Reply to Daycare years: were you in the red?

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[quote=Anonymous]When we had one, we were in an apartment, and it basically just meant we dramatically lowered our house savings (we had been saving $2,500 a month towards a downpayment).

Then we moved into our house, which was a huge new monthly expense, as the mortgage was about 30% more than our rent had been. And then we had a second, just 18 months younger than the first.

We're in DC, with free PK-3 that takes all inbound kids every year (thank god) but we're ending up with about 18 months of childcare for two. We are definitely in the red, by about $300 a month, so this is going to cost us about $5000 from our emergency fund. We've also dramatically lowered our retirement savings during this time - just enough to maximize my husband's 401(k) match, so only 5% of his salary (my company just gives a flat 3% rather than a match, so I stopped contributing all together).

But - we have very stable jobs, excellent career prospects should something happen to one of our jobs, a large emergency fund ($60k), and a fixed rate 3% mortgage on our forever home. It's only 18 months.

I'll also note - we could avoid being in the red by using daycare. We currently have a nanny, on the books, all in cost is $60k. Daycare where we are (close to downtown DC) would cost us about $2,400 a month for the baby and maybe $2,000 for the toddler, which would bring us to just shy of $53k a year. But honestly, a nanny is worth that extra $7k with two so little. And as soon as the older goes to school, we'll move to doing a nanny share for the younger and cut our bill dramatically. [/quote]

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