Shutdown and childcare
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Anonymous
| Those of you in the federal government - how long can you afford to keep paying daycare or nannies or aftercare if there is an extended shutdown? |
Anonymous
|
4 months of savings for bare minimum (housing and daycare).
Other options out there like NFCU have loans for Fedss and opening a 0% APR credit card. Im single with 1 kid and been trying hard to save since January anticipating getting RIF’d |
Anonymous
| We can get through the school year, at which point I’d consider relocating. |
Anonymous
Explain why someone off work at home would need childcare? |
Anonymous
|
If you give up your spot and stop paying you don't get it back.
Our before and after care usually does payment plans for furloughed feds at least. |
Anonymous
Exact same reason you don't unenroll your kid from day care or fire your nanny when you go on vacation or get the flu. We keep enough of a buffer in our bank accounts to cover a few months of the basics. We needed it for the 2019 shutdown, as well as for a summer when my spouse was unemployed between jobs, but needed to be able to accept one immediately without getting on a daycare wait list. |
Anonymous
OP here. If we let our nanny go, there is no guarantee she would be available to work again when the furlough ends. My oldest used to be in daycare before we went the nanny route and that waitlist was TWO YEARS LONG. If we didn’t pay, he was automatically unenrolled and we lost the spot. So then you are screwed for childcare when government reopens. |
Anonymous
Explain why a nanny wouldn’t look for a new job if their employer “didn’t need them” due to government shut down? Then when the government opens back up again, OP would have no child care. |
Anonymous
Many of us will be working, just not paid until later. |
Anonymous
| Many places will give you a grace period if you ask and can show you ate furloughed. |
Anonymous
Maybe large corporate day care centers. But a nanny can not afford to do that. |
Anonymous
| I think the difference here is that sure, OP could use savings to continue paying their nanny or daycare but there are legitimate threats to their employment and this administration may issue widespread RIFs during a shutdown. Also, if the shutdown goes in for a month + like it did in 2019, that’s a lot of money to risk if you might not have a job or get back pay. |
Anonymous
Are you stupid? You have to pay to keep the spot, idiot. |
Anonymous
| The federally subsidized childcare at my agency building closed down during one of the extended shutdowns. We kept paying our monthly fee in order to keep our spot (as well as to keep the staff's salaries going) but also had to pay a babysitter to watch our toddler at our house until things opened back up. It was the right thing to do but paying twice definitely took an extra bite out of our finances. |
Anonymous
| Can you spend this extra time with your child and just pay to keep slot open? At a reduced rate. Then everyone wins. |