What do you spend on child care for your elementary-aged kids?
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Anonymous
| Kids are now 6 and 3, and we have a (nearly) full-time nanny to watch them through the summer, before and after school, and to be with the younger one all day while the older one is at school. Looking ahead, we have the option of being able to send the younger one to pre-K next year and stagger schedules to avoid needing daily childcare. This would be a logistical challenge, though, given that it would involve, 1, rearranging work schedules (not impossible, but will take some negotiations with respective workplaces), and 2, piecing together alternative child care for school breaks/days off and the entire summer. I'm curious to know whether others have done this, and how much money you've saved? We currently spend around $30k a year on having our nanny and I keep thinking how much more money we'll have once the kids are both in school full time, but others have told me the cost savings wasn't as huge as they expected. Can anyone provide some actual numbers? |
Anonymous
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Aftercare is $20 a day. I am able to pick up promptly at 6 pm and work at home after, which I frequently do but works fine.
Summers: $15 an hour to college age sitter. This summer, she went to day camp, riding their transportation/bus system. It really isn't much cheaper in the end than the sitter, but she has loved camp, all the activities, choices etc. For days off, etc. I work from home some, DH takes off, or we are able to hire a sitter for the day. I take it one month at a time. It does get cheaper but I'm looking forward to 6, 7, 8th grade when it will get cheaper for good. Hope this is helpful. |
Anonymous
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Eh, by the time your kid hits MS and doesn't need childcare they eat you out of house and home. It all equals out.
I pay about $5k per kid for all school year childcare, including days off and school breaks. Summer varies by my plans. Some camps are expensive and some are only around $175 to $200 per week. OP, you pay more for your nanny than I ever did for childcare even when I had three in care at the same time. |
Anonymous
| OP again--where do you live? For us, the cost of having 2 kids in day care would have been very close to what we pay our nanny. This past year, when our oldest started K, we looked into extended day for him plus daycare for our younger one. If we had gone with 1 kid being in before- and after-care and 1 being in full-day daycare, we would have saved some money, but not a huge amount. |
Anonymous
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I had a nanny (at about the same cost as OP) and two kids. One was in pre-k (which I wanted him to attend, since nanny was great but wasn't the same as a pre-k setting) and it was about $450/mo. - so let's say $30k (for nanny - not including tax payments at end of year) + $4500 = $34,500 (+ taxes and other costs asso. with nanny - more food and utilities needed at home during the day, gas for the car that we wouldn't otherwise drive, etc...)
Once older kid went to K, we decided to pay for before/aftercare for him and full-day pre-k/daycare for the younger sib. Now we're at the following: $400/mo for before/aftercare (full-time needed) $2000/mo for full-day daycare $200/week (avg) for summer camp - we pay for about 6 weeks of camp over all = 4000 + 24000 + 1200 = 29,200 (but NO TAXES!!!  )
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Anonymous
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SACC for b&a rates are published online - sliding scale based on income.
Summer can go all over the place. Although you think you will save on middle school - that is when they start to find the expensive camps - so it's not about daycare at the point, but figuring out what works. I also pay a HS student to watch over the summer at $10 an hour. (so I get hit twice with my MS student who is off at sleep away camp/or day camps that need a driver and my elementary student who still needs care) |
Anonymous
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2 kids in Arlington schools, about $700/month for aftercare during the school year.
8 weeks of summer camp for 2 kids = $5000 (1 week of summer is vacation and the last week I WAH half-days while the kids stay home) So, annual total = $12,000. DH or I work at home on all the random no-school days and either take vacation or work half-days at home for the Spring/Winter breaks. |
Anonymous
| Our au pair is about $20,000 a year. |
Anonymous
| Also, for us, at least in 6th grade, MS isn't cheaper. The afterschool program is actually a little more expensive than elementary. Unfortunately, the middle-school day ends so early, I'm not comfortable having my 11 year old home unsupervised for that long. |
Anonymous
| Nothing. The younger is in first, and the older is in third grade. They can stay home without someone holding their hand. |
Anonymous
Trying to do some forward planning on this right now and determine when we won't need our nanny and I can start saving that money. Right now the kid is in half day pre-k (4) -will probably have one more year of pre K, then K - Nanny runs us $60K a year after paying the taxes, etc. so it would really be nice to be saving all of that cash. |
Anonymous
Sigh. I wish my 3rd grader was mature enough to stay home with my 1st grader. We are many years away from that. We use SACC for about $700 a month total |
Anonymous
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I use an au pair too.
~$20-24k/year. |
Anonymous
Maybe it's just me, but that seems really unsafe. |
Anonymous
Isn't it illegal? Seems like someone's always posting either guidelines or laws about how old kids need to be to stay home alone. |