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Average Cost of Daycare

  1. KT326

    pomegranate / 3438 posts

    Right now we pay $1220 per month for my 3 year old. That's what we will pay (plus any annual increases) until he goes to kindergarten. The infant price right now is $1,800. One reason we are having a larger age gap so we can minimize the time we have double daycare costs. Though we will still have to pay around $600 for after school care. It's never ending.

  2. Mrs. Oatmeal

    blogger / honeydew / 7081 posts

    We pay about $500 a month for three days a week at an in-home daycare centre. Its maybe 1/5 of my take-home pay. When I go back after this maternity leave, fulltime daycare costs for two kids will probably eat up closer to 1/2 of my take home pay. Its a little crazy, but I know we have it easier than many.

  3. Autumnmama79

    pear / 1703 posts

    Before kindergarten, we were paying $40/day for an in-home preschool/daycare, but that was a relative steal for around here. Typically its $65 and up per day - thats if you can even find a spot. In order to have a daycare spot in the city, you really need to register before the child is born and I've heard of people paying for 'spots' before the LO is even ready for daycare just to hold their place. The daycare situation is brutal here in Vancouver.

  4. MrsSRS

    nectarine / 2987 posts

    @math.nerd: Same here. Unexpectedly losing those months of work for bedrest and NICU stay and then me not returning to work as much as we intended absolutely drained our savings. Two years later and I feel like we still just can't make enough progress.

  5. plantains

    grapefruit / 4671 posts

    I pay 2500 for infant care and 1950 for preschool. Pretty much more than the entire take home of one of us.

  6. sera_87

    pomegranate / 3604 posts

    @simplyfelicity: I pay that too, and have 2 kids. I do get 75% of that covered by a tax credit (my province has a 7$/day daycare policy). So it's 25% total of my monthly take home pay, 12.5% per kid.

  7. Miss Ariel

    nectarine / 2210 posts

    We live in Louisiana and according to an article I recently read costs here are some of the lowest in the country percentage wise. It's around 15% of my salary, a full 5 days for an 8-month-old,

  8. yellowbird

    honeydew / 7303 posts

    I pay 1000 a month for a sahm to watch my 3 year old and 5 month old 5 days a week. Very affordable. I'm scared to move next year because I know it will be substantially more.

  9. Alivoo01

    wonderful olive / 19353 posts

    We decided to go with an in-home Montessori bc it was significantly cheaper. However, when we were looking at "public" places, it ranged from $800 - $1,500. Some included food while others didn't. Seemed like the more expensive ones didn't include food or anything else, but the "cheaper" ones did.

    I live in North Texas.

  10. MrsKoala

    cantaloupe / 6869 posts

    $340/week, $17680/year. Almost 40% of my salary.

  11. NeekieRose

    persimmon / 1386 posts

    When we had our second we switched from a center to a home daycare. Saving are substantial. Went from over $1400/month($17k/year) to just over $1000/month ($12k/year) for each girl.

  12. 2PeasinaPod

    pomelo / 5524 posts

    We're looking at $1,100/month for full time infant care. DS will be starting at $910/month for full time Pre-School/child care.

  13. Chillybear

    pomegranate / 3032 posts

    We went with an independent "Learning Center" that takes infants-Kindergarten. As in infant we were paying $182/week for 4 days (i think it was $198 for 5 days) full time 6:30am-6pm. Now its $173/week for 5 days because she's in the toddler room and that included breakfast/lunch/snacks. We're about 40 min north of Philadelphia in a lower income town but its only 10 minutes from my office. I am so happy with her daycare and I feel for the care we receive its very reasonable.

  14. MoreCoffee

    apricot / 320 posts

    We pay about $1300/month for the 2s class at a center. It's dropped from $1400/month for infant care. We're in the DC exurbs and commute into the city/wah.

  15. littlejoy

    pomegranate / 3375 posts

    @math.nerd: We are in your situation too!!! Renting, used savings for medical bills ... Our city is high for daycare costs, and it's really sad that we might have to move outside of our ideal area, because we'll never be able to save for a down payment. Sometimes I think I should just start a daycare!

  16. My Only Sunshine

    persimmon / 1129 posts

    I'm in the Midwest. Ours is $95/week for 2 days. She's at probably the most expensive place in town, but we only need care Wednesdays and Thursdays and they were the only ones who could be that flexible. Full time, it would be pretty costly.

    They also provide breakfast, lunch, and two snacks, which helps the cost seem less crazy.

  17. ShootingStar

    coconut / 8472 posts

    I live north of Boston and we go to a smaller, non-chain center. For my toddler the cost is 14% of my salary, 22% of my take home. Overall it's about 11% of our total take home.

  18. JoJoGirl

    cantaloupe / 6206 posts

    Um % before or after taxes? I only work 4 days a week but daycare right now for one toddler is about $1400/month, comes out to about 31% of my salary BEFORE taxes/health insurance. Also live in the Boston area.

  19. Modern Daisy

    grapefruit / 4187 posts

    Mine is about 25% of my after tax/retirement pay. Can't go much cheaper in my area, in-home daycare doesn't really exist but there are more expensive options!

  20. SeptMomma12

    pear / 1849 posts

    For an infant and a preschooler, it's $2800/month for full-time. Like a second mortgage

    We're in northern NJ.

  21. mrs. eagle

    coffee bean / 38 posts

    I live in the midwest and daycare 5 days a week costs $483.00 per month with breakfast, lunch and snacks being provided. We supply diapers, wipes and anything our kiddo needs. I currently have my 2 yr old dd enrolled 3 days a week for $370.00 per month. Hours are from 7:30 - 5:30 pm.

  22. Alba4

    nectarine / 2951 posts

    I live in Westchester (just north of NYC) and we pay $860/month for 2 days a week for a toddler. Crazy.

  23. hummusgirl

    persimmon / 1233 posts

    @math.nerd: I know how you feel. My unsolicited advice would be to not worry about buying a house for a loooong time! We just did a few months ago for the first time, and are now totally "house poor" despite making really good salaries. I won't say I regret it but houses are really not all they're cracked up to be, especially from a financial perspective when you also have childcare costs.

  24. DillonLion

    GOLD / eggplant / 11517 posts

    It was a lot more of my salary at the beginning, but we've gotten raises since then so the percentage has dropped! I think a lot of people don't take that into account.

  25. daniellemybelle

    cantaloupe / 6669 posts

    Our daycare was about $45/day for 7am-5pm. And it was not the most expensive in the area. It was a church based preschool that started at 6 months. The catch was they followed the public school calendar so they closed all the time.

  26. JoJoGirl

    cantaloupe / 6206 posts

    Actually I should add that ours is $1400/month (4 days/week) after a TON of financial assistance, like 20% off annual tuition, AND they are closed 14 weeks/year following the school calendar (Christmas, Feb break, April break, and most of summer)

  27. Mamasig

    pomegranate / 3565 posts

    I pay $1,200/month for two kids. It's about 9% of our gross annual income. We live in Louisiana.

  28. ScarletBegonia

    persimmon / 1339 posts

    $115/day * 4 days a week * 50 weeks a year = $23000/yr, and the government offers a max $7500 rebate per year (we get the max at the moment), so the net cost for us is about $15500/yr, Australian dollars. We are at one of the cheapest centres in our area. Metropolitan Sydney.

  29. Anagram

    eggplant / 11716 posts

    I'm outside NYC and centers here average about 2100/child full time (some are more, some are less).

    Now that we have two, I am hoping to find a nanny share for the baby (around 1600/month) and take my older one to daycare out near my work where its cheaper. Either way, childcare for two is most of my salary, but I have a great family insurance plan and This is my tenure year at work, so im pressing on despite almost working for free.

  30. DesertDreams88

    grapefruit / 4361 posts

    For a daycare center, it would be $1000/month, which is half of my take-home pay. DH makes a bit less than me and his insurance premiums are double what mine are, so they're about 60% of his take-home pay. Regardless, given our income level and various bills, one of us staying home is not a workable option. We'd be on the borderline of qualifying for public assistance but not actually qualify. We are both teachers and haven't gotten raises in the past 5 years.

    Thank God for GrandmaCare. If GrandmaCare doesn't work out, we'll have to go with an in-home daycare at around $600 a month.

  31. lilyofthewest

    pear / 1697 posts

    I'm in close-in metro DC. We just got a spot in a home daycare that's $300/wk (or $70/day for part time). It works out to being about 1/3 of my take-home pay.

    The least expensive option we found was $280/wk. Most were 350-430/wk. The more typically priced daycares were about 1/2 of my take-home pay.

    We feel really lucky that we found a very affordable provider that we like - we've been on 5 daycare waitlists since I was in my first trimester and none of those actually have any openings yet.

    We've spent the last two weeks scouring every listserv in our area and cold-calling dozens of daycares for openings and found two places that do have full-time spots open -- the one we took, and one that costs $418/wk.

    We do use the childcare FSA, and started deductions for it right when LO was born even though we didn't need daycare until he was 4.5mo old. Sweetie's employer puts a free $1,000 the FSA and we deduct out the other $4,000 pre-tax. The FSA money we started deducting in May will completely cover LO's care until late Dec or early January, but then we're going to start feeling some budget crunch. After that point we'll be able to charge every 3rd or 4th week to the FSA.

  32. travellingbee

    hostess / papaya / 10219 posts

    My toddlers daycare costs us 30% of my salary(before taxes!)

  33. Dr. Pepper

    apricot / 461 posts

    Wow! Ours costs $2.50/hr. We only pay for the number of hours our child is there. If we assume an average of 45 hrs/week that is about $112.50 per week which is about $450 per month and $5,850 per year. Which is less than 5% of our income. I'm in the midwest.

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