$ aside, the quality of the PK teachers that my kids have had in DCPS is much better than any day care equivalents that I've seen. I'm sure there are some great day care providers, but probably far more expensive than the lower end of the cost range that people are talking about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you add in lunches and the stress and expense of having to coordinate days off, "free" PK3 is definitely not that much of a bargain. Most daycares around her have PK classrooms for around $275/week including lunch, year round. Many aftercares are around $100/week. Lunches are $10/week. Days off and holidays are around 4 weeks a school year at $250/week. Then summer camp is (conservatively) $300/week. By my calculations, daycare preschool is $14,300 all in; "free" PK is $8,800. So you are saving only $5,500.

It's definitely a bargain. Definitely. I think you're underestimating the cost of many full day, full year daycares/preschools. If it weren't people wouldn't use it. I will not be using it, though, due to what you said about stress and expense of coordinating days off/summers. Plus I have a younger child in daycare so I want to put off the double drop-offs/pick ups for as long as possible.

For some of us, $5500 a year is a huge savings in our budget.
YUGE.

Anonymous wrote:When you add in lunches and the stress and expense of having to coordinate days off, "free" PK3 is definitely not that much of a bargain. Most daycares around her have PK classrooms for around $275/week including lunch, year round. Many aftercares are around $100/week. Lunches are $10/week. Days off and holidays are around 4 weeks a school year at $250/week. Then summer camp is (conservatively) $300/week. By my calculations, daycare preschool is $14,300 all in; "free" PK is $8,800. So you are saving only $5,500.

It's definitely a bargain. Definitely. I think you're underestimating the cost of many full day, full year daycares/preschools. If it weren't people wouldn't use it. I will not be using it, though, due to what you said about stress and expense of coordinating days off/summers. Plus I have a younger child in daycare so I want to put off the double drop-offs/pick ups for as long as possible.

Anonymous wrote:When you add in lunches and the stress and expense of having to coordinate days off, "free" PK3 is definitely not that much of a bargain. Most daycares around her have PK classrooms for around $275/week including lunch, year round. Many aftercares are around $100/week. Lunches are $10/week. Days off and holidays are around 4 weeks a school year at $250/week. Then summer camp is (conservatively) $300/week. By my calculations, daycare preschool is $14,300 all in; "free" PK is $8,800. So you are saving only $5,500.

What surprises me is that people think their children are supposed to be free to them.

When you add in lunches and the stress and expense of having to coordinate days off, "free" PK3 is definitely not that much of a bargain. Most daycares around her have PK classrooms for around $275/week including lunch, year round. Many aftercares are around $100/week. Lunches are $10/week. Days off and holidays are around 4 weeks a school year at $250/week. Then summer camp is (conservatively) $300/week. By my calculations, daycare preschool is $14,300 all in; "free" PK is $8,800. So you are saving only $5,500.

We were paying about $1900 for one child in daycare before enrolling her in PK3 two years ago. Aftercare is $300/mo over nine months, and summer camp is $3200. Winter camp was maybe $500? So a good amount of savings in the neighborhood of $16K.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With aftercare and moderately-priced summer camp we still save a substantial amount from what we paid in daycare.

Yeah I don't know what people are thinking. The math doesn't add up!

Agree! I was the one who asked OP to share her daycare costs vs aftercare cost. You always hear people warning that the savings are minimal/non-existent but don't understand how that could be the case, so would appreciate if those making the claim could share actual $ amounts they paid for each to provide some context.

+1
We were paying $21k for daycare
Aftercare for us is $3,000 a year ($300 xs 10)
Summer camp $4,000
That's still a $14k savings

Even if you have more expensive $500 aftercare and pay $70/day for school days off (our aftercare covers) it still a savings of a good $12k a year (or there are cheaper $250/week summer camps you can do to offset. Basically savings should be anywhere from $10-$15k a year based on what you were paying before school, aftercare costs, whether you need before care and summer camp selections. $10k is still nothing to cough at.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With aftercare and moderately-priced summer camp we still save a substantial amount from what we paid in daycare.

Yeah I don't know what people are thinking. The math doesn't add up!

Agree! I was the one who asked OP to share her daycare costs vs aftercare cost. You always hear people warning that the savings are minimal/non-existent but don't understand how that could be the case, so would appreciate if those making the claim could share actual $ amounts they paid for each to provide some context.

If you have flex spending benefits at work be sure to take advantage of it.

Anonymous wrote:With aftercare and moderately-priced summer camp we still save a substantial amount from what we paid in daycare.

Yeah I don't know what people are thinking. The math doesn't add up!

With aftercare and moderately-priced summer camp we still save a substantial amount from what we paid in daycare.

Anonymous wrote:Wow, my schools aftercare is so much more expensive then I thought. So much for the freedom from daycare.

How much were you paying for daycare previously and what are you paying now?

Anonymous wrote:Wow, my schools aftercare is so much more expensive then I thought. So much for the freedom from daycare.

once you add in summer care costs, I don't think it ends up being much cheaper all in.

We are at one of the more expensive charter aftercare options from what I can tell, and all in on lunch, beforecare and aftercare, it is still almost $1000 a cheaper a month than our mid-priced daycare.

Wow, my schools aftercare is so much more expensive then I thought. So much for the freedom from daycare.