What do you pay for child care?

eyenigh

I was just reading on another board about someone who was thinking about keeping one child in daycare and having a nanny for an upcoming new baby for a total of around $50,000. Holy sticker shock! I'm assuming this person was probably in a more HCOL area and, therefore, perhaps the parents salaries are more inline with being able to pay that but it was kind of amazing to me. My husband and I do pretty well but there's no way we could dedicate that much money to just childcare. We use one of the most expensive centers in our area as it is and now the $1500 a month that we pay seems like nothing compared to that! A friend of mine (who actually is extremely wealthy) just enrolled her children in, probably, our state's most renown private school and the tuition is still under $50k for both kids (at least until they hit middle school). Even that seems crazy to me. 

Am I the only one kind of amazed by that number? Do you live in a high, medium or low cost area? What do you pay? Ultimately, we'll never really have to worry about numbers that high anyway with our single children, thank goodness!

dmlk413

That is insane.  If we had to pay $50,000 for daycare, it would make more sense for me to stay home. 

We live in a low cost of living area (I think, compared to other towns nearby it is probably more medium).  I pay $150 a week for an in home daycare and that's about average.

hopefulmom81

I pay $216/week for 3 days at an inhome daycare

DD is switching to more of a small center and I will be paying $282/week for all 5 days.

SUPER EXPENSIVE!

jellybean529

I used to live in a HCOL area (Boston) and for infants, daycare at the center my DD went to was just under $500/week. Yes, you read that right. At age 3-4, her daycare cost was about $325/week. 

She's 6 now, and we live in Florida, a lower COL area. Her after school care is $60/week and summers for full time care is $145 weekly. 

eyenigh

jellybean529 said:

I used to live in a HCOL area (Boston) and for infants, daycare at the center my DD went to was just under $500/week. Yes, you read that right. At age 3-4, her daycare cost was about $325/week. 

She's 6 now, and we live in Florida, a lower COL area. Her after school care is $60/week and summers for full time care is $145 weekly. 

The $500 figure sounds like what the person must've been paying for daycare, as well. She estimated the nanny to cost around $32k so that would make daycare around the $450ish range. Still, yikes.

[Deleted User]

That's insane. We pay about $140/wk in a MCOL area.

*~Krystin1119~*

We've been paying $150 a week for the summer program at DD's daycare and we just made our first preschool payment $675 a month and includes both preschool and before/after care at the same facility. We had been paying 600/ month for the older toddler class.

bloverde

I live in Baltimore city, so semi HCOL? We actually drive DS 20 minutes outside the city everyday to a daycare that does he speech and occupational therapy and is subsidized because of it. It's $600 per month. The alternatives in the city were anywhere from $1200/mo (sketchy ones) and $2400/mo.

It's a big shock and a change for us. We just moved from a LCOL area. DH watched DS and worked at home for a whole year. Then we had a babysitter 2 days per week who was fantastic and cost $8 per hour.

kristennd

That's more than DH and I make combined. 

My coworkers all pay around $500/month per child. 

huggabunch

We owe $650/month for only 2 days per week. It's crazy!

cwallin500

When we lived on the East Coast we paid $300/month for infant care - we were further out from the city so paid much less than if we lived closer.

We moved to the Midwest last year and paid $215/week for infant care - and that was probably on the higher side from all the ones we looked at.

Both were in large centers

cedenton

$225/wk for a fully licensed and NAEYC accredited center that provides 2 meals and 1-2 snacks/day.

mere2005

We pay $640/mo. for our 3-year-old in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area. The ages for this preschool (with what they call extended care) are 2 and up. I think the price is the same, whether you're 2 or 5. We love it though, and they do provide lunch daily, which I love not having to worry about. Name brand centers seem to be around $200/wk. I do participate in my employer's $5k tax free daycare flex spending plan. It certainly helps pay the tuition, since it's money I don't immediately see in my paycheck..

TundraGirl

We pay $125 per week for a licensed in-home daycare. It's only 5 minutes from our house, which is great. Our provider is a former nurse and she's great with LO. He gets breakfast, lunch, and snacks there.

VegasGal1978

We've been looking into PT care for our 9mo old. 1000-1200 per month for two days. That's Boston day care for ya. We are taking a pass for now. DH stays at home. We were just hoping to get her socialized a bit more, but we will find another way.

skategirl128

We have a nanny for after school care. I pay her about $150 a week depending on how many hours we need her.

In the past I paid 660 a month for preschool and over 1000 a month for infant/toddler care. Preschool was in a traditional preschool setting.