Childcare Costs More Than My Mortgage

[Anonymous]

How is it that childcare costs more than my mortgage? I live in Bethesda and have an infant and toddler. 9-6 care at a local daycare center is 5k/month for both! What do people do? Quit working and parent FT? Stop saving for retirement? Raid their savings? Move to a LCOL?

[Anonymous]

it’s from math I think

[Anonymous]

We timed our kids so we were only paying for one daycare bill at a time. I also pulled back on retirement for a short time. I just saved to the match. Sometimes home daycares and nanny shares are less expensive.

[Anonymous]

I kept a big cash savings to cover my two in daycare years. It’s hard for sure. I know some people who took a few years off saving for retirement, etc.

[Anonymous]

Yup. We hired a nanny when we had two under two. $5500 instead of $5000 and way better/easier. We had $5500 for nanny, $4000 for mortgage, $1500 for food and $1400 for everything else. EVERYTHING. For 18 months.

[Anonymous]

Yes, retirement takes a hit. It sucks but, childcare staff have bills to pay too.

[Anonymous]

I found a higher paying job for the daycare years - it was important for me to keep working and I didn't want it to be a close call of what made the most economic sense. (And I get that different families may have different goals on this - this one was ours.)

[Anonymous]

We decreased our retirement contributions during the time when both kids were in full time childcare. It's temporary though, toddler will be in kindergarten soon enough!

[Anonymous]

This too shall pass.
You cut back on retirement savings and discretionary expenses until the childcare costs go away. And you have the choice to look for cheaper arrangements. Family daycares will cost significantly less. Unless you keep having children you’ll be out of the hole in a few years.

[Anonymous]

DH made much more than I did, so basically my $100k would have gone 100% to childcare, so we decided I would stay home. Made things much less stressful.

[Anonymous]

Our kids are two years apart. So older one went ages 3-4, and once he starts K, younger one will go age 3 then do transitional K at age 4 (we are in CA). My wife also stays home so they would just go in the mornings. So that's 3 years total at ~$1k a month or $12k a year.

[Anonymous]

$5k a month for TWO kids isn’t bad, honestly.

I have a friend who just had a baby in Manhattan and her daycare is 3600 a month.

It always strikes me as strange that people think childcare shouldn’t cost much money, when your children are probably the most important, precious things in your life. Why would you cheap out on that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We timed our kids so we were only paying for one daycare bill at a time. I also pulled back on retirement for a short time. I just saved to the match. Sometimes home daycares and nanny shares are less expensive.

We also timed our kids that way. I resent that I had to plan my family around that but it wasn't feasible to stay home for a few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is it that childcare costs more than my mortgage? I live in Bethesda and have an infant and toddler. 9-6 care at a local daycare center is 5k/month for both! What do people do? Quit working and parent FT? Stop saving for retirement? Raid their savings? Move to a LCOL?

What do you think the cost of childcare for 2 children for 9 hours a day / 5 days a week should be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is it that childcare costs more than my mortgage? I live in Bethesda and have an infant and toddler. 9-6 care at a local daycare center is 5k/month for both! What do people do? Quit working and parent FT? Stop saving for retirement? Raid their savings? Move to a LCOL?

Why would you quit? I assume you make a lot more than that if you live in Bethesda.