How Much is Child Day Care in Your Area?

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Earlier I posted why I chose to stay home. The big motivation was financial, and the fact that we will have 5 kids in January makes it extremely expensive. 2 years ago we were quoted at anywhere between $350 and $500 per child for a week. Some of the reasons for that was they were real young, not completely potty trained, etc.

I was told that my figures are too high and that when calculating 3 kids in childcare full time and 2 kids in childcare for summers, vacation, and sick time that my figures were “complete B.S.” – I had calculated it out to be about $60,000 for the year for 5 kids with 2 in school.

I want to do an exercise and I want people to research day care costs in your area and give me an estimate how much it would cost you if you put kids in childcare. Maybe you already have kids in childcare and feel like shedding some light on the situation. Yes, cities will be more expensive than rural areas, such as where I am.

So email me with your estimates, your first name, how many kids, city, and a link to your website if you have one and I will post the results as I get them.

Updated: Just heard from Weston… and alpha-dad….

For us the cost of daycare really varies in this area. It can range from $400 to $1000 a month depending on what kind of care you want. For the better daycare that we would want for our children it would be towards the higher end of that spectrum (sounds snobby I know, but we would want the best for them if someone else was watching/teaching/raising them during the day). So with two to three kids in daycare at one time you can figure 2 to 3 grand a month just in daycare expenses… not to mention my commute to work with gas and maintanance on a vehicle would have added another couple hundred a month easily… eating out expenses on top of that. Then there is the fact that I can do a lot of household chores during the day while staying at home whereas we would have had to do that stuff at night instead if I was still working.

In reality with one kid the money thing would have still put us ahead a good bit if I had kept working, but we wanted the non-tangible pluses of me staying at home right out of the get go if we were planning on doing it eventually anyway. Two kids puts us at about even money-wise unless I would have continued working a lot of OT (a distinct possibility at my job as it was pretty much required when we were needed). That was another negative of me working – the occassional required overtime, which I would have not wanted to do while trying to raise children.

Oh yeah, wife makes almost twice what I did when I was working, with a lot better benefits (5 weeks time off per year paid versus my 3 weeks time off) and a lot better insurance coverage, 401k, etc… so the idea of me staying at home rather than her was a no-brainer once we decided one of us was to stay at home.

Mike
“The Sticks”, NC

27 months, 6 months

Thanks Weston. Let’s say he chose the cheapest route and just settle for $400 for the month for 2 kids. That’s not bad at all. But let’s do the math anyway with that figure for 3 kids for 12 months and 2 kids for 2 months (for summers).

$400 x 3 kids x 12 months = $14,400
$400 x 2 kids x 2 months = $1600
Total = $16,000

That is not bad for an entire year with 5 little kiddos.

Alpha-Dad from Fremont, CA chimes in:

I figured it once last year at $1000 a month per kid through the city one, figuring 10 hours a day because of commute time etc. They also had to be potty trained for that one. Private daycare centers were more expensive.

The math:

$1000 x 3 kids x 12 months = $36,000
$1000 x 2 kids x 2 months = $2,000
Total = $38,000

A little more steep on that one but not anywhere near my $61,000…

Updated to add: I called a local childcare facility on outer Hammond street here in Bangor. I was a bit high. They told me it would cost $250 per week for kids under 2 years old and kids over 2 were $200 even. She told me there were no vacancies left but that is what they were running.

So let’s do the math. I would have two under the age 2 and one over for full time. And then two over 2 years for let’s say 10 weeks…

$250 x 52 x 2 kids = $26,000
$200 x 52 x 1 kid = $10,400
$200 x 10 x 2 kids = $4,000

It would cost me a total of $40,000 for day care at that one facility. I have no idea it’s reputation either.