This past Friday Jeff and I started our search for Daycare and Holy Sweet Jesus is it EXPENSIVE!! I've been looking online and so far we've only viewed one place, the Melrose YMCA that has a daycare and kindergarden. It was a beautiful space, and the girl we talked to was very sweet and had worked there for 10 years. We walked through the whole place and met all the different teachers and saw the different age groups and were suitably impressed. Price? 3 days of daycare was $275.oo a WEEK! A WEEK!!!! Now, I completely understand that childcare is not where we want to skimp or pinch pennies but WOW!!
How do people do it?? How in the WORLD do people afford childcare?? Now I can't stay home, because we NEED my paycheck... we desperately need my paycheck... but looks like a good portion of that paycheck is going to be for childcare. Ugh... Anyone have any ideas or suggestions for a bunch of confused and cash strapped soon to be parents?
3 comments:
Sell a kidney?
Actually -- you may want to do some math. If most of your needed paycheck is going for daycare, how much are you really going to be ahead? If it's a significant amount, then that's great, but if not -- you may want to consider other options, like being a SAHM for a while. I've heard people say they are working to pay for daycare, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I quickly issue the disclaimer that I've never had kids!
I almost died when I found out how expensive daycare was going to be, and believe me, it's worse when it's 5 days a week! I took all of our living expenses and added them up, you know: house/cable/phone/heat/water/insurances. To say nothing of groceries and gas for cars. I saw how much that was per month, and compared it to how much one of us made per month. Only one of us working didn't cut it. If we wanted food, gas for cars, or to go anywhere other than our house we both had to work. We didn't have that much left over and a significant portion of our income still goes to daycare, but we couldn't afford to have one of us stay home, either. You have to add up what's going out in bills already and see if you have enough for one person to stay home. If you don't, and daycare eats up a lot of your check but you have money left over to contribute to your living expenses, then daycare may be the way to go. As they get older, it does get cheaper!
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