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Well, we spend A LOT less on ourselves so I like to think that funds have just been reallocated. However, having two kids in daycare is another story. That would be almost $50k/year for me -- yikes! That's why we only have one so far!

We just spend so much less on ourselves. I always look back on our lives before Wagon Jr. and wonder where all the cash went!!!

@Andrea: yes, I'm totally dreading the double daycare costs, which will be at least 1/2 a year since Wagon Jr. was born after the cutoff and will not be eligible for public preschool until he's almost 4. And that's with my mom coming for the first 6 months and spacing this baby almost 3 years after Wagon Jr.!

This is why we are seriously considering moving back home to mass before we have a second baby because our parents would help out with watching the kids at least a couple of days a week. I don't understand how people afford full time day care for two kids!! Before my first ultrasound I told my husband if it was twins we would seriously have to consider me not working because my take home pay after two kids in day care would be pretty slim!

Oh, my husband had that freak-out, as well. We would get so mad when people would say, oh you just stop eating out and buying coffees as much. We don't do that all the time! We don't spend a lot on ourselves and when we sat down and looked at our expenses, we realized we could do it with one. We would still have a little bit left over for savings and emergencies.

We also have a buffer if one of us ever lost our job - we're paying a lot more than our mortgage each month so we have it paid off in 13 years. If we had a catastrophe, we could still afford a child by cutting back on that, if necessary.

I would suggest doing your research. Sit down and look at your income, look at your bills and then research daycare in your area. Honestly, if you're in DC? You might not find one that you want to send your child to for $1000/mo. Figure out where your money is going and how you'll relocate it when a baby comes around.

My husband and I get $50 each a month for ourselves and everything else goes to daycare/bills. We're negotiating with our daycare center right now because #2 is due in September and we can't afford to pay full price for 2. If they aren't able to work with us we've started exploring in-home daycare providers who cost about half as much as a daycare center but with LO being 2yo I have reservations because she is learning so much at our current daycare/pre-school and I don't want to see her miss out on the pre-school part.

I second what @MediaGirl said above-start looking at it now so you can be prepared when you need it.

Luckily we are in an area that childcare isn't as expensive as a big city, but we are planning on cutting out a lot of the unnecessary spending that we do now as it will still be around 600-700 a month.

No advice, just want to wish you good luck! I don't know how people do it. I'm lucky because my parents paid for all of my college and grad school, and I didn't make a lot of money at my job so it made more sense for me to stay home. But I feel like it has to be doable because tons of people in this world do it!

@Andrea: Seriously... I was planning on spacing the kids out until I realized Wagon Jr. was born literally ONE WEEK after the cutoff of 2 years 9 months at the time of the first day of school. So unless I wanted to space my kids out 3 years and 10 months, we didn't really have a choice. Luckily my mom is not working and is willing to come help out with childcare for the first six months. That will cut us down to 9 months of double daycare, less if my mom can come back during the summer and we can pull them out of daycare for the summer months!

I'm gonna be buying my mom a LOT of spa days because she's going to be saving us so much money.

@pointybird: haha... "hurrah!" to MA daycare costs We spend $376/week and that's considered really reasonable in our area.

Daycare expenses was/is one of our biggest freakouts regarding pregnancy, and will be one of the main reasons we’ll probably only have 1 child, or space 2 children out over several years (like, 4 or 5).

I agree with @MediaGirl that it gets annoying when people just say “don’t eat out as much” – we don’t eat out $1500 a month or more. Its definitely an expense that generally needs to be planned for and taken into account if you are planning on making major life moves this year like new job, buying a home or renting a new place.

For us personally, we bought a home we could afford on one income, so we have some built-in wiggle room with our budget to start with which helps tons. We’re been aggressively paying down our mortgage and student loans, and saving for the past few years – and something in that equation will have to give in order to free up the $1200-1500 a month daycare will cost for us. We haven’t decided yet if that means saving less and still as aggressively paying down mortgage/student loan debt, or if that means paying only what’s actually due on the mortgage, but being able to continue to save the same amount.

Either way – it’s a juggling act. I think of it as adding an additional mortgage into our budget, except in 20 years we won’t have a paid off second/investment property – we’ll have a baby entering college – yet another huge expense to start saving for! Yikes!

@mrs. wagon: you're lucky that you have public preschool and your mom. i have neither so we want a big space in between kids!!

Much stricter budgeting for us. Infants at our daycare is $1500-$1600 and toddlers is $1400-$1500. We prioritize and do without a lot of pleasure things. We look forward to public school so we can get a little more "us" things but at that point we'll also be increasing what we put into our son's college savings so it won't really change, it's just nice to think about.

@dc yoga bee: I work in Rockville, and the daycare I liked best in the North Bethesda/Rockville area is $1800/month. (Though they do have 2-day and 3-day options if there's a space free, so if you or other family have flexible schedules, that could be an option). Bethesda/Chevy Chase is an incredibly expensive area rent-wise... daycares have to charge a lot to cover the costs of being located there. If you do want more specific ideas of costs and types, the DC Urban Moms forum has a subsection on preschools and daycares that may be helpful.
One thing to remember, as others have pointed out, is that daycare costs don't stay this high forever. They're very high for infants and young toddlers because the ratios are required to be lower, but you can find a much wider variety of programs for much more affordable prices for your three-year-old than for your 6-month-old. And in-home daycares will also tend to run much cheaper, though I don't really think you're going to see anything less than $1000/month. We max out DH's flex account for dependent care, so that helps a little, plus the tax break helps... none of it offsets the major cost of having a baby, but there are ways to make it a lot more workable
When are you moving? I keep wanting to do a DC/Maryland/NoVa area meetup sometime!

@mrs. wagon: i think if we have #2, i have to quit working, but we shall see. i will have a hard time quitting. i just love having my own money.

@dc yoga bee: unfortunately, yeah.... I'm SO glad that my husband and I decided to move away from that area instead of to it. I don't think we could have done it up there on our salaries and with the housing prices.

The "best" daycares in Raleigh are surprisingly quite expensive - $1400-$1800/mo. We found one near us that is only $1000/mo and we're SO glad we did research and found it. Just because it's cheaper doesn't always mean it's bad. It had great reviews from the parents that send their kids there.

@dc yoga bee: Don't worry. You will find a way to make it work. It just takes some changes and making sure you're watching where your money is going. Also - Bethesda is a beautiful place. I WISH we could live there but there are just a few things keeping us south now (including family).

We spend as much in rent as we do in daycare. That's also only after school care from 2pm til sometimes only 4 or 5pm. So, 3hrs a day, 5 days a week is almost $600 a month.

@Mrs. Jacks: No kidding!

Daycare prices played into our decision for me to stay home, since I wouldn't be bringing much to the table after paying for full-time care for two. When it was just DD, it was mangeable, but once you add that second one, it gets really expensive!