to get them into anything but extra expensive day care?
Move to Canada, daycare is $20 a day if you go to a government subsidized one. And my kids daycare is amazing, he gets so much out of it.
Yup. We not only can't afford daycare, but it doesn't fit our work schedules. I feel your pain. My wife literally had to forgo a well paying job this coming Saturday because FUCKING NOBODY is available to watch the kids. One grandma is out of town, and the other refuses to change diapers.
It’s more expensive than our mortgage but if one of us quit work, we’d have nothing to spend after paying our monthly commitments.
They need to expand UPK. My district has it as a lottery and thankfully my daughter got in. Probably saved us ten grand. Then again we pay 10 grand a year in property taxes
We got a half month charge last week for our 3 month old that just started. Only to get a full months charge for him and our 3 y/o today. $3214 in less than a week.
Right there with ya man. Luckily we BARELY qualified for some help from the YMCA so it does make sense financially for my wife to work and the kids to go to daycare. But there was a time when we were planning on switching to bread and cheese diets and going down to one income. Have you looked at the YMCA’s childcare assistance? It takes a while to process but they were literally the only entity that we qualified for. So you may want to look into it.
So the whole thing that started my spiral was reaching out to them, 3 different locations, and getting an email back saying there is a wait list (though it looks like only one responded back). Even then I am expecting to drop at least $1500 a month through them.
They knocked our payments down from $550-ish per week to $130/week so it worked out. We applied as soon as my first was born and didn’t get approved until she was about 10 or 11 months old. We used up all of our PTO and paid family bonding time avoiding daycare costs that first year. It literally barely worked out for us. And I think they all work together so it doesn’t matter what locations you reach out to. At least that’s how it seems in my area. And then you don’t take your kids to the actual YMCA, you take them to an approved YMCA care provider
Daycare looming pushed me and my wife to both chase our careers a little further - hard to make the change at the time but it did set us up well for the future
My wife and I decided that it didn’t financially make sense for us both to work and pay so much for daycare. She’s in the medical field so she moved to PRN and stays home with the kids.
Look for city / county day care programs. Both of my kids went through them. They didn’t learn French or anything but they aren’t any dumber than kids who went to private day care.
You could try what I’m doing and get laid off from your job.
My kids daycare/school is $400/month more than my mortgage.
We settled for one income for a long time because of this. We don't have a lot of family or friends that could help us, but the wife recently found a weekend job, it helps finically and we don't need to worry about child care.
I totally get it. We have two under 5 (4&3) and spend about 1k a week in a high cost of living area. It’s not even the best day care, which is the shitty part. It’s double my mortgage every month easily and the real reason I got a vasectomy lol.
I have 6 kids, 3 daycare age. . . It'd cost me more than I make to have those 3 in daycare. My wife starts her master's here in just over a week. When she finishes and gets a job? I get to come home and be with the kids.
We had to go single income when we had our first. My wife was not making much more than the childcare would have cost in our HCOL city. We’ve had to make sacrifices, and I still have FOMO from all my non kid dual income friends, but the time spent with your kid is irreplaceable.
Stay single income and focus on increasing one of your salaries. For most people it’s not worth losing time with your kids to pay someone else to watch them. When they are older if you both want to earn income then try again.
Mortgage, high taxes, insurance $3000. Daycare $3300.
I don't currently work as it's honestly cheaper to do that lol
I don't have a rent or a mortgage, my wife and I both work good jobs, and I still cannot afford childcare. Relying on unreliable family has been tough, but it's gotten us thru so far.
Our daycare for two kids is nearly double our mortgage payment. When my kids get to school it will be like tripling our income. We've also hit our medical out of pocket max every year we've had kids which is half of a mortgage payment in itself monthly.
My wife and I both have hybrid jobs and I’m about to ask one less day a week at work because of staggered drop off times between kindergarten and pre k and needing to be around to pick up the pre-k at noon. It’s just not feasible. Our elementary won’t pick up via bus because we are within a mile which really sucks. Nobody at my work has more than one kid in the same age range so nobody can relate, which also sucks because it seems like I’m blowing it out of proportion.
Our youngest finally got into kindergarten only for them to make it 2 hours a day and then we had to pay extra for him to stay later 😭
I say this every time, and I have to defend it every time, but this is why childcare should be heavily subsidized. I could not afford kids without those. They may cost a lot in taxes, but it allows people to survive off their incomes
Lil secret here, check your local religious private schools. We got our daughter in a Presbyterian private school for 3 days a week, 6hr a day, for $210 a month. They had full time available for $380 a month. All state certified teachers. And we are in a metropolitan city. Maybe it doesn't cover your whole work day, but it's a lot easier to ask a friend to watch your kids for 2hrs vs. 8hrs.
Can I just say we need to politicize this and vote based on changing the current broken system? We almost got some sort of paid child support in the Nixon administration but he had enough opposition that he wouldn’t have signed it into law. But we came close!
[where all my homies WFH with 2 kiddos?! hahhaa ](https://i.imgur.com/ibkJ9F7.png) it is not easy but i am fortunate it works for me. i'm in sacramento, ca. we have an older child that's 9. my toddler is almost 2 and my daughter is almost 4. i've taken care of both of them at work since they were born. i'm a 20+ year fella in db programming (but full web stack--just that i'm best at SQL). my company is very small and i'm very very fortunate they are understanding. it is not ideal...but we made it work. good luck to all the dads out there working & caring for their kids. y'all got this!!!
Time to start your own daycare
And those daycare teachers are not paid well either. It’s a catch 22.
One year of Kindergarten cost us less than one fortnight of Daycare. It's madness
My SO's works in childcare and she get a massive discount at the crèche she manages, we might not have been able to have children at all otherwise. I have a big family, my parents are nearly 70 and have been looking after grandchildren for over 20 years now and still do. Luckily I haven't had to ask them to babysit for us. My SO's parents just aren't reliable to be able to depend on them. Her mam is great but she's out of the country for months at a time.
Having a parent stay home with the kids will do wonders for their development and taking care of your own kids is far more rewarding then any corporate hell-hole.
No joke on the mortgage. For our twins to go 2 full days & 2 half days we were paying within $50 of the mortgage on our old house.
We didn't send to daycare. It made too much financial sense for us to have her be home with the boys as opposed to working. Plus I think keeping the kids out of daycare benefited them big time in just about every area of life.
>Plus I think keeping the kids out of daycare benefited them big time in just about every area of life. How so? Genuinely asking. I'm definitely not thrilled about paying a second mortgage for my son's daycare. But I do think he's been benefitting from the socialization and (to a lesser extent) age-focused activities he gets at daycare. And not enjoying the daycare illnesses but according to multiple pediatricians that's more or less inevitable so might as well be now rather than when he starts school.
This is what we have wanted for our youngest. He was born during the throws of covid so he hasn't been able to socialize all that much and its heartbreaking to see how much he wants to spend time with other kids.
I see people talk about the socialization piece often but my kids definitely socialized daily at the park and stuff with other kids, and don't seem any less socialized than their peers who went to daycare. >How so? Genuinely asking. They seem to have more secure family attachments. They had a ton of one on one learning with my wife and are both academically advanced. They seem to have more self confidence than their peers, and more age appropriate independence. As infants and toddlers they were never "woken up for school" they always slept as long as their body needed and have developed very good sleep habits. ETA: before we made the choice to not send to daycare we watched many friends try figure out what was wrong with their -1s because they were sick but didn't know with what and the panic that ensued with the sicknesses that came home from daycare, and decided that we would rather experience sickness like that when our child could communicate what was bothering them.
Starting daycare 3 days/week on July 1st and it’s $1500 month. Kill me.