Childcare WTF! I have to take out a loan for this shit!

We did the daycare thing for a few years. Good place but our kids behavior started to slide since all those places don't discipline for shit and if the kids get out of line they just say you have to pick them up. For our two kids it was about $300/week.

Starting this summer, we found a "Nanny" on care.com who is a college student studying to be a teacher. Now we pay about $125/day, 3 days per week. The other two days they are at grandparents house.

More expensive, yes, but she does laundry, dishes, takes the kids to the beach and other activities, arts/crafts etc. Really attentive and when the wife and I get home the house is clean and the kids have had a full day, not just running around like crazies at the daycare.

As I've found over the years (our kids are 6 and 8), expenses have on average amounted to a second mortgage, if not more. What we don't pay in daycare (during the school year) we typically put towards their pre-paid college fund.

Both my kids have train-wrecks for mouths, too, so big orthodontist bills are in my future. :down:

Little s#!ts are pricey....

 

Yep,

Our dog stays home all day for free..... and I get pissed when I have to pay to board the fucker for a weekend but the wife won't let me open a bag of dog food and just lock the dog in the basement for a couple days.

 

Fixed it for ya

 

Holy fuck ! Pays way better than turning wrenches.

 

there are some things you couldn't pay me enough to do

 

Not a bad business to be in but its a complete headache.

$110 a week is dirt cheap. I would make sure you check the place out and make sure it is on the up and up. Price varies a lot on location but i could not picture 110 getting you much. Looking at $21 a day to pay the bills, teachers, food(not sure if its included). Is it a small home based or a larger center in a house?

 

What others have said. $110 per week is cheap.

 

Yea, I am not bitching about the price so much as I am about the you pay even if I am not useing them. I understand holding the spot.but full price to hold my spot? I guess they have you by the ringer.


Some of your guys prices would make me faint..

 

I imagine that liability insurance isn't cheap for those businesses.

 

Yea, where I live that is the going rate. Most range from 120 to 100 a week.

They also feed them breakfest,lunch and snack.

 

It is the only business venture that I have considered but my business model was challenge by my gender.

I found that I can tutor, and people would pay good money to do so. But to actually open an after school care that would focus on homework sports is not that all pleasing to parents when they person running the place is a man. At least, it was not the case in SoFL.

In my opinion, parents are paying way too much money at this places and getting little return but the return of a breathing child. Parents still have to deal with homework at home taking away from family time but I have a different perspective, I guess.

 

At the end of the day, it comes down to math. The first year of daycare for our son was about the same cost as a brand new Concours. Second year is a little less - I could have bought a new Z1000 and a jacket. That said, the day care is at my wife's work, her employer underwrites it, it is school not just a holding pen, he loves it, and he's learning. Either one of us being home with him would end in a psychotic break for someone. The cost is big, but it is a lot less than the lost income and the lost retirement savings that goes along with it. We love our kid, but no way could either of us be fulltime with him. He needs to be with other kids, and he needs the mental stimulation. Based on his development to this point, it's working. I don't see public school being an option - he'll get bored quickly.

 

It is not entirely bad.
South Florida is full of Condo warehouses that are turned into holding pens. They function well. Overhead is little at most places since they generally rely on cheap labor to keep the stock from dying.

I lent money to a friend to buy a house in Utah that was turned into a daycare. The cost of food alone, half of it, is covered or funded by government. Most of the children are also there on government sudsidies.

I should/could inquire about the liability insurance with him.

I used to work, back when, in an after school care program ran by the YMCA. Every single child was on subsidy but given the neighborhood, it was probably a wise investment.

 

Consider yourself lucky. Good find. Not being a holding pen.

 

Yeah, ours is an Early Learning Center also. And it does work. My little snowflake is so smart.

 

How come none of you people ever admit you have dumb kids? Everyone's snowflake is a genius. Where did all the dumb kids I knew in school come from?

 

This is where I'm at with ours. Wifey stays at home with the boy and I work. At MOST she may look at part time and he'd stay with his grandparents for those couple days.

Only way I can see this changing any is when he gets to grade school age but we've talked home schooling anyways so that still wouldn't fly.

 

OP,

I was going to start just such a thread a year ago when we began paying $300 a week. When I discovered that when i stayed home to play sick and kept the boys home with me I was livid when I we still had to pay for when the sitter had to appear in renter's court day (she owns rental property)!

Child care has come a long way since when my mother watched a couple of teachers' kids when I was younger.

 

We are super lucky that our moms are both close so they each take our little guy 2 days a week each. I work from home on mondays so I keep him here most of those. I can't imagine shelling out a grand or more a month for daycare.

 

I was thinking you when I typed that. "He won't be able to contain himself. "

Now where's crashman...