What do you pay for child car/preschool? How to save?

[rizzo0904]

We live in an expensive area. We switched to a nanny....$480 per week. That's on top of private school. We work odd hours so our nanny works a lot while the kids are sleeping.

 

[barkley]

Thread should say child care not child car..autocorrected.

Our daycare is currently around $555 per month down from $620 when she was in the baby room. (21 months now)

Our friends in urban area's have to pay much more so we know it could be worse but it is still a big expense for us and we worry about having a second child with this expense x2.

We are currently looking at preschools that are closer to 900 a month and more school style for next fall. But have not yet decided to leave her in daycare or make the move to a preschool. This preschool still has full work hours(we both work) but has more days off in a school type of calendar

Did you move out of traditional daycare to a more structured and more expensive preschool? Why or why not?

when my kids were of that age (actualy in that state it was at age 3-3 1/2 if they were 'FULLY POTTY TRAINED') the only option to keep them in a daycare (not preschool) setting was a private home daycare because all the centers designated only did infant/toddler and preschool. our best option was to keep our kids in the center they were at because it was associated with a private k-12 school that offered before/after school care (which our public schools did not). the kids in preschool got first rights for enrollment in the k classes so unless a person had someone who was willing to pickup afterschool and do daycare it was pretty much the only way to go. it did pretty much adhere to the public school calendar for daycare but they did offer summer care so dh and I would build up our leave time to split taking days off work for the school breaks.

(I understand none of us are in the same facilities so experience will vary greatly)

my youngest is turning 18 next week but I well remember paying over $1000 per month for the 2 of them when NEITHER was in the infant/toddler center (at the point both were in the preschool). just for the heck of it I checked the website for the place my kids attended back then to see what they charge now-(in addition to about $600 per family in yearly registration/mandatory fees)-one child in the infant/toddler full time (m-f open 6:30-6, and the only option if the child is staying after 12 noon) $1175 per month. if the child does preschool (same hours, again only option if child stays after 12 noon) $942 per month.

yup it's expensive.

 

[TravelandLeisure]

We currently pay $680/month and absolutely detest writing the check out every month. Because of the ridiculous cost of daycare, DH and I have purposefully postponed having another child until our DD is in kindergarten (there is no free pre-K where we live). There is no way I would pay the cost for 2 kids; I would just have to quit my job and stay home

 

[tnd]

We pay just under $1000 per month for our almost 4 year old at a center. (it hurts to type that out) She will be moving to the pre-kindergarten room this spring when she turns 4. They have a similar curriculum to other preschools in our area, but are open from 6:30 am -6:30 pm, which I need. I am happy with the center, so I don't plan to move her. I also don't worry much about academic programs for 4 year olds. I think it is more important for kids to play and learn how to cope with other kids at that age.

As I was typing this, I realized that we will be paying another $1000 starting in April for our baby to go the same daycare. Ouch! Daycare plus after-school care for our oldest will be close to what we pay on our mortgage.

 

[CalDisneyMomof2]

Wow - I can't believe what some of you have to pay. I'm incredibly grateful for what we have. We live in a very high cost area yet the prices aren't as ridiculous as what you all have to pay.

 

[lauradis]

Thread should say child care not child car..autocorrected.

Our daycare is currently around $555 per month down from $620 when she was in the baby room. (21 months now)

Our friends in urban area's have to pay much more so we know it could be worse but it is still a big expense for us and we worry about having a second child with this expense x2.

We are currently looking at preschools that are closer to 900 a month and more school style for next fall. But have not yet decided to leave her in daycare or make the move to a preschool. This preschool still has full work hours(we both work) but has more days off in a school type of calendar

Did you move out of traditional daycare to a more structured and more expensive preschool? Why or why not?



(I understand none of us are in the same facilities so experience will vary greatly)

We always did in home nanny / home daycare. But we work/worked in fields where are hours where little more flexible.

Brick and mortar daycare's seemed just so expensive and non flexible.

I wouldn't beat the quit work stay at home mom drum to much, but it was the best thing I ever did for our children. I never quit working just made it more flexible for our family. It was little less stressful. Now that the kids are almost gone, I work still on a flex schedule.

 

[DisneyHoover]

I work at a child care center and our cost for infants is $675 a month. I can't even imagine paying $1000 for a 3 or 4 year old. Ouch!

 

[JenB1104]

We pay 195 a week for full time preschool. We made the move due to our work hours and needing a place that was open longer than the home daycare we were using. It has been worth it to us, but I am looking forward to the start of Kindergarten next year to give us a "raise" We got a 10 percent discount since we are both educators. Military gets a discount at our place too.

 

[mistysue]

When DD was 1 I moved to a lower COL area largely because of daycare costs. I went from paying $230/week for 3 full days to $150/week for 5 full days.
With her, I moved her to a more expensive preschool for more structure. Both of her brothers have stayed in the less expensive, less structured program and honestly they are both doing better than she did.
At the preschool level it is critical that they are getting the information, but so much of it at this age is on them- they are either going to absorb it or not. If you make sure the information is presented the structure is not going to do much until later. I would stay with the less expensive program. Then be sure you are reading books in the evening and do cheesy things like count the words on a page, ask which page has more "A"'s or whatever.

 

[smiths02]

I see a few of you mentioned not wanting to pay daycare for two. I timed my pregnancies out to avoid two in daycare (or later two in college). But I had twins. They are 2 years old and we pay $388/week (and we have to pay for 51 weeks a year or potentially lose our spot). So about $1650/month.

 

[barkley]

We pay just under $1000 per month for our almost 4 year old at a center. (it hurts to type that out) She will be moving to the pre-kindergarten room this spring when she turns 4. They have a similar curriculum to other preschools in our area, but are open from 6:30 am -6:30 pm, which I need. I am happy with the center, so I don't plan to move her. I also don't worry much about academic programs for 4 year olds. I think it is more important for kids to play and learn how to cope with other kids at that age.

As I was typing this, I realized that we will be paying another $1000 starting in April for our baby to go the same daycare. Ouch! Daycare plus after-school care for our oldest will be close to what we pay on our mortgage.

it's crazy isn't it? it got to a point with us that when my government employer offered voluntary furlough (but retaining full leave/benefits) I ran the numbers with our then cpa and found that despite taking a 25% pay cut we ended up ahead because doing it allowed us to eliminate the need for before and afterschool care (I did 2 hours per day of unpaid furlough), it also put us in a lower tax bracket which put us even further ahead.

just the other day I was talking to someone about daycare costs, and both of us remarked about how when the economy tanked and many of the families we know that had one of the parents out of work had to cut costs-daycare was the immediate first item to be eliminated. what's been interesting as the economy has been recovering is seeing how many of these parents (both moms and dads) finding how much employment cost them what with daycare, commute/tolls, work apparel and such....and finding they have more in their budgets by virtue of providing their own childcare. I know quite a few professionals who never dreamed of being stay at home parents until the recession forced it upon them, now that jobs are becoming more available it's fascinating to see the number that are opting to wait to return after their kids get beyond the need for before/afterschool care.

 

[smiths02]

I don't worry about curriculum as much as I worry about staff ratios, staff turnover, staff education level, and ability to monitor what is going on.
I like a low staff ratio and being able to watch on webcam. I like that the daycare pays well enough to have educated and trained people around my children.

 

[kandb]

My son is in kindergarten now but last year when he was 4 years old, we paid $970/month for 3 days full time for nursery school. It was a great nursery school
and we live in northern NJ. Everything is expensive here.

 

[staceyeileen]

I am happy with the center, so I don't plan to move her. I also don't worry much about academic programs for 4 year olds. I think it is more important for kids to play and learn how to cope with other kids at that age.

This is pretty much how I feel. Isn't that what pre-school is all about?

 

[Saimaeve]

I work from home full-time, but I can't imagine having a baby home with me. I would not get any work done. How does that work out for you?

She's older now So not an issue. Before, I worked while she slept at night and my husband cared for her while I slept, and we switched off.

 

[NY Pirate Princess]

I switched my girl out of a family based day care (160 a week lunch and snacks) at 3 to go to a private preschool (170 a week nothing included). I hate New York. I now pay $118 a week for before and after school care. Summer will be at least $180 a week. I don't think that preschool is required for successful kids, but it was for mine. At $10 more a week, the move was more than worth it. We contribute fully to dependent care pretax account and STILL get a tax break on the remainder of our more than $8000 a year care bill.

The more I read (and the longer this dreadful winter goes on) the more I don't understand why I don't live in Florida already.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

Thread should say child care not child car..autocorrected.

Our daycare is currently around $555 per month down from $620 when she was in the baby room. (21 months now)

Our friends in urban area's have to pay much more so we know it could be worse but it is still a big expense for us and we worry about having a second child with this expense x2.

We are currently looking at preschools that are closer to 900 a month and more school style for next fall. But have not yet decided to leave her in daycare or make the move to a preschool. This preschool still has full work hours(we both work) but has more days off in a school type of calendar

Did you move out of traditional daycare to a more structured and more expensive preschool? Why or why not?



(I understand none of us are in the same facilities so experience will vary greatly)

We use a center and the ratio requirements in Maryland are 1:3 for all babies under aged 2, with no crib sharing. Our cost is currently $324/week for our almost 4 month old. This will not go down until he turns 2, and in fact will probably go up 2 times before that because our center raises prices every year and does not lock anyone in at the old rate. All of the nice centers in this area are in the $300-$400 price range per week.

Our daycare is "school-style" so that wouldn't have any impact on our choosing to change schools.

I have considered an au-pair- they are about $360/week, and could help out with my 7 year old as well. We decided it would just be too much to have another person living in our house and would cost much more than the stated price. But one thing to consider is that most people who have an au pair/nanny and preschool aged kids are ALSO paying for part-time preschool for the education, structure, and peer interaction.

This is my first experience with this as I stayed home with the 1st 3, and number 4 came along at a time where it just isn't financially feasible for me to quit my job and start over AGAIN in my career.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

I work at a child care center and our cost for infants is $675 a month. I can't even imagine paying $1000 for a 3 or 4 year old. Ouch!

What is your teacher:infant ratio? I always hear people complaining about Maryland being so expensive because of our 1:3 ratio, but to me, one teacher to 3 babies is still a lot! Imagine all 3 needing to be changed/fed at the same time. My son's center has 3 infant rooms, with a maximum of 6 babies each. They move up in each room depending on developmental level, so no one in his room is crawling yet. After 18 months, they are moved to "toddler" classrooms, which still have to maintain the 1:3 ratio. The rooms are just bigger and have more activities.

 

[disney55]

Different perspective here...I am a childcare provider in a Boston suburb. I charge $125.00 for 1 child/ $200.00 for 2 children for an 8 hour day. This is for any 8 hours chosen between 7am-6pm. I only care for one family at a time. The family also provides all supplies for child/children including all food. I get paid for any holidays but not vacations. If I am sick I do not get paid, if child/parent is sick and stay home I do. I realize after reading this thread that this seems like a lot of money, but in doing the simple math it works out to $15.62 an hour. In my area I could make that same $125.00 in 4 hours by walking dogs/dog sitting.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

Different perspective here...I am a childcare provider in a Boston suburb. I charge $125.00 for 1 child/ $200.00 for 2 children for an 8 hour day. This is for any 8 hours chosen between 7am-6pm. I only care for one family at a time. The family also provides all supplies for child/children including all food. I get paid for any holidays but not vacations. If I am sick I do not get paid, if child/parent is sick and stay home I do. I realize after reading this thread that this seems like a lot of money, but in doing the simple math it works out to $15.62 an hour. In my area I could make that same $125.00 in 4 hours by walking dogs/dog sitting.

So for 2 kids, it would be $1,000 per week? That does seem steep, and I'm paying one of the highest amounts on this thread. I also think the 8 hours is tough for most families. DH and I are able to stagger our hours so he goes in later, drops the baby off at 8:30, and I pick him up at 4:30. But we are both required to be in the office 9 hours a day (can't skip lunch although most of the time we do work through it!) plus commuting time. If we worked the same hours, he would be there 10+ hours each day.