Making financially imprudent choices for sake of childcare

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like your daycare is not the right fit. My kid spends 1.5 hours outside daily at a minimum.

+1. I agree OP, you are not in the right daycare. Ours spends time outside daily in a big, fenced playground/yard area with a ton of things to do as long as the morning weather and air quality report deem it safe. And ours actually sleeps better at daycare since he is in a small group and they nap in separate nap room with blackout shades, central humidifier, etc.

There are some days where we drop him off later and he spends his time there in outdoor play (usually that's right before lunch), then lunch, then story and nap, and then we pick up right after he wakes up. I feel like he is really happy and the time he has there is well-spent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can pause TSP contributions for a few years for the sake of childcare. Having good childcare will allow you to focus on your career and increase your earning potential. My only question is why your DH would not also decrease his retirement savings, and why it would be on you only?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can pause TSP contributions for a few years for the sake of childcare. Having good childcare will allow you to focus on your career and increase your earning potential. My only question is why your DH would not also decrease his retirement savings, and why it would be on you only?

Is OP really going to be able to focus on career and earning, though? Her DH sounds not very supportive and frankly, if she cannot afford any nanny overtime, and she has any sort of a commute, she will be able to devote, max 37 hours a week to work (Assuming her commute is 30 minutes each way) and that doesn't even assume the nanny overtime with traffic, etc.

[Anonymous]

OP we are doing this right now. I reduced retirement savings to have a fully time nanny and 2 kids in preschool - one full time, one 3 days a week.

I know some people think we're crazy, but, our we're doing really well on retirement so felt it wasn't too big a loss.

Those years are SO hard. Having a loving nanny has made it so much easier for us.

DS1 is about head to public school, and DS2 will be in full time preschool, so this next year will feel like a financial windfall not paying for so much child care!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - why do you still rent?

My guess is they cannot afford a down payment in their desired area. OP and her husband probably don't have much savings, which makes it even more clear they can't really afford a nanny.

[Anonymous]

We have a nanny who watches the baby and then the older (elementary age) kid after school. It’s so much easier than aftercare pickup and I also don’t have to worry about school vacation or other odd days off. Financially it’s tough, and we’re not saving at all beyond our retirement contributions (mine maxed, DH’s maxed up to the match), but we know it’s temporary and our sanity is worth something. We have always been savers so it’s hard to not see our bank account grow, but it’s temporary.

[Anonymous]

OP here - I appreciate the responses, and happy to answer a couple questions.

(1) Why we still rent - we love the area where we live, our rent is under market for a lot of space, we are zoned for an excellent elementary school, our commutes are about 20 minutes each, and the houses in our neighborhood are typically over a million dollars. Down the road, we might have to leave the city, but with young kids, we're prioritizing our very short commutes and to be blunt, home ownership isn't something that appeals to us at this point in our lives.

(2) We have a little under 100k in savings that we don't want to touch, in hopes of using towards a down payment eventually. But that would have to be our emergency fund.

(2) DH's retirement - We could certainly reduce his too, although his company matches a higher percentage than mine. I hadn't really thought of this because right now, we pay all our expenses other than childcare from his salary, and we pay childcare from mine and the rest goes into savings. So in my head, I was keeping my salary as the childcare source. But there's no reason not to shift that around.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP! We are exactly in your shoes though neither of us max out retirement. Honestly, we did retirement calculations and are very comfortable with our savings rates (though I have an incredibly generous match) and what it will yield us along with social security.

We are doing a nanny share even though our oldest finally got into daycare. We added the infant to our nannyshare so there are now three in the share though our son goes to preK half day 3 days a week (though we pay the same hourly rate to guarantee pay for the nanny). In the fall, he should start dcps prek as we aren't too picky where he goes. This will reduce our costs greatly. Our son and our infant are doing so well in the share and we are so glad we prioritized this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - why do you still rent?

She said in the second sentence that they're trying to save up for a down payment on a house. So that's why they still rent: because they can't afford to buy.

[Anonymous]

We were in a similar situation some years back and had a nanny and preschool for a few years with limited savings. It was the right choice for us. Our nanny was terrific, I had a complete peace of mind not having to deal with daycare drop offs, sick days, etc. Looking back, I really would have skipped the preschool at least until they were 4. It seemed so necessary at the time but really wasn't. Once the kids were in school, we saved everything we had paid the nanny and preschool and had a full down payment in 3 years.

[Anonymous]

We were renting, DH was in graduate school and we used savings to pay for an educated and experienced nanny for our baby. His health and happiness was paramount. In hindsight, it was money well spent. He started preschool/daycare at three and was more than prepared/ready. He was (still is) far ahead of his peers academically in large part thanks to his nanny. Nanny made him very secure and they made well use of their days.

DH graduated and we bought a house. Made up all contributions to our retirement.

The first three years of a child’s life are the most important. You can always earn more money but you can’t get those years back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were renting, DH was in graduate school and we used savings to pay for an educated and experienced nanny for our baby. His health and happiness was paramount. In hindsight, it was money well spent. He started preschool/daycare at three and was more than prepared/ready. He was (still is) far ahead of his peers academically in large part thanks to his nanny. Nanny made him very secure and they made well use of their days.

DH graduated and we bought a house. Made up all contributions to our retirement.

The first three years of a child’s life are the most important. You can always earn more money but you can’t get those years back.

Doesn’t sound like OP’s financial situation is temporary. Your DH graduated with a degree that allowed him to significantly increase earnings and you had savings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were renting, DH was in graduate school and we used savings to pay for an educated and experienced nanny for our baby. His health and happiness was paramount. In hindsight, it was money well spent. He started preschool/daycare at three and was more than prepared/ready. He was (still is) far ahead of his peers academically in large part thanks to his nanny. Nanny made him very secure and they made well use of their days.

DH graduated and we bought a house. Made up all contributions to our retirement.

The first three years of a child’s life are the most important. You can always earn more money but you can’t get those years back.

Doesn’t sound like OP’s financial situation is temporary. Your DH graduated with a degree that allowed him to significantly increase earnings and you had savings.

No, not really. He has his doctorate but is earning basically the same as before. His job satisfaction has quadrupled however doing something he truly loves.

OP’s financial situation is temporary as the need for a nanny vanishes in three years or so. OP can save the nanny’s salary and buy a housevthen

[Anonymous]

No, I would not hire a nanny if I was renting. Even if there is a benefit to having a nanny (they’re not all Mary Poppins), financial security is so much more important.

[Anonymous]

I might look for another nanny share in the short term, OP. He’ll be going to preschool at three anyway, yes? So I might reduce retirement a bit for now, but only for a year.

Or, I’d look for a different daycare. We LOVE our center and I wouldn’t trade it for any childcare out there. There are great ones, and it might be worth looking to see if you can find another you prefer to the current one. As for him getting sick: that will happen whenever he starts group care. It doesn’t persist past the first year, at least not IME.