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We are in a home daycare and love it. Cheaper doesn't always equate to crappy care I hope you find something!

We cut all of our other expenses off (no gym, cable, hair cuts, clothes, travel, toys, etc) and budget every dollar. We make good money for our area. And we regularly try to make extra income by having garage sales and whatnot. That is how we swing it.

We just kinda found ways to make it work. Cutting back on projects, clothes spending, savings, etc.

I'm facing the same thing, but as a result of me being PT so I can go to school FT (which means bringing in a lot less money, and paying for tuition on top of FT daycare!). The daycare I'm looking at is around the same as you, and though there are a few in-homes slightly cheaper, they're not as convenient. So we need to figure out what to do.

Even though daycare is expensive, just remember that the daycare workers are still paid crappy I've worked in the childcare industry and daycare workers especially are not compensated fairly, resulting in some high turnover rates. And nannies need to charge a fair living wage to support themselves. It's just a hard battle, because in the end we all need to make a living - whether you work in childcare or not. I wish so much there was gov't subsidized daycare so that workers were paid more fairly, and making it more affordable for parents to work.

We cut out almost everything fun. We no longer have cable, Netflix, Amazon Prime. We go out to eat very rarely and we try to be frugal with grocery shopping. We don't shop for ourselves. If we want something, we save up for it to buy it. We give ourselves very little fun money each month. We don't have car payments so, that helps us. Someday when we need a new car, we are probably going to struggle.

Daycare for two is going to be over 1200/month here...still less than some big cities. It doesn't make financial sense for me to quit my job...and here, I can enroll in pre-k at 3 and it will reduce our costs. I also have a dependent care account.

You just have to make it work; so whatever that means for you personally - cut out extras, pay off other debt on an escalated schedule to free up $$ each month, etc.

Also, look into whether you're eligible to sign up for a dependent care account. It takes pre-tax $ and puts it in an account, which you then draw out of to reimburse yourself for daycare expenses. The max is only a measly $5k a year, but it does save you over just paying in full with your post-tax (net) money.

It does suck! I live paycheck to paycheck and do not save even $1 a month

But I tell myself its temporary and in a few years I will have much more disposable income!

We waited until we could afford it before we had kids. Infant care is over $2k per month here.
As a result, we'll probably have a smaller family.

@yoursilverlining: I actually just asked HR about that. What I didn't know is that the 5k is an IRS rule. I was thinking we could do a dependent care account through both my husband's work AND my work! But nope.

I know for us, it felt impossible to afford daycare, especially after we found out we were having twins. We paid nearly $2k/month for twin infants in daycare the first year and before we started having to pay that much each month out, I never believed it was in our budget. But, it may surprise you what you can afford when you have to.

For us, we found that a lot of our extra spending went away after having babies because we just didn't have the time or energy to go out to eat as often, hang out at the bar with friends on the weekend, go shopping for clothes, etc. So that eliminated a lot of unnecessary spending from our budget that instead goes to daycare now.

Depending on your joint income you may or may not qualify for subsidized daycare. I think each state has different limits, but if you're making pennies it might not hurt to check.

It's definitely tough. We pay our nanny more than double what you quoted (and that's just our half of the share... ), so I am counting down the days until we get into daycare. Even with two kids in daycare (we are TTC #2), it will be cheaper than our current situation.

It doesn't work for our family to have one of us at home, but I have a lot of friends who stopped working because it just wasn't worth the cost of childcare in our area. We budget our "fun" money a lot more carefully, and we don't go out nearly as much as we did pre-baby, so all of that money spent on date nights and dinners out now go towards childcare.

@yoursilverlining: @Mrs. Pen: For real! I go through that $5K in 4 months

We're in an in-home Montessori. It was significantly cheaper, and they're registered and licensed with the state so I felt good going in. There's definitely some things I'm not happy with, but with it being $400 cheaper than big box places, I just cringe and move on.

@Littlebit: I also wanted to add that some centers provide diapers and wipes with the cost. Ours doesn't, but if one near you does that would definitely be something to consider when comparing the cost to in-home.

We also use an in-home daycare who I LOVE and pay 200.00 per week. We like most here cut back on other expenses and also maxed out my husband's dependent care FSA which covers about half of our child care costs. The cost of day care is also why we are planning on spacing our kids out 4-5 years (only aiming for 2). Prior to having a little one in daycare we still had seperate bank accounts but found that by finally combining out incomes we could still meet our financial goals and pay for child care.

@yoursilverlining: They need to up that! $5k is like 3 months of daycare for 1 LO.

@Smurfette: I haven't used it yet... but can you evenly space it out - like contribute just $400 a month? That would make it seem so much more manageable!