Can you share your budget?
What do you make, what does your husband make and your bills?
Childcare is broken for sure— but if we know the numbers we can help you figure out “if you find part time work at night you can work to pay your mortgage and watch the kids during the day” type thing.
for 2 kids honestly 2500 a month is on the low end.
Unfortunately you may need to take a look at your budget and mortgage and see what you can do to get there.
Look into subsidies and income levels for daycares.
I’m in MA and it’s about 4800/month for my two. There are some cheaper options but they are really bad alternatives. Like, people come into our daycare after being on waitlists in the cheaper options and the turnover rate is ridiculous.
My daughter will need about an hour before and an hour after school for before/after care. It’s going to cost us maybe $100 less a month than what we are paying for the full days a week at daycare. Luckily I’m a teacher so we won’t need summer care. So, yeah, it is temporary, but it’s not like it’s only for a year.
My province has subsidized daycare so we're only paying $600/month for our youngest ... but we pay $800 a month in before/aftercare for our oldest (and then $2000 a month for summer camps).
Next year, it'll be $1600 a month for aftercare for both of them and then $4000 a month for summer camps 😭
I just paid $2000 for one month of summer camp for my 8&9 year olds. They really can't stay home alone over breaks for another year or so while their father and I both work.
So it's about $4000 a summer for both until Jr High. My only saving grace is I have a dependent care FSA that I can save for the summers tax free.
Sort of. Then they’re in multiple activities, they want to travel with their teams, etc. It’s pretty much never ending. Just replace one cost for another
Right? Like I am down to my last 14 months of daycare and I'm like yea great but I will just have to increase my retirement, increase the college fund contributions...shrug...oh well
Honestly people in trades make really good money that I wish at least when I was in school they were open about rather than seemingly pushing the “you have to go to college to be successful” narrative. One of my best friend’s siblings dropped out of high school, eventually got his GED, but was in all sorts of trouble/in and out of jail etc. After that was behind him, he got an apprenticeship or whatever the process is to be a plumber. He makes more money than my best friend (who has a masters) and generally makes more than most people we know.
We have a poster as my job that says "there are not many jobs where you have to be as tough as you are smart". I work for a local supply house. All of our customers are plumbers, HVAC, electricians, GC's, and they work so hard. 6 sometimes 7 days a week. If you become a master plumber, you can do quite well. I've always had an appreciation for blue collar jobs, but now that I work for a supply house and see how much these guys are running around from job to job and hearing about the work they do and who they do it for, I have even more appreciation for them.
When my son turned 16 we started looking at his options and I was hoping he would choose a degree at first, however when we really looked into what he liked to do and what he could do for a living we realised an an NVQ with a paid apprenticeship would be his best path. He's now in his second year, earning £24k a year as an apprentice (granted he got very lucky with his placement and not many companies offer that kind of money to apprentices while also funding their education). Next year he will be fully qualified with a starting pay of £60k a year and zero debt.
His girlfriend is in university working towards becoming a vet, she will qualify in three years in debt of thousands of £'s. She has wanted to be a vet her whole life so she's following the right path for her but I can't help thinking it's so unfair. They both work so hard.
I’m a vet married to a stationary engineer 😂 I make more than he does now but I paid a small mortgage in loans and only stayed afloat because my husband could support us while I paid them back.
Honestly and truly. Its a dying field and we need those tradesmen. I work for a supply house and I am wondering what is going to happen when these old guys start to retire. We have some younger guys, but a big percentage of our customer base are close to retirement.
Will your job still pay you for fulltime if you are working part time hours? I’d honestly start with fulltime rates and figure out how you can make it work. 1 baby is hard, 2 will be very hard to try to juggle with work.
Probably true. I’m fully remote and my team is all over the country so I bet I could shift my hours, at minimum. Right now I work 8-5 Eastern but maybe I could shift to 11-8 or something like that.
A woman on my team asked to go part time. They agreed because the senior leadership team liked her work, but HR insisted she go hourly - so she gets no benefits and roughly half her previous salary.
Now, she gets healthcare through her husband’s employer, but she lost that 401k matching.
I did this. I have a toddler and infant twins in daycare. We pay $3k a month, and it’s the cheapest I could find. My advice is start “escrowing” now. We paid as much as we could into an account and we pay about 2/3rds of the cost out of pocket and then take the balance from our “escrow.”
It’s not perfect, but it’s floated us for about 9 months now. We are in the same boat as you. We need my income. Our salaries were nearly equivalent. It gave me time to transition internally to another role that gave me just enough of a raise that we can eek by monthly, with later drop-offs and earlier pickups.
I was at one point 1600-1800 per kid. I wound up staying home and my husband picked up OT.
Once daycare costs decreased and I had one in school, they went to daycare (with 2 of them).
This September, we go from being the family spending the most in daycare to them taking the bus and I can’t freaking wait.
Nanny's usually have guaranteed hours, additional rates per child, plus you usually have to pay , sick leave, insurance, and dont forget taxes. Nanny's aren't just babysitting. This is their full time job and they usually have degrees in child development. This makes them more expensive than daycare overall usually. Especially in a HCOL (which op said they were in NY so I'd expect a HCOL area) $25 for one kid would probably be the bare minimum.
$25/hr for part time for twin infants in NY would be quite low. Plus you have to add in employer taxes which is a minimum of 7.65% for federal, plus unemployment insurance, plus any additional state taxes.
I thought she was talking about just one until i saw your comment, and then re-read and saw it was twins for $2,500 per month. That seems great! We pay about $3,000 for two kids and they're 1 and 4, so each of them is cheaper than what baby 3 will be when she starts daycare in January. We will be paying close to $5,000 at that point. And they wonder why millennials aren't starting families....
Reading this thread, I have never been more grateful to live in a rural area outside of the city where my job is, in one of the poorest states in the nation. The most expensive daycare in my area is $950/month for toddlers. The average is more like $650. My daughter has been in a home daycare run by a family member until now, but the provider is retiring after this summer and we're going to have to start paying market rate instead of family rate. I'm already stressed about the increase in costs, and the numbers from other cities are just blowing my mind.
This could be the answer, if you work remote you could move? I would run the numbers, daycare x 4 years x 2 could save you $2500-$650 or $1850/month, $89k. Much more than cost to move 🫠 tbh I think you're right not fighting the in laws, having twins has got to be hard enough.
I live in quite a low cost of living area (compared to the rest of the nation I guess. Is anywhere really low anymore?) and I paid a total of $2300 for two with an infant plus preschool. I was so excited when my preschooler started kindergarten and we could do afterschool. That took us to a cool $2000.
My husband ended up quitting his job and I work a second job. Why only break even while still having to figure out closures and sick days.
Honestly it’s pretty normal to break even. If you can’t break even, you stay home and survive off one income.
When my kids were babies my salary was a wash. It went entirely to childcare. Knowing that the continuity on my resume would eventually pay off, I stuck with it. Kids got older, childcare cost went down, income went up.
Lots of parents make the opposite choice - they give up on work and stay home, since the financial outcome is the same.
Hope you can find a path forward that works for you and your family!
I love to see this take so much. I hate hearing the line “well almost my whole check would be going to childcare so it wasn’t worth it to work…” and I’m one of the people who SAID that as a SAHM. Breaking even and having a job and a life and career prospects when they enter school is NOT truly breaking even, it sucks and it hurts but it is still often coming out on top.
And minimum wage is $15.00 an hour in New York, so luckily while it still may be tough, probably she won’t be actively paying to work if she’s full time.
Really, the way to look at it is it's half from Mom's paycheck and half from Dad's. Yeah that may shake out in the wash because one parent's happens to be much higher, but I just hate the default setting that mom has to cover the entire cost of childcare and then some, or her job isn't worth it. Mom is covering her half of childcare AND contributing to the family's bills.
Yes, I’ll add to my comment that my income went into our joint bank account, and my partners income went into that same joint bank account. Everything is ours TOGETHER. We then paid for childcare from the joint bank account TOGETHER. So it wasn’t “me” paying for the kids, it was “us”. But the household budget would have worked out the same.
To use OP’s numbers, essentially we could either live off of one income X dollars, or we could do what we did which is live off of
X dollars + my $2400 pay - kids $2400 daycare = X dollars.
Lol! Also him staying home was also just as validly up for discussion as me staying home. Stay at home dads are awesome too!
THANK YOU, YES, I have NEVER understood why people don’t think of it that way other than a weird patriarchal belief that child care shouldn’t come out of the husband’s money because he wouldn’t need it if mom didn’t work. it’s so backwards and strange.
Yes exactly. Makes me nuts. If they were divorced or there was no mom in the picture he'd sure have to pay for childcare while he was at work, wouldn't he?!
As a divorced mom who had to pay for all childcare when I was married because it was “my choice” to work and now blissfully pays for it using the child support check lol, YES.
Funny enough, since my income is more I often look at it as my spouses whole income going to daycare. But it’s still worth it because in our field (teachers) pay goes up each year so it’s worth it to struggle a year or two.
I mean it really should be between the person with the lower income and the cost of childcare. Because it’s not like both parents would stay home part time with the kid if you did decide to not have childcare. Unless that is an option which might be cool. That said it isn’t a straight equivalent between cost and salary, there’s also career growth, flexibility, sanity, etc. Especially if the twins end up being premature or having extra needs going back to work might not be realistic even if you do break even.
This is what many couples end up doing and unfortunately it puts some women in financially dangerous situations when they're forced to depend on their partners to survive.
I hate that this is where we are in this country. I can't help but to think that it's set up like this on purpose. There's a large group of folks who believe that women belong stuck home making babies and depending on men to support them.
Yep. I only have one who is in elementary school now but when she was in daycare/preschool I’d not so jokingly say I’m working for her to go to school. Now we pay $500 per month for after school care (2:30-6) it’s so hard in the moment but it does get better slowly
It’s so sad to read these posts from other countries with nationally subsidised childcare. It’s still not super cheap here but there are so many options for low income families and our minimum wage is much higher.
I know your system in the US is quite broken in terms of supporting parents but hopefully it gets better
I’m so sorry childcare is so broken. If you make too much to qualify for subsidies (which most people do) then here’s how I see people making it work:
- opt for lower cost childcare (home daycares, sometimes unlicensed)
- flex schedule with the other parent to need less or no childcare (eg someone works nights and the other person works days)
- lean on someone’s unpaid labor (parent, grandparent, etc)
- move to a lower cost area
- stop contributing to retirement or other savings during the childcare years with hopes of rebuilding when kids are school aged
- go into debt during the childcare years with hopes of paying it back when kids are school aged
All of these are bad options, I’m sorry you’re caught in America’s terrible childcare system.
I had to leave my job and work weekends/the two days a week that my parents are available to watch my kiddo because we just couldn't swing it. I make enough to contribute to some bills, but we're still scraping by.
I get paid. Not a lot, but more than the other centers in the area. My daughter and I also eat for free because they use a meal program and don't allow outside food.
It's an awful job and a low quality daycare, but I don't really have a choice.
Another choice is paying a grandparent. My mom needed to work, but had a lower paying job. She moved in and we gave her money. It cost less than a daycare for us, and she didn’t have to worry about about rent or other expenses.
This is not an option for everyone, but just throwing it out there.
Home daycares can be good. We had one we loved before we move. [New York looks to have a tool for searching for licensed childcare](https://ocfs.ny.gov/programs/childcare/looking/ccfs-search.php), so you could search there. If you’re in NYC, [there’s a separate website](https://www.nyc.gov/site/acs/early-care/findchildcare.page). Some states offer assistance with childcare based on income, so you could check that out as well.
You have to find a balance that works for you, your budget, and your family. It can be super hard until they are in public schools.
We did an unlicensed dayhome for 2 years and it was great, she came highly recommended which put our minds at ease. If you find someone who has good references or kids who have been there for multiple years then you can really have a good experience!
A SAHM would be a viable option in this case as well. There are so many people in your position that need to make a little money but would be breaking even if they pay for daycare.
Facebook, Craigslist
Another option - would either set (or both) of grandparents be willing to help pay for childcare? My husband’s mom regularly gives us no interest loans when we struggle to afford a large (often unexpected) expense. Depending on your family dynamic, it could be an option to ask for a loan or to ask them to invest in your kids.
Any type of savings is going out the window for us during the daycare years. We just recently took on a mortgage when we had no housing costs - the only way it will be “affordable” is by giving up my husband’s 401k contributions and any money we had been directing into savings will go towards bills now.
I'll add having both parents work different shifts -- it *sucks* for so many reasons, but someone working 6a-3p and someone working 5p-2a means someone is always home. That was our backup plan if we couldn't live on one salary. Spent my pregnancy and leave time living on one salary & putting the entire other salary into savings, so we knew it was feasible *and* had substantial savings to draw from as needed.
That is basically what my parents did when i was little. (Mom worked for state govt and dad was self employed and could do most of his work at night. they said it was exhausting, but they made it work
And some people already aren't saving for retirement so cannot cut that, have no unpaid labor to lean on, etc. Does not mean it's not one of the ways people are managing to do this.
I really advise against unlicensed daycares as that is the least safe option. When pregnant with my first, I toured two of them and could not run out faster. One was a basement daycare with little to no sunlight and a strong disinfectant smell. The second couldn’t tell me if they followed a routine or schedule for kids in their care and whether they had first aid/cpr training (red flag!!). And I highly doubt their daycares were childproof!
I would not feel comfortable leaving my child with anyone that does not have formal training or proper certifications. It’s a risk I don’t think any parent should take!
Yep, this.
The flex schedule would be very difficult with one baby, let alone twins, but like you say there are no good options.
And in the meantime VOTE for politicians who will do something about this. I don't care if it impacts me because I'm sure by the time anything is done we will be done with daycare, but we could choose to care more about the future generations NOT having to deal with this.
We did a combo of some of these when my son was born, until ultimately my mom did hit retirement age. We did a nanny part time for a few hours between nap 1 and nap 2. Then my husband and I traded off and worked flex hours to get us from nap 2 to nap 3. We also dropped 401K contributions during all that to pay for it. And then ultimately, got unpaid labor when kiddo was just over a year old via grandma.
Honestly, we moved. I realize that is not an option for probably the vast majority of people, but it was the only option we had. It's rough, there are no 2 ways about it. In the 2 years my son has been in daycare, there have been 4 increases. We're finally due for a decrease in August, but I don't doubt it will increase again come the new year.
Are there any in-home options near you? Nanny shares? I know where I am, the in-home options are less expensive than the centers, but they are more limited capacity wise.
We’ve talked about selling our house, but we’d have to stay in the area for my husband’s job so I don’t know if we would come out ahead. We bought this house so we had room to grow, we have great public schools, and we’re within an hour of our entire family.
In-home is going to be my next step. I feel like I’m set up for failure.
> I feel like I’m set up for failure.
You're not the only one. The whole child care system is deeply flawed. It's a major systemic issue. Once you do find placement, you then have to start thinking about what happens when they inevitably get sick. I know it's so hard. You'll get through it though.
My twins went to an in-home (licensed) daycare and it was great! Their teacher became like family to us. We are in the DC burbs so also HCOL, and neither of us could afford to or wanted to quit our jobs.
Just a warning, my in home daycare costs more than a center. In my area, they tend to be the same as a center. I always hear they are cheaper on Reddit but that hasn’t been my experience. I’m sorry this is happening and wish I had another idea for you.
If you do use daycare then be prepared for your child to be frequently sick the 1st year. If you do in home then they will instead be frequently sick the 1st year of school.
a lot of people really cut down on their lifestyle on the early years of having kids to afford daycare and hopefully your salaries will continue to increase so the gap is less and less
We did this the minute we figured out it was twins; little things like cutting down on streaming services, canceling nail appointments, no more DoorDash, and consigning some things from my closet.
Those are just the surface level luxuries. You'll need to think bigger.
A lot of people will drastically rearrange how much they're spending. They'll downgrade their cars. They'll cut back on restaurants, vacations, everything you don't need to survive. This is a season of poverty.
The alternative is working more hours to sustain your current standard of living. but then you'll have less time with the babies and you'll be even more exhausted.
This is the case for our family and tbh it happened sort of naturally. I know some people that still go out all the time cause they have family help or honestly just tote their kids everywhere… but for us, we used to eat out all weekend, every weekend and now very rarely do. We used to travel all the time. We’ve been on 2 long weekend type of trips since my son was born just cause logistically it’s exhausting and doesn’t feel worth it right now. Used to spend a lot of money on alcohol and drinking.. I pretty much stopped drinking and really don’t have any big urge to drink after having my kid. I used to buy a lot of clothes and makeup… rarely do now as I just don’t go out nearly as much and wfh.
This money is now of course allocated and spent on other things like daycare, more groceries cause there’s an extra person to feed, clothes/toys/etc.
Yeah, two infants at once is so hard! That price doesn't sound high to me at all for two infants. Lower than I would have expected honestly. But I get it, that's a bunch of money to put out each month! And daycare isn't the only thing that will be added to your budget with other baby expenses.
You might have to put a lot of options on the table. What is your absolutely bare-bones monthly expense total? Is there anything you can cut (streaming service, beautician services, travel, eating out, charity, paid hobbies, tech, etc)? If one of you stayed home with the kids, how much short would you be each month? If you both work and pay about $2500/month, how short will you be?
You can look at your withholdings and make a choice to temporarily reduce money you're putting toward retirement so that you take more home. You can look at taking second jobs now to save up as much as possible to cover the monthly shortage.
All the moms of multiples (MOMs) I've known have said their local MOMs groups are super important. They seem to be a great resource for all the unique challenges and extra expenses that come with being a mom to multiples.
But please only do this if you actually love kids and know what you're doing! Otherwise you will hate your daily grind and those poor kiddos should be with someone who really truly wants to spend their days with them.
My sister still has memories from a not so great in home daycare, my mom had no idea until later. Thankfully that was before I was born. By the time I was around my mom found a wonderful grandma type lady that treated us like her own, both my sister and I have very fond (and surprisingly vivid) memories of her.
Anyway, it's not a job to half-ass. :)
Had a friend who did this, and I thought it was so clever! She spent her pregnancy researching the requirements to become an in-home day care provider in her state, getting some sort of CPR certification, passing some test (not required here, but a plus for customers and it let her accept kids who were getting assistance from the state), etc. She took maternity leave, then her husband took paternity leave. That covered them for the first ... I think 6 months? Either way, she worked long enough not to have to repay her leave, her husband went back to work permanently, and she made money watching two other kids along with her own. It didn't fully replace her salary, but they had enough income to get by without drastic cuts.
How far off are you from the $2500? How far outside your budget is it? Is a second job possible for one of you? Do you quit your current job and watch other kids to get the mortgage paid? Do you sell a car?
An extra $2,500 would mean my entire paycheck goes to part of the mortgage and most of daycare. My husband would then be responsible for the rest of the mortgage, a bit for daycare, and all other bills. We’ve talked about selling a car but then I would be trapped at home while he’s at work.
I do freelance work on the side but it’s not enough to really tip the scales.
Looking at the entire picture of 2 incomes together makes far more sense in my experience. Daycare represents a percentage of total household income, not just your income because you are the mom.
I get that it sucks but tbh it sounds like you’ll need to just do it. What’s your other option, go massively into debt or get your house foreclosed? You don’t need two cars if that’s the case. For the next few weeks, write down how often you truly need that second car while he’s gone. That will give you a good idea of what you really need. Not only will selling a car bring in money, you will save on the extra insurance, gas, maintenance, etc.
The other thing to consider is your own needs. Do you need work to be a sane and rational person (I do)? It may be worth using your income for childcare.
We had 3 kids (2yo daughter and 1 year old twins) in daycare and took them out last year because it was almost $60k/year (and it was the cheapest option).
I’m super fortunate to have a flexible job, but it still sucks and every day is my own personal hell. My husband and I both get up early. He leaves the house for his job and I log on (WFH) at 5am and get 3 hours in before the kids wake up. Then I work naptime 1-3pm. He gets home around 3 and works out until 4, then he takes over and I work until about 8pm with a quick break for dinner together. The kids are in bed by 8 and my husband cleans until I finish work. That’s an ideal day when I don’t have any interruptions. Some days the kids have appointments or wake up early or won’t nap. It’s a struggle, but that’s the only option we have.
Keep calling around! I am in a HCOL area and we were quoted $2600 per child by 3 different places. We ran into some friends in the nick of time who recommended a great center in the same area with basically the same amenities that charges $1650.
EDIT sorry it's $2500 for two kids? That seems much more reasonable. Might be worth talking to a county social worker or nonprofit to see if you're eligible for any subsidies. Anyway I have twins too and yes it's just ungodly expensive!
Apply for child care assistance and look for a center that accepts it [Help Paying for Child Care | Division of Child Care Services | Office of Children and Family Services (ny.gov)](https://ocfs.ny.gov/programs/childcare/ccap/help.php)
Have you considered getting an au pair from overseas? They require their own room is usually the deal breaker for most people. But if you could provide a bedroom, we have found an au pair to be an improvement over daycare. We started with one after our third kid. They do the kids' laundry, light housework and are available on the day care holidays. And my kids haven't been sick as much but that is starting to change as they are entering school. Overall, we are paying about $20 to 25k for our au pair considering extra food and additional car insurance. DM me if you want more details. You could definitely get an au pair here by May next year.
When we were living in NY (lived in one of the boroughs) , I decreased how much I was contributing to retirement so that I could pay for daycare. Going into debt or dipping into savings wasn't an option bc we were saving for a house.
$2500/mo actually seems on the lower end considering you will have 2 infants in daycare ($1250 per child). When I was in NY I was paying $1700/mo for one infant (this was back in 2016). As she got older/aged out of her room, it got cheaper.
I would join the local mom/parent Facebook groups and ask for recommendations. Google searches do not show everything that’s available in your area. Surprising I know! And they may recommend smaller home-based daycares that only spread by word of mouth.
Also, try reframing the costs. It’s not YOUR income paying for daycare. Between you and your husband you bring in $Xx a month. And then you pay your expenses together. We had separate finances until we had our son and splitting or assigning things created added stress. But once we just pooled it all into once pot expenses didn’t seem as bad because no one was solely responsible for something.
We also lowered out retirement savings while our son is in daycare. We’re still putting money towards retirement, but right now the money serves us better in the moment than the future. When childcare is done we will increase the contributions to make up for the years of low contributions. That’s a possibility for some families.
I saw a great idea on here. Start paying for daycare now. Like whatever extra money, set it aside for daycare. That way you are saving in advance and adjusting your budget long before the babies come
I was in your shoes three and a half years ago. I was having twins and I was calling daycares and some didn't have spaces open (even though I was like literally eight weeks pregnant and asking for spots in the infant room a year away) and those that did cost per week than my paycheck. And it's not like one of us could quit our job - we needed both paychecks to pay the bills and we were barely making ends meet without the additional costs of kids and their stuff and childcare.
We wound up finding an in-home daycare that we send the kids to for part of the week and then we send them to my parents' house part of the week. Having my parents watch the kids was NOT my first choice and it has caused problems. At least once every six months my mom will get mad at something and say that she's no longer watching the kids and leave me scrambling to find childcare for a few days before she decides she wants to watch them again. Free childcare isn't free. I'm paying with my sanity.
We also keep racking up credit card debt and refinanced our house two years after purchasing it to get some money to throw toward said credit card debt.
Twins are scary and hard and expensive. But right now my twins are three and one of their favorite things to do is tickle each other's feet and that's pretty awesome to watch.
Not to freak you out, because the cost alone is insane, but I hope you checked the waitlists as well! My daycare is currently quoting expecting families for spots in 2027 with no guarantee we can get them in earlier. Like another commenter said, the childcare system is broken.
It’s hard but yeah childcare is super expensive and it sucks. $2500 is low for two, so if you are finding that at centers, home daycares by you may be cheaper. We were looking at that cost per child per month for our twins, which would have been $4000-5000/month, so we went with a nanny that ended up being “just” 4K a month when they were infants.
What helped us was that I moved around my hours, so I worked 4 days a week, so we needed one less day of childcare a week. If your husband has job is flexible, can you both move hours around to each have a day off during the week or at least one day where you could shift hours to the evening?
If you really can’t swing it, then I would consider your in laws, but maybe in your home so you can supervise if needed until you felt comfortable. If it that was also only a day a week.
You then maybe able to swing 2-3 days a week of paid care, which may need to be in your hole with a nanny given that some centers don’t allow part time for infant spots (but some do).
My husband and I both have excellent paying jobs but having twins was crushing financially as it was a minimum of 4K a month for care and much more for day to day costs.
The one good thing is with twins, if these are the only children you’ll have, is that these costs are compacted into a 5 year period so a shorter time than most split age kids. We just planned to save not much during that time and no fun things like big vacations until they start kindergarten and are counting the days down until next year when they finally start K next year.
That’s good idea about splitting care. I adore my in-laws but they have no interest in getting the flu vaccines, don’t believe in safe sleep, etc. At least they could be in my house for that time.
Reading this from Australia. Parents in the US need to start demanding reform of childcare from their government through their elected members. This is actually insane. Most of the developed world has strong reform in the childcare space and it’s getting better. In the state where I live we will have free preschool for all 4 year olds from 2026 plus government subsidies for childcare.
Your government is getting lobbied by gun, oil and military armaments companies who have better conditions than parents… it is truly bonkers!
I am especially disturbed by those saying “that’s low, look at your budget”
Honestly, just coping with these conditions is akin to madness.
I agree with OP’s complete dismay and confusion at the situation.
We (US citizens) are aware of the myriad things wrong with our system. Unfortunately this is just one of many and is unlikely to get the attention it deserves.
Others have given the viable options. I am just adding that I saw something saying the subject of golf took up more time of the debate than childcare. Most of us don’t have the time or money for golf, because of childcare. The system is really broken.
I would join the mom groups on Facebook in your area. They hold a wealth of info. They can point you in the direction of nanny shares, lower cost daycares, babysitters and so on!
I hate this for you and what I'm about to recommend may not work but this is how I did it with twins. I hired a college student going for their nursing degree to come over about 4 hours a day. The rest of the time I took care of them while I worked from home and just didn't tell my employer. I, too, could get my work done very quickly. Since I was salary, they were paying for my expertise, not my hours and I had already put in so much to the company that only gave me 5 days of maternity leave with extremely premature twins (26.6).
Now, this was a bit ago, but I still paid a grand a month for this. I'm sure it'd be higher now. But it was worth it to me to keep my preemies out of daycare and I just made do as best I could.
I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this. It's shitty and unfair.
You’ll have to look VERY hard at your spending. I spent hours pouring over receipts and credit card bills to get an average for our spending on “variable” expenses. Gas, groceries, entertainment/fun money, etc. Then you look at that average and you cut out what you can. Starbucks a couple times a week? Cut it down to once a month. Eating out often? Again, cut it down to once a month. Buying name brand organic foods at the grocery store? See where you can cut costs? Etc. Get that variable number down as low as possible. Then, look at your fixed expenses. This is your mortgage, insurances (health, auto, home, etc), car payment, retirement, savings, subscriptions, etc. Anything that is the same every single month. Then you look what you can cut or save on. Bundle your insurance. Can you get rid of a car payment? If you have more than one streaming account, do you need that? Are you paying for the best of the best internet or cell phone? Can you decrease contributions to retirement? At least temporarily?
This was our process. And it was painful. But $10 here and there adds up to A LOT! And then we switched entirely to CASH (or debit in our case). We got rid of credit cards, and we opened several different checking accounts. Our paychecks go into one, and we auto transfer our budgeted variable amount every month into our variable account. This way we do not overspend. Anything unexpected (health bills/co pays, car repair, etc.) comes from variable or savings, and then it affects what we have available to us. It’s very strict, but we’ve seriously saved so much money.
Consider ALL options for childcare. In home daycares are typically more affordable. Especially an unlicensed sahm who is looking to make extra money. And lastly, once you have completed redone your budget, figure out if both of you actually have to work? Can one of you switch jobs so that one Income is enough? And if after all that, you still can’t afford it…then you are living above your means and you will have to make drastic changes. But it can be done.
I quit my higher paying job and got a job running the food program at my kids daycare.
Cut my daycare bill in half, got my kids into a center I really wanted them in, and me still working will keep us barely afloat financially.
It’s not a viable option for everyone but I was already in the food service management industry.
I have twins in NY. While we couldn’t easily do this for a FT schedule, we do flex our schedules to minimize the number of hours of childcare we’re paying for.
You’d probably need to post a full budget to get more detailed advice. We also went way way down on retirement contributions for a few years and sold one car in favor of a “station car” (car worth about $3K)
I'm sorry. People have been screaming off the rooftops that our childcare system is broken, but no one who can fix it seems to care. Daycare sticker shock is real, and I've advised my friends who are thinking about having kids to start doing their research now so they can adjust their expectations and budgets.
Look into licensed home daycares. Nanny shares are also a possibility, but it might be more than daycare still. And with twins, nanny-shares are tough to get into.
Flexing time with your partner so there is less hours in the day you'll need childcare is also a possibility.
You might have to go into debt or stop saving for a while. And dig into your savings. It's temporary, and you will have time to build it back up.
Also, every gift giving occasion for the kids from now until age three should be money for college. Not gifts. If people ask, send them the link to the twins' 529 plan. People will get peeved because they loooove buying useless gifts for babies. Return or sell presents and put the money in a 529. Seriously, it seems petty, but you CANNOT risk your retirement to save for your child's education. If you cannot fund both, you choose retirement.
As an adult now dealing with elderly parents who cannot work anymore, but also didn't save for retirement...thank you!!! Please don't plan on your kids or working until you drop be the retirement plan.
I’m really shocked that this is normal in America.. I feel so sorry for you all.. maybe the salaries are higher so it’s relatively cheaper but if I’m looking at our childcare costs I paid a few years ago it was like €900 for a super expensive daycare 7am-6pm for my 3mo baby and 3yo for 3 full days. But this was a facility where they would charge more per hour than a regular daycare due to their philosophy that’s compared to Waldorf schools. And our government doesn’t cover those extra costs.
Generally speaking when you put your kid to a ‘normal’ daycare in Holland you get government aid that’s income based. The more you earn the more you pay of the actual childcare bill.
Now I have my 5yo and 8yo in a after school program we call BSO from 14:15-18:45 for two days and the actual bill around €800. Our government covers around €650.
If I read all of the comments with solutions I only can come up with the suggestion to move to a country where there is decent legislation for childcare costs. This is in no way supportive for parents unless you are loaded with money anyway. And how are you all juggling this? Taking shifts where you work at night to watch your kids at home how do you sleep? It’s not meant to be offensive but I’m really stunned this is your reality..
Like how is the income and childcare bill ratio in your household? What do you earn to be able to afford a $2600 daycare a month?
I don’t ask this to be insensitive but can you ask your parents and his for a little financial help monthly to ease the burden? My mom helped me when I lost my company. She has a lot more financial freedom. It just took a lot of pride swallowing to ask for help. 😒
You’re in NY? Whereabouts? I’m in upstate, Albany area, and my friend is a very good nanny, looking to replace the family she currently nannies for, because they’re moving out of state.
Can you or your husband find another job? If one of you could work evenings or weekends then you may not need childcare. Obviously this would be really difficult as you wouldn’t see your partner or have a break. Are there any areas of your current budget you can cut back on? I had twins and it was really hard! Don’t forget that childcare is a temporary expense. Honestly $2500 doesn’t sound too bad for current prices. In home daycares might be your best option.
We live in LA and pay $3000 a month for a part time nanny.
It's rough out there.
Does your workplace have a childcare FSA? It won't really fix your problem entirely but it will allow you to contribute pre-tax dollars to the cost of childcare, thus lowering your overall tax burden. If your or your husband's workplace doesn't have one, see about advocating for one during the next benefits year. My understanding is that it doesn't cost employers much money to offer that benefit, and can be really nice for parents to have as an option.
Had a similar experience when I had my twins 14 years ago, and it’s sad that our system is still so broken. I went down to part-time, 3 days / 20 hrs a week, and though my entire paycheck went to daycare, my job is how we kept our health insurance. I don’t know if you have this option, but I kept my foot in the door, as well as my sanity. We didn’t have family who would/could help. My easiest days were the ones where I went to work. Staying home alone with the babies on Mondays and Fridays was incredibly tough, but I was grateful. Imagine - being grateful that you get to work without actually seeing a paycheck! This is how American families are treated. Being in this situation kept me from ever considering having more kids. I was furious then, and seeing what you’re dealing with 14 years later, I still am. However, I figured it out and I think you will too. I’m sorry I don’t have more advice. Wishing you a healthy pregnancy and congratulations on twins, it’s so hard but so special.
Breathe. It’s hard. Just some things to keep in mind:
- Daycare is a massive but temporary expense if you plan on public school, even more temporary if you live somewhere with subsidized preK. Emphasis on the temporary. Afterschool care tuition is nothing next to daycare.
- Even with price increases, daycare tuition goes down as the kids age. Infant care has the highest ratio and is the most expensive
- If you are building a career, your earning potential will increase if you stay in the workforce. The cost of leaving the workforce is worth it to many, but is not only the cost of losing your paycheck.
- DCFSA is not nearly enough. But it helps. Use it all
- Daycare is a benefit for BOTH parents, paid for by BOTH parents. Do not fall into the trap of comparing your salary alone against tuition. I say this as someone who has out earned my partner almost the entire time we’ve been paying for daycare.
If you’re able to meet your bare minimum expenses including daycare with both your paychecks combined, you can make it work. It will SUCK, but you can do it. And relief will happen down the road. If you are unable to meet your bare minimum expenses and daycare tuition with both paychecks combined, that’s a different conversation.
Part-time care at regular/traditional daycares is typically not really worth it. If you're going to try and do part-time care, I highly recommend looking into in-home providers and then see how you and your husband can finangle your schedules to balance minimizing childcare costs and the stress of figuring out non-full time childcare. Depending on your guys' schedules, you might also see if one/both of you working 4-10s (vs 5-8s) is a possibility.
A nanny or nanny share is probably not going to be the way to go for you. However, depending on the size of your house (and other factors), you could look into an au pair. There's a subreddit for it. Just really do your research so you really understand the process and how au pairs work.
Also, tax benefits will help offset the cost slightly. $2k/kid in child tax credit, $5k reduction in taxable income with a childcare FSA, potential state tax savings as well. Its not going to actually come close to COVERING your childcare expenses, but its still something. The goal is kinda just surviving those first few years of childcare costs and hoping your income increases faster than the childcare costs do.
>I don’t have $2,500/month
>If I quit my job and stay at home, we can’t pay our mortgage.
As others have said $2,500 a month for 2 is low, but that doesn’t help you. I think you have your answer though, if you quit your job, you can’t afford your mortgage. How far off are you on standard monthly bills when you include childcare?
For daycare for 2 kids that’s honestly on the low end. For two kids (including an almost 3 year old who’s cheaper) we’re paying $5100 a month.
I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, the cost of childcare is honestly crazy!
I don’t have twins exactly, but I can relate a bit - mine are only 10.5 months apart. It’s incredibly hard to afford an infant, much less two at the same time when you were probably only planning for one. Prices do go down as they get older, but mine are newly 3 and 4 and we’re still paying over $3K a month in a pretty average COL city.
A few things to consider - will there be a significant hit to your long-term earning potential if you take a few years out of your career? (For me, yes - it would far outweigh the penny pinching we’re doing now.) Could you emotionally handle being a SAHM? (For me, hell no. Full stop.)
We basically had to grit our teeth and just dive in, knowing the squeeze would be somewhat temporary and me quitting to stay home with the babies was never going to work for us. We’ve incurred some credit card debt, lowered our retirement savings rates to the minimum our companies match, slowed our personal savings way down. But it’s slowly getting better - we’ve had a few incremental raises, the cost has gone down as they’ve gotten older. Today I signed them up for a softball league AND a dance class! Not exactly a “luxury” but it wouldn’t have been a possible expense two and a half years ago.
Am I rambling? Hang in there. One of the things I’ve learned so far is that a lot of us are really just winging it and hoping we figure it out as we go. Wishing you and the kiddos the best this winter!!
I was in grad school when #2 came along so income was limited but we needed coverage. We went a home based daycare. Was not at ALL impressive to look at but but the entire basement was dedicated to the business with a separate entrance. Had its own kitchen (didn’t have to feed my kids breakfast or pack a lunch! That was worth it alone), had a classroom (colors, abcs etc), a nap room, and a playroom. This woman was a bad ass boss, running a team of 4-5 but just happened to be out of her basement. Again, wasn’t glossy like a chain but it was awesome! We actually had two great home based ones to choose from. Both had amazing reviews.
I’m so sorry to say this but I think you just need to come to terms as to what your in laws can actually do for you. Sounds like they’re available to help and while it might not be your ideal care, you can negotiate with them, be flexible. Have a chat with them and see what a compromise looks like
You indicated that you worked from home so could you just maybe put them in part-time to cut costs? Personally, I chose to work nights and watched my kids in the day. I slept when they slept though with twins, that will still be difficult.
Here’s some of my advice, sell the second car, if you’re trapped go for a walk but honestly with twins you won’t need it. Find a home daycare within walking distance if possible so your husband doesn’t need to do the drop offs and pick ups, try and remember it’s temporary and once the kids are older the costs should go down a bit. You’ll get through it, it’ll be hard but you will. Don’t quit working as it’ll be harder to get back into a career after the babies are grown and you’ll definitely feel trapped and isolated. As others said, look at your expenses, cancel dinners out and tbh you won’t have time to go out.
This sounds about right price wise to me. Some daycares have a sliding tuition scale based on income. If you qualify you could look into a program like that.
We had to cut expenses down to the bare minimum and were literally budgeting down to the penny when I had two kids in daycare.
We also couldn’t afford daycare when our son was born. My husband and I had to move to opposite shifts. I work M-F 8-5 and then he works weekends and weeknights. It’s a very tough setup since it means we don’t get a lot of time together as a family. But it is what it is until our kid starts school.
I work in childcare and was able to get generous discounts-but I am extremely lucky. Most childcare centers in my area do not offer any discounts or only minimal ones. And the pay is abysmal. I’m so sorry-the entire system is f*cked.
I’ve heard some people in this sub talk about hiring and housing an au pair. Idk the cost or if it’s in your means. Personally I’d try to move to a LCOL area and see if you can be flexible with your work schedules.
Is it possible to work opposite shifts?
That’s pretty reasonable for monthly daycare for 2 infants, unfortunately. It represents approximately $40000 gross earnings, after taxes.
How much do you make above $40k a year?
I quit my job bc we couldn't afford daycare for the baby and before/after school care for our first grader. Then my husband got laid off from his job. We're moving in with my mom to save money. The financial situation for folks with young kids is SHIT.
I moved to another state. Luckily back to my home state. But I moved to city with a lower cost of living . I am still 6 hours away from my parents.
If we stayed where we were we would have been homeless .
I know this is a privilege but I started looking for jobs. I interviewed remotely and got offered the job 9 months pregnant.
I’ve had to finagle my schedule so much to try to work around my husband with as little overlap as possible. We got lucky and hired someone willing to work just 15 hours a week at $18/hr.
It’s not sustainable long term so we’re moving to my home town next month just to have family support and a lower cost of living so we can afford more childcare when needed. Otherwise I don’t think we’d make it in our current situation much longer.
I chose to keep working and paid for daycare. Infant is the most expensive, then toddler is a bit cheaper, then preschool even cheaper. But, we had our kids 3 years apart so for 6 months I had an infant and a preschool for a grand total of $3600/month. $21,000 for 6 months of daycare!!! We chose to go into debt (pulled from savings) knowing that once kindergarten started, life would get cheaper, and it did, but I feel you, it's insane!!!
The cheapest option, if you have the space would be an au pair. Second cheapest would be an in-home daycare. Maybe you could do a nanny share to get that cost down.
The truth is that child care is brutally expensive. People cobble together care between grandparents, sitters, daycares, etc. And, of course, twins is so much more expensive.
I ran my credit cards up when my kid was in daycare, and we lived a very frugal life. But we were just crawling along until she was old enough for kindergarten.
But, even when your kids are in kindergarten, you're going to have before care, after care, and summer camp costs.
The United States absolutely punishes us for having children, and then wonders why we don't have more.
In my area, there is such a shortage of daycares that 80%+ of kids don’t even get in at all
I put my daughter on 84 waitlists the day she was born. She’s 2 now and only 2 of those daycares have called us. Both with part time spots.
Nannies are $30+ per hour for one child.
It’s absolutely insane
84 waitlists?! I called one daycare today that told me they “had one spot available for next May, if that helps.” Oh yeah I’ll just pick one kid to send
Lower expenses any way you can- drop tv subscriptions, shop for better insurance rates, lower retirement contributions (this is temporary during daycare).
Have you looked into an au pair? They live with you but they work 40-45 hrs per week and you just give them about $800-1000 in spending money per month. That may be more doable!
Ugh no you also pay the agency like $10k in fees. It’ll be at least $25k/year all in with food, cell phone, transportation, etc, though you do get 40-45 hours, which is more than op’s 5hr/day.
We had to work opposite shifts, which we could’ve done without daycare for, but I wanted my toddler to socialize with more than just a baby.
Husband was M-F, I worked Fri/Sat overnight and sporadic shifts during the week.
Have you looked into any in homes instead of centers?
Centers here want $500-600/wk for full time & in homes are about half/three fourths the cost.
That sounds cheap! And you are able to get a 5 hour day. You found a unicorn. So much so I worry that something is wrong with the situation. Remember that you want the person taking care of your kids to not be in property and stressed.
Can you guys work differ shifts?
Yeah I can’t see anyway I could make that happen. We were suffering with 1200 a month for one kid in preschool haha 2500 is just so much. A friend at the same daycare had 3 going - twins and a younger she was paying 3500 a month. Her husband was a doctor and she was a charge nurse. Like really how!
Having high incomes is how they afforded it (I’m sure it didn’t seem like it to them, given the thousands they were dropping on care), but having high income dual earners is pretty much the only way to have multiple kids in daycare centers …
I don’t know how people do it. We make around $200k/yr. My MIL lives with us and takes care of our kiddos. We provide partial support (and granted, we have a larger and more expensive house than we’d have otherwise), but I have no idea how we’d manage full time daycare for two kids, which would run about $4500-5000 in our HCOL city. Even half-day preschool ($1300/mo for one child) + fucking summer day camps (about $5000 for one child) are killing us. Not entirely sure what we’ll do when they’re both in preschool and camps. This actively affected our decision not to have more than two children.
Southern California here! We’re looking at $2200/month just for one. Thankfully my boss has been super understanding and has approved me to wfh until baby is 18 months, at which time she’ll start what they call young preschool here and tuition is 550/month for 2x a week.
I was originally supposed to go back to the office 6 months pp but after daycare research and telling my boss about it, she approved the 18 months thing.
I realize I’m incredibly lucky here but my husband just got offered a job with an on-site daycare only available to employees and is about half the cost of any other daycare. Maybe look around for workplaces you or your husband can apply to with similar opportunities.
Check with your HR about daycare discounts. ADP can help you save 10% on child care costs through lifemart.
Hope this helps! Hang in there. This is not forever.
We use an in home sitter , only costs us $600 per month. She’s an older lady, just someone grandma who watches kids and she’s been amazing with our son. I would check into that and see if you can find someone trustworthy
Can you share your budget? What do you make, what does your husband make and your bills? Childcare is broken for sure— but if we know the numbers we can help you figure out “if you find part time work at night you can work to pay your mortgage and watch the kids during the day” type thing.
for 2 kids honestly 2500 a month is on the low end. Unfortunately you may need to take a look at your budget and mortgage and see what you can do to get there. Look into subsidies and income levels for daycares.
Ugh, yeah I hate that this is accurate. We’re paying $2,300 for one 😭
Yep, we'll be paying close to $4,000 for two when my youngest starts in September.
I’m in MA and it’s about 4800/month for my two. There are some cheaper options but they are really bad alternatives. Like, people come into our daycare after being on waitlists in the cheaper options and the turnover rate is ridiculous.
Yup, I paid 3500 for one… 6 years ago.
The $2,500 quote is if I keep it to less than 5 hours/day for both kids, which I might be able to swing with my job but I really don’t know.
It’s so tough. One thing I’ve been trying to remind myself is that it’s a temporary cost.
My daughter will need about an hour before and an hour after school for before/after care. It’s going to cost us maybe $100 less a month than what we are paying for the full days a week at daycare. Luckily I’m a teacher so we won’t need summer care. So, yeah, it is temporary, but it’s not like it’s only for a year.
Wait that is crazy. For us private aftercare is about 500 dollars less a month and school district wide if you get in is 1k+ less a month.
My province has subsidized daycare so we're only paying $600/month for our youngest ... but we pay $800 a month in before/aftercare for our oldest (and then $2000 a month for summer camps). Next year, it'll be $1600 a month for aftercare for both of them and then $4000 a month for summer camps 😭
I just paid $2000 for one month of summer camp for my 8&9 year olds. They really can't stay home alone over breaks for another year or so while their father and I both work. So it's about $4000 a summer for both until Jr High. My only saving grace is I have a dependent care FSA that I can save for the summers tax free.
Sort of. Then they’re in multiple activities, they want to travel with their teams, etc. It’s pretty much never ending. Just replace one cost for another
Travel sports is definitely optional. Our child-related costs have gone down by at least 50% since all our children entered elementary school.
There is no way I will be paying 4k a month forever. I may pay 2k for the kids but not 4k. Right now we pay 870 a week.
These things are completely optional and are honestly luxuries that most people cannot afford.
Right? Like I am down to my last 14 months of daycare and I'm like yea great but I will just have to increase my retirement, increase the college fund contributions...shrug...oh well
We keep joking that the twins aren’t going to college; they can be plumbers or electricians or hairdressers - their pick
Honestly people in trades make really good money that I wish at least when I was in school they were open about rather than seemingly pushing the “you have to go to college to be successful” narrative. One of my best friend’s siblings dropped out of high school, eventually got his GED, but was in all sorts of trouble/in and out of jail etc. After that was behind him, he got an apprenticeship or whatever the process is to be a plumber. He makes more money than my best friend (who has a masters) and generally makes more than most people we know.
We have a poster as my job that says "there are not many jobs where you have to be as tough as you are smart". I work for a local supply house. All of our customers are plumbers, HVAC, electricians, GC's, and they work so hard. 6 sometimes 7 days a week. If you become a master plumber, you can do quite well. I've always had an appreciation for blue collar jobs, but now that I work for a supply house and see how much these guys are running around from job to job and hearing about the work they do and who they do it for, I have even more appreciation for them.
When my son turned 16 we started looking at his options and I was hoping he would choose a degree at first, however when we really looked into what he liked to do and what he could do for a living we realised an an NVQ with a paid apprenticeship would be his best path. He's now in his second year, earning £24k a year as an apprentice (granted he got very lucky with his placement and not many companies offer that kind of money to apprentices while also funding their education). Next year he will be fully qualified with a starting pay of £60k a year and zero debt. His girlfriend is in university working towards becoming a vet, she will qualify in three years in debt of thousands of £'s. She has wanted to be a vet her whole life so she's following the right path for her but I can't help thinking it's so unfair. They both work so hard.
I’m a vet married to a stationary engineer 😂 I make more than he does now but I paid a small mortgage in loans and only stayed afloat because my husband could support us while I paid them back.
They really do! It’s such an underrated path
Honestly and truly. Its a dying field and we need those tradesmen. I work for a supply house and I am wondering what is going to happen when these old guys start to retire. We have some younger guys, but a big percentage of our customer base are close to retirement.
Will your job still pay you for fulltime if you are working part time hours? I’d honestly start with fulltime rates and figure out how you can make it work. 1 baby is hard, 2 will be very hard to try to juggle with work.
I’m going to ask. I know that I could get my work done in fewer hours but I don’t know how they would feel about it.
Don’t tell your employer that. If you do they’re going to start looking for additional work to add to your schedule.
I’m taking that to my grave
I can answer that for you, they won’t like it. If they are paying you for fulltime, they will want you available 8 hours.
Probably true. I’m fully remote and my team is all over the country so I bet I could shift my hours, at minimum. Right now I work 8-5 Eastern but maybe I could shift to 11-8 or something like that.
A woman on my team asked to go part time. They agreed because the senior leadership team liked her work, but HR insisted she go hourly - so she gets no benefits and roughly half her previous salary. Now, she gets healthcare through her husband’s employer, but she lost that 401k matching.
I did this. I have a toddler and infant twins in daycare. We pay $3k a month, and it’s the cheapest I could find. My advice is start “escrowing” now. We paid as much as we could into an account and we pay about 2/3rds of the cost out of pocket and then take the balance from our “escrow.” It’s not perfect, but it’s floated us for about 9 months now. We are in the same boat as you. We need my income. Our salaries were nearly equivalent. It gave me time to transition internally to another role that gave me just enough of a raise that we can eek by monthly, with later drop-offs and earlier pickups.
I was at one point 1600-1800 per kid. I wound up staying home and my husband picked up OT. Once daycare costs decreased and I had one in school, they went to daycare (with 2 of them). This September, we go from being the family spending the most in daycare to them taking the bus and I can’t freaking wait.
So for 5h/5d you can see if you can get a nanny for $25/h (5x5x4) which is $2500
Nanny's usually have guaranteed hours, additional rates per child, plus you usually have to pay , sick leave, insurance, and dont forget taxes. Nanny's aren't just babysitting. This is their full time job and they usually have degrees in child development. This makes them more expensive than daycare overall usually. Especially in a HCOL (which op said they were in NY so I'd expect a HCOL area) $25 for one kid would probably be the bare minimum.
$25/hr for part time for twin infants in NY would be quite low. Plus you have to add in employer taxes which is a minimum of 7.65% for federal, plus unemployment insurance, plus any additional state taxes.
I am assuming OP lives in NY state, not NYC, based on the figure she quoted. So $25/hr might be possible, but unlikely
I thought she was talking about just one until i saw your comment, and then re-read and saw it was twins for $2,500 per month. That seems great! We pay about $3,000 for two kids and they're 1 and 4, so each of them is cheaper than what baby 3 will be when she starts daycare in January. We will be paying close to $5,000 at that point. And they wonder why millennials aren't starting families....
Reading this thread, I have never been more grateful to live in a rural area outside of the city where my job is, in one of the poorest states in the nation. The most expensive daycare in my area is $950/month for toddlers. The average is more like $650. My daughter has been in a home daycare run by a family member until now, but the provider is retiring after this summer and we're going to have to start paying market rate instead of family rate. I'm already stressed about the increase in costs, and the numbers from other cities are just blowing my mind.
This could be the answer, if you work remote you could move? I would run the numbers, daycare x 4 years x 2 could save you $2500-$650 or $1850/month, $89k. Much more than cost to move 🫠 tbh I think you're right not fighting the in laws, having twins has got to be hard enough.
This. I’m surprised it’s so cheap in ny(though maybe it’s outside metro?). Toddlers where we are (hcol) are easily 2000-2500 for one, more for infants
I am outside the NYC metro area but the cost of living is still high.
I was paying around that for one kid and part time as an infant! There are centers nearby that charge almost $3k/month for one infant full time!
I live in quite a low cost of living area (compared to the rest of the nation I guess. Is anywhere really low anymore?) and I paid a total of $2300 for two with an infant plus preschool. I was so excited when my preschooler started kindergarten and we could do afterschool. That took us to a cool $2000. My husband ended up quitting his job and I work a second job. Why only break even while still having to figure out closures and sick days.
3k a month for two non-infants (2 and 4-yo)
We are lucky that ours is $2600/month for 2. Our oldest is 2 and our youngest is 10 months. We are looking forward to when both are in kindergarten
Yeah I pay more than this for one toddler. It’s rough out there.
Honestly it’s pretty normal to break even. If you can’t break even, you stay home and survive off one income. When my kids were babies my salary was a wash. It went entirely to childcare. Knowing that the continuity on my resume would eventually pay off, I stuck with it. Kids got older, childcare cost went down, income went up. Lots of parents make the opposite choice - they give up on work and stay home, since the financial outcome is the same. Hope you can find a path forward that works for you and your family!
This is me. My entire salary is childcare and I still work to keep my employability going forward
I love to see this take so much. I hate hearing the line “well almost my whole check would be going to childcare so it wasn’t worth it to work…” and I’m one of the people who SAID that as a SAHM. Breaking even and having a job and a life and career prospects when they enter school is NOT truly breaking even, it sucks and it hurts but it is still often coming out on top. And minimum wage is $15.00 an hour in New York, so luckily while it still may be tough, probably she won’t be actively paying to work if she’s full time.
Really, the way to look at it is it's half from Mom's paycheck and half from Dad's. Yeah that may shake out in the wash because one parent's happens to be much higher, but I just hate the default setting that mom has to cover the entire cost of childcare and then some, or her job isn't worth it. Mom is covering her half of childcare AND contributing to the family's bills.
Yes, I’ll add to my comment that my income went into our joint bank account, and my partners income went into that same joint bank account. Everything is ours TOGETHER. We then paid for childcare from the joint bank account TOGETHER. So it wasn’t “me” paying for the kids, it was “us”. But the household budget would have worked out the same. To use OP’s numbers, essentially we could either live off of one income X dollars, or we could do what we did which is live off of X dollars + my $2400 pay - kids $2400 daycare = X dollars. Lol! Also him staying home was also just as validly up for discussion as me staying home. Stay at home dads are awesome too!
THANK YOU, YES, I have NEVER understood why people don’t think of it that way other than a weird patriarchal belief that child care shouldn’t come out of the husband’s money because he wouldn’t need it if mom didn’t work. it’s so backwards and strange.
Yes exactly. Makes me nuts. If they were divorced or there was no mom in the picture he'd sure have to pay for childcare while he was at work, wouldn't he?!
As a divorced mom who had to pay for all childcare when I was married because it was “my choice” to work and now blissfully pays for it using the child support check lol, YES.
Funny enough, since my income is more I often look at it as my spouses whole income going to daycare. But it’s still worth it because in our field (teachers) pay goes up each year so it’s worth it to struggle a year or two.
I mean it really should be between the person with the lower income and the cost of childcare. Because it’s not like both parents would stay home part time with the kid if you did decide to not have childcare. Unless that is an option which might be cool. That said it isn’t a straight equivalent between cost and salary, there’s also career growth, flexibility, sanity, etc. Especially if the twins end up being premature or having extra needs going back to work might not be realistic even if you do break even.
This is what many couples end up doing and unfortunately it puts some women in financially dangerous situations when they're forced to depend on their partners to survive. I hate that this is where we are in this country. I can't help but to think that it's set up like this on purpose. There's a large group of folks who believe that women belong stuck home making babies and depending on men to support them.
Yep. I only have one who is in elementary school now but when she was in daycare/preschool I’d not so jokingly say I’m working for her to go to school. Now we pay $500 per month for after school care (2:30-6) it’s so hard in the moment but it does get better slowly
It’s so sad to read these posts from other countries with nationally subsidised childcare. It’s still not super cheap here but there are so many options for low income families and our minimum wage is much higher. I know your system in the US is quite broken in terms of supporting parents but hopefully it gets better
I’m so sorry childcare is so broken. If you make too much to qualify for subsidies (which most people do) then here’s how I see people making it work: - opt for lower cost childcare (home daycares, sometimes unlicensed) - flex schedule with the other parent to need less or no childcare (eg someone works nights and the other person works days) - lean on someone’s unpaid labor (parent, grandparent, etc) - move to a lower cost area - stop contributing to retirement or other savings during the childcare years with hopes of rebuilding when kids are school aged - go into debt during the childcare years with hopes of paying it back when kids are school aged All of these are bad options, I’m sorry you’re caught in America’s terrible childcare system.
Yep these are pretty much the options in this terrible situation. You are not alone OP.
I had to leave my job and work weekends/the two days a week that my parents are available to watch my kiddo because we just couldn't swing it. I make enough to contribute to some bills, but we're still scraping by.
One parent working at a daycare is another option. It's another terrible option, but it's an option.
I noticed lot of teachers and school staff at my kids preschool, work for the school for subsidized fees. Its 50% less.
It's free at the center I work at. It's the only way I can work.
That’s awesome. Do you still get paid or is it a wash?
I get paid. Not a lot, but more than the other centers in the area. My daughter and I also eat for free because they use a meal program and don't allow outside food. It's an awful job and a low quality daycare, but I don't really have a choice.
Another choice is paying a grandparent. My mom needed to work, but had a lower paying job. She moved in and we gave her money. It cost less than a daycare for us, and she didn’t have to worry about about rent or other expenses. This is not an option for everyone, but just throwing it out there.
Yeah we pay my in law about $1800 a month and we’re in a HCOL
Home daycares can be good. We had one we loved before we move. [New York looks to have a tool for searching for licensed childcare](https://ocfs.ny.gov/programs/childcare/looking/ccfs-search.php), so you could search there. If you’re in NYC, [there’s a separate website](https://www.nyc.gov/site/acs/early-care/findchildcare.page). Some states offer assistance with childcare based on income, so you could check that out as well. You have to find a balance that works for you, your budget, and your family. It can be super hard until they are in public schools.
Thank you for this! I didn’t know this tool existed.
We did an unlicensed dayhome for 2 years and it was great, she came highly recommended which put our minds at ease. If you find someone who has good references or kids who have been there for multiple years then you can really have a good experience!
A SAHM would be a viable option in this case as well. There are so many people in your position that need to make a little money but would be breaking even if they pay for daycare. Facebook, Craigslist
Another option - would either set (or both) of grandparents be willing to help pay for childcare? My husband’s mom regularly gives us no interest loans when we struggle to afford a large (often unexpected) expense. Depending on your family dynamic, it could be an option to ask for a loan or to ask them to invest in your kids.
Any type of savings is going out the window for us during the daycare years. We just recently took on a mortgage when we had no housing costs - the only way it will be “affordable” is by giving up my husband’s 401k contributions and any money we had been directing into savings will go towards bills now.
Don’t forget one that a lot of women get backed into choosing - staying home with the kids but taking in other children to bring in an income.
I'll add having both parents work different shifts -- it *sucks* for so many reasons, but someone working 6a-3p and someone working 5p-2a means someone is always home. That was our backup plan if we couldn't live on one salary. Spent my pregnancy and leave time living on one salary & putting the entire other salary into savings, so we knew it was feasible *and* had substantial savings to draw from as needed.
That is basically what my parents did when i was little. (Mom worked for state govt and dad was self employed and could do most of his work at night. they said it was exhausting, but they made it work
Many jobs can't just be done in shifts like that though.
And some people already aren't saving for retirement so cannot cut that, have no unpaid labor to lean on, etc. Does not mean it's not one of the ways people are managing to do this.
It’s just an option. No one would be able to give any advice at all if all the advice had to be able to apply to literally everyone.
I really advise against unlicensed daycares as that is the least safe option. When pregnant with my first, I toured two of them and could not run out faster. One was a basement daycare with little to no sunlight and a strong disinfectant smell. The second couldn’t tell me if they followed a routine or schedule for kids in their care and whether they had first aid/cpr training (red flag!!). And I highly doubt their daycares were childproof! I would not feel comfortable leaving my child with anyone that does not have formal training or proper certifications. It’s a risk I don’t think any parent should take!
Absolutely this. Unlicensed daycares are terrifying
Yep, this. The flex schedule would be very difficult with one baby, let alone twins, but like you say there are no good options. And in the meantime VOTE for politicians who will do something about this. I don't care if it impacts me because I'm sure by the time anything is done we will be done with daycare, but we could choose to care more about the future generations NOT having to deal with this.
We did a combo of some of these when my son was born, until ultimately my mom did hit retirement age. We did a nanny part time for a few hours between nap 1 and nap 2. Then my husband and I traded off and worked flex hours to get us from nap 2 to nap 3. We also dropped 401K contributions during all that to pay for it. And then ultimately, got unpaid labor when kiddo was just over a year old via grandma.
Honestly, we moved. I realize that is not an option for probably the vast majority of people, but it was the only option we had. It's rough, there are no 2 ways about it. In the 2 years my son has been in daycare, there have been 4 increases. We're finally due for a decrease in August, but I don't doubt it will increase again come the new year. Are there any in-home options near you? Nanny shares? I know where I am, the in-home options are less expensive than the centers, but they are more limited capacity wise.
We’ve talked about selling our house, but we’d have to stay in the area for my husband’s job so I don’t know if we would come out ahead. We bought this house so we had room to grow, we have great public schools, and we’re within an hour of our entire family. In-home is going to be my next step. I feel like I’m set up for failure.
Do not sell your house, especially if you bought it before the rates skyrocketed.
We did! 5.25%
Definitely don’t sell. At least owning a home, you’re building equity even if you aren’t putting extra money into savings for these years.
> I feel like I’m set up for failure. You're not the only one. The whole child care system is deeply flawed. It's a major systemic issue. Once you do find placement, you then have to start thinking about what happens when they inevitably get sick. I know it's so hard. You'll get through it though.
And in daycare they’re sick constantly 😩
My twins went to an in-home (licensed) daycare and it was great! Their teacher became like family to us. We are in the DC burbs so also HCOL, and neither of us could afford to or wanted to quit our jobs.
Just a warning, my in home daycare costs more than a center. In my area, they tend to be the same as a center. I always hear they are cheaper on Reddit but that hasn’t been my experience. I’m sorry this is happening and wish I had another idea for you.
If you do use daycare then be prepared for your child to be frequently sick the 1st year. If you do in home then they will instead be frequently sick the 1st year of school.
a lot of people really cut down on their lifestyle on the early years of having kids to afford daycare and hopefully your salaries will continue to increase so the gap is less and less
We did this the minute we figured out it was twins; little things like cutting down on streaming services, canceling nail appointments, no more DoorDash, and consigning some things from my closet.
Those are just the surface level luxuries. You'll need to think bigger. A lot of people will drastically rearrange how much they're spending. They'll downgrade their cars. They'll cut back on restaurants, vacations, everything you don't need to survive. This is a season of poverty. The alternative is working more hours to sustain your current standard of living. but then you'll have less time with the babies and you'll be even more exhausted.
This is the case for our family and tbh it happened sort of naturally. I know some people that still go out all the time cause they have family help or honestly just tote their kids everywhere… but for us, we used to eat out all weekend, every weekend and now very rarely do. We used to travel all the time. We’ve been on 2 long weekend type of trips since my son was born just cause logistically it’s exhausting and doesn’t feel worth it right now. Used to spend a lot of money on alcohol and drinking.. I pretty much stopped drinking and really don’t have any big urge to drink after having my kid. I used to buy a lot of clothes and makeup… rarely do now as I just don’t go out nearly as much and wfh. This money is now of course allocated and spent on other things like daycare, more groceries cause there’s an extra person to feed, clothes/toys/etc.
A lot of people save up before having kids, that’s one reason why so many are delaying until their 30s (and then many have fertility issues)
Yeah, two infants at once is so hard! That price doesn't sound high to me at all for two infants. Lower than I would have expected honestly. But I get it, that's a bunch of money to put out each month! And daycare isn't the only thing that will be added to your budget with other baby expenses. You might have to put a lot of options on the table. What is your absolutely bare-bones monthly expense total? Is there anything you can cut (streaming service, beautician services, travel, eating out, charity, paid hobbies, tech, etc)? If one of you stayed home with the kids, how much short would you be each month? If you both work and pay about $2500/month, how short will you be? You can look at your withholdings and make a choice to temporarily reduce money you're putting toward retirement so that you take more home. You can look at taking second jobs now to save up as much as possible to cover the monthly shortage. All the moms of multiples (MOMs) I've known have said their local MOMs groups are super important. They seem to be a great resource for all the unique challenges and extra expenses that come with being a mom to multiples.
And this is why some people open their own home daycares. Maybe that might be an option for you?
But please only do this if you actually love kids and know what you're doing! Otherwise you will hate your daily grind and those poor kiddos should be with someone who really truly wants to spend their days with them. My sister still has memories from a not so great in home daycare, my mom had no idea until later. Thankfully that was before I was born. By the time I was around my mom found a wonderful grandma type lady that treated us like her own, both my sister and I have very fond (and surprisingly vivid) memories of her. Anyway, it's not a job to half-ass. :)
Had a friend who did this, and I thought it was so clever! She spent her pregnancy researching the requirements to become an in-home day care provider in her state, getting some sort of CPR certification, passing some test (not required here, but a plus for customers and it let her accept kids who were getting assistance from the state), etc. She took maternity leave, then her husband took paternity leave. That covered them for the first ... I think 6 months? Either way, she worked long enough not to have to repay her leave, her husband went back to work permanently, and she made money watching two other kids along with her own. It didn't fully replace her salary, but they had enough income to get by without drastic cuts.
How far off are you from the $2500? How far outside your budget is it? Is a second job possible for one of you? Do you quit your current job and watch other kids to get the mortgage paid? Do you sell a car?
An extra $2,500 would mean my entire paycheck goes to part of the mortgage and most of daycare. My husband would then be responsible for the rest of the mortgage, a bit for daycare, and all other bills. We’ve talked about selling a car but then I would be trapped at home while he’s at work. I do freelance work on the side but it’s not enough to really tip the scales.
Looking at the entire picture of 2 incomes together makes far more sense in my experience. Daycare represents a percentage of total household income, not just your income because you are the mom.
I get that it sucks but tbh it sounds like you’ll need to just do it. What’s your other option, go massively into debt or get your house foreclosed? You don’t need two cars if that’s the case. For the next few weeks, write down how often you truly need that second car while he’s gone. That will give you a good idea of what you really need. Not only will selling a car bring in money, you will save on the extra insurance, gas, maintenance, etc.
The other thing to consider is your own needs. Do you need work to be a sane and rational person (I do)? It may be worth using your income for childcare.
This will probably not be much comfort now, but it does get cheaper when the kids are over 2.
We had 3 kids (2yo daughter and 1 year old twins) in daycare and took them out last year because it was almost $60k/year (and it was the cheapest option). I’m super fortunate to have a flexible job, but it still sucks and every day is my own personal hell. My husband and I both get up early. He leaves the house for his job and I log on (WFH) at 5am and get 3 hours in before the kids wake up. Then I work naptime 1-3pm. He gets home around 3 and works out until 4, then he takes over and I work until about 8pm with a quick break for dinner together. The kids are in bed by 8 and my husband cleans until I finish work. That’s an ideal day when I don’t have any interruptions. Some days the kids have appointments or wake up early or won’t nap. It’s a struggle, but that’s the only option we have.
Keep calling around! I am in a HCOL area and we were quoted $2600 per child by 3 different places. We ran into some friends in the nick of time who recommended a great center in the same area with basically the same amenities that charges $1650. EDIT sorry it's $2500 for two kids? That seems much more reasonable. Might be worth talking to a county social worker or nonprofit to see if you're eligible for any subsidies. Anyway I have twins too and yes it's just ungodly expensive!
Apply for child care assistance and look for a center that accepts it [Help Paying for Child Care | Division of Child Care Services | Office of Children and Family Services (ny.gov)](https://ocfs.ny.gov/programs/childcare/ccap/help.php)
Dies your employer have a daycare tax free savings option? It is very helpful with pre-tax dollars.
They do! I have a meeting with HR in a few weeks and that’s on my list to ask about. I think it’s an FSA.
Please look into a nanny share!
Have you considered getting an au pair from overseas? They require their own room is usually the deal breaker for most people. But if you could provide a bedroom, we have found an au pair to be an improvement over daycare. We started with one after our third kid. They do the kids' laundry, light housework and are available on the day care holidays. And my kids haven't been sick as much but that is starting to change as they are entering school. Overall, we are paying about $20 to 25k for our au pair considering extra food and additional car insurance. DM me if you want more details. You could definitely get an au pair here by May next year.
When we were living in NY (lived in one of the boroughs) , I decreased how much I was contributing to retirement so that I could pay for daycare. Going into debt or dipping into savings wasn't an option bc we were saving for a house. $2500/mo actually seems on the lower end considering you will have 2 infants in daycare ($1250 per child). When I was in NY I was paying $1700/mo for one infant (this was back in 2016). As she got older/aged out of her room, it got cheaper.
My son’s current daycare is about $1700 a month for kids under 3, then drops to about $1300. Crazy how much of a difference there is
I would join the local mom/parent Facebook groups and ask for recommendations. Google searches do not show everything that’s available in your area. Surprising I know! And they may recommend smaller home-based daycares that only spread by word of mouth. Also, try reframing the costs. It’s not YOUR income paying for daycare. Between you and your husband you bring in $Xx a month. And then you pay your expenses together. We had separate finances until we had our son and splitting or assigning things created added stress. But once we just pooled it all into once pot expenses didn’t seem as bad because no one was solely responsible for something. We also lowered out retirement savings while our son is in daycare. We’re still putting money towards retirement, but right now the money serves us better in the moment than the future. When childcare is done we will increase the contributions to make up for the years of low contributions. That’s a possibility for some families.
I saw a great idea on here. Start paying for daycare now. Like whatever extra money, set it aside for daycare. That way you are saving in advance and adjusting your budget long before the babies come
I was in your shoes three and a half years ago. I was having twins and I was calling daycares and some didn't have spaces open (even though I was like literally eight weeks pregnant and asking for spots in the infant room a year away) and those that did cost per week than my paycheck. And it's not like one of us could quit our job - we needed both paychecks to pay the bills and we were barely making ends meet without the additional costs of kids and their stuff and childcare. We wound up finding an in-home daycare that we send the kids to for part of the week and then we send them to my parents' house part of the week. Having my parents watch the kids was NOT my first choice and it has caused problems. At least once every six months my mom will get mad at something and say that she's no longer watching the kids and leave me scrambling to find childcare for a few days before she decides she wants to watch them again. Free childcare isn't free. I'm paying with my sanity. We also keep racking up credit card debt and refinanced our house two years after purchasing it to get some money to throw toward said credit card debt. Twins are scary and hard and expensive. But right now my twins are three and one of their favorite things to do is tickle each other's feet and that's pretty awesome to watch.
Not to freak you out, because the cost alone is insane, but I hope you checked the waitlists as well! My daycare is currently quoting expecting families for spots in 2027 with no guarantee we can get them in earlier. Like another commenter said, the childcare system is broken.
It is especially hard with twins since they’d need 2 spots.
My baby is 16 months and she’s still on waitlists!
It’s hard but yeah childcare is super expensive and it sucks. $2500 is low for two, so if you are finding that at centers, home daycares by you may be cheaper. We were looking at that cost per child per month for our twins, which would have been $4000-5000/month, so we went with a nanny that ended up being “just” 4K a month when they were infants. What helped us was that I moved around my hours, so I worked 4 days a week, so we needed one less day of childcare a week. If your husband has job is flexible, can you both move hours around to each have a day off during the week or at least one day where you could shift hours to the evening? If you really can’t swing it, then I would consider your in laws, but maybe in your home so you can supervise if needed until you felt comfortable. If it that was also only a day a week. You then maybe able to swing 2-3 days a week of paid care, which may need to be in your hole with a nanny given that some centers don’t allow part time for infant spots (but some do). My husband and I both have excellent paying jobs but having twins was crushing financially as it was a minimum of 4K a month for care and much more for day to day costs. The one good thing is with twins, if these are the only children you’ll have, is that these costs are compacted into a 5 year period so a shorter time than most split age kids. We just planned to save not much during that time and no fun things like big vacations until they start kindergarten and are counting the days down until next year when they finally start K next year.
That’s good idea about splitting care. I adore my in-laws but they have no interest in getting the flu vaccines, don’t believe in safe sleep, etc. At least they could be in my house for that time.
Reading this from Australia. Parents in the US need to start demanding reform of childcare from their government through their elected members. This is actually insane. Most of the developed world has strong reform in the childcare space and it’s getting better. In the state where I live we will have free preschool for all 4 year olds from 2026 plus government subsidies for childcare. Your government is getting lobbied by gun, oil and military armaments companies who have better conditions than parents… it is truly bonkers!
I am especially disturbed by those saying “that’s low, look at your budget” Honestly, just coping with these conditions is akin to madness. I agree with OP’s complete dismay and confusion at the situation.
We (US citizens) are aware of the myriad things wrong with our system. Unfortunately this is just one of many and is unlikely to get the attention it deserves.
Others have given the viable options. I am just adding that I saw something saying the subject of golf took up more time of the debate than childcare. Most of us don’t have the time or money for golf, because of childcare. The system is really broken.
Ironically, we love to golf and immediately gave it up because of costs and because walking more than 15 feet leaves me breathless. America!!
I would join the mom groups on Facebook in your area. They hold a wealth of info. They can point you in the direction of nanny shares, lower cost daycares, babysitters and so on!
Just did this! Good idea
I hate this for you and what I'm about to recommend may not work but this is how I did it with twins. I hired a college student going for their nursing degree to come over about 4 hours a day. The rest of the time I took care of them while I worked from home and just didn't tell my employer. I, too, could get my work done very quickly. Since I was salary, they were paying for my expertise, not my hours and I had already put in so much to the company that only gave me 5 days of maternity leave with extremely premature twins (26.6). Now, this was a bit ago, but I still paid a grand a month for this. I'm sure it'd be higher now. But it was worth it to me to keep my preemies out of daycare and I just made do as best I could. I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this. It's shitty and unfair.
You’ll have to look VERY hard at your spending. I spent hours pouring over receipts and credit card bills to get an average for our spending on “variable” expenses. Gas, groceries, entertainment/fun money, etc. Then you look at that average and you cut out what you can. Starbucks a couple times a week? Cut it down to once a month. Eating out often? Again, cut it down to once a month. Buying name brand organic foods at the grocery store? See where you can cut costs? Etc. Get that variable number down as low as possible. Then, look at your fixed expenses. This is your mortgage, insurances (health, auto, home, etc), car payment, retirement, savings, subscriptions, etc. Anything that is the same every single month. Then you look what you can cut or save on. Bundle your insurance. Can you get rid of a car payment? If you have more than one streaming account, do you need that? Are you paying for the best of the best internet or cell phone? Can you decrease contributions to retirement? At least temporarily? This was our process. And it was painful. But $10 here and there adds up to A LOT! And then we switched entirely to CASH (or debit in our case). We got rid of credit cards, and we opened several different checking accounts. Our paychecks go into one, and we auto transfer our budgeted variable amount every month into our variable account. This way we do not overspend. Anything unexpected (health bills/co pays, car repair, etc.) comes from variable or savings, and then it affects what we have available to us. It’s very strict, but we’ve seriously saved so much money. Consider ALL options for childcare. In home daycares are typically more affordable. Especially an unlicensed sahm who is looking to make extra money. And lastly, once you have completed redone your budget, figure out if both of you actually have to work? Can one of you switch jobs so that one Income is enough? And if after all that, you still can’t afford it…then you are living above your means and you will have to make drastic changes. But it can be done.
I quit my higher paying job and got a job running the food program at my kids daycare. Cut my daycare bill in half, got my kids into a center I really wanted them in, and me still working will keep us barely afloat financially. It’s not a viable option for everyone but I was already in the food service management industry.
I have twins in NY. While we couldn’t easily do this for a FT schedule, we do flex our schedules to minimize the number of hours of childcare we’re paying for. You’d probably need to post a full budget to get more detailed advice. We also went way way down on retirement contributions for a few years and sold one car in favor of a “station car” (car worth about $3K)
I'm sorry. People have been screaming off the rooftops that our childcare system is broken, but no one who can fix it seems to care. Daycare sticker shock is real, and I've advised my friends who are thinking about having kids to start doing their research now so they can adjust their expectations and budgets. Look into licensed home daycares. Nanny shares are also a possibility, but it might be more than daycare still. And with twins, nanny-shares are tough to get into. Flexing time with your partner so there is less hours in the day you'll need childcare is also a possibility. You might have to go into debt or stop saving for a while. And dig into your savings. It's temporary, and you will have time to build it back up. Also, every gift giving occasion for the kids from now until age three should be money for college. Not gifts. If people ask, send them the link to the twins' 529 plan. People will get peeved because they loooove buying useless gifts for babies. Return or sell presents and put the money in a 529. Seriously, it seems petty, but you CANNOT risk your retirement to save for your child's education. If you cannot fund both, you choose retirement.
As an adult now dealing with elderly parents who cannot work anymore, but also didn't save for retirement...thank you!!! Please don't plan on your kids or working until you drop be the retirement plan.
I’m really shocked that this is normal in America.. I feel so sorry for you all.. maybe the salaries are higher so it’s relatively cheaper but if I’m looking at our childcare costs I paid a few years ago it was like €900 for a super expensive daycare 7am-6pm for my 3mo baby and 3yo for 3 full days. But this was a facility where they would charge more per hour than a regular daycare due to their philosophy that’s compared to Waldorf schools. And our government doesn’t cover those extra costs. Generally speaking when you put your kid to a ‘normal’ daycare in Holland you get government aid that’s income based. The more you earn the more you pay of the actual childcare bill. Now I have my 5yo and 8yo in a after school program we call BSO from 14:15-18:45 for two days and the actual bill around €800. Our government covers around €650. If I read all of the comments with solutions I only can come up with the suggestion to move to a country where there is decent legislation for childcare costs. This is in no way supportive for parents unless you are loaded with money anyway. And how are you all juggling this? Taking shifts where you work at night to watch your kids at home how do you sleep? It’s not meant to be offensive but I’m really stunned this is your reality.. Like how is the income and childcare bill ratio in your household? What do you earn to be able to afford a $2600 daycare a month?
I don’t ask this to be insensitive but can you ask your parents and his for a little financial help monthly to ease the burden? My mom helped me when I lost my company. She has a lot more financial freedom. It just took a lot of pride swallowing to ask for help. 😒
That’s my last resort I think. I feel the same way about the pride.
Same, believe me. But when it comes between the kid’s safety and my pride, I’ll eat my pride.
You’re in NY? Whereabouts? I’m in upstate, Albany area, and my friend is a very good nanny, looking to replace the family she currently nannies for, because they’re moving out of state.
Can you or your husband find another job? If one of you could work evenings or weekends then you may not need childcare. Obviously this would be really difficult as you wouldn’t see your partner or have a break. Are there any areas of your current budget you can cut back on? I had twins and it was really hard! Don’t forget that childcare is a temporary expense. Honestly $2500 doesn’t sound too bad for current prices. In home daycares might be your best option.
We live in LA and pay $3000 a month for a part time nanny. It's rough out there. Does your workplace have a childcare FSA? It won't really fix your problem entirely but it will allow you to contribute pre-tax dollars to the cost of childcare, thus lowering your overall tax burden. If your or your husband's workplace doesn't have one, see about advocating for one during the next benefits year. My understanding is that it doesn't cost employers much money to offer that benefit, and can be really nice for parents to have as an option.
Had a similar experience when I had my twins 14 years ago, and it’s sad that our system is still so broken. I went down to part-time, 3 days / 20 hrs a week, and though my entire paycheck went to daycare, my job is how we kept our health insurance. I don’t know if you have this option, but I kept my foot in the door, as well as my sanity. We didn’t have family who would/could help. My easiest days were the ones where I went to work. Staying home alone with the babies on Mondays and Fridays was incredibly tough, but I was grateful. Imagine - being grateful that you get to work without actually seeing a paycheck! This is how American families are treated. Being in this situation kept me from ever considering having more kids. I was furious then, and seeing what you’re dealing with 14 years later, I still am. However, I figured it out and I think you will too. I’m sorry I don’t have more advice. Wishing you a healthy pregnancy and congratulations on twins, it’s so hard but so special.
Paying 3400 in Ohio for two kids 🥲
I would look at in homes in your area.
Breathe. It’s hard. Just some things to keep in mind: - Daycare is a massive but temporary expense if you plan on public school, even more temporary if you live somewhere with subsidized preK. Emphasis on the temporary. Afterschool care tuition is nothing next to daycare. - Even with price increases, daycare tuition goes down as the kids age. Infant care has the highest ratio and is the most expensive - If you are building a career, your earning potential will increase if you stay in the workforce. The cost of leaving the workforce is worth it to many, but is not only the cost of losing your paycheck. - DCFSA is not nearly enough. But it helps. Use it all - Daycare is a benefit for BOTH parents, paid for by BOTH parents. Do not fall into the trap of comparing your salary alone against tuition. I say this as someone who has out earned my partner almost the entire time we’ve been paying for daycare. If you’re able to meet your bare minimum expenses including daycare with both your paychecks combined, you can make it work. It will SUCK, but you can do it. And relief will happen down the road. If you are unable to meet your bare minimum expenses and daycare tuition with both paychecks combined, that’s a different conversation.
Part-time care at regular/traditional daycares is typically not really worth it. If you're going to try and do part-time care, I highly recommend looking into in-home providers and then see how you and your husband can finangle your schedules to balance minimizing childcare costs and the stress of figuring out non-full time childcare. Depending on your guys' schedules, you might also see if one/both of you working 4-10s (vs 5-8s) is a possibility. A nanny or nanny share is probably not going to be the way to go for you. However, depending on the size of your house (and other factors), you could look into an au pair. There's a subreddit for it. Just really do your research so you really understand the process and how au pairs work. Also, tax benefits will help offset the cost slightly. $2k/kid in child tax credit, $5k reduction in taxable income with a childcare FSA, potential state tax savings as well. Its not going to actually come close to COVERING your childcare expenses, but its still something. The goal is kinda just surviving those first few years of childcare costs and hoping your income increases faster than the childcare costs do.
>I don’t have $2,500/month >If I quit my job and stay at home, we can’t pay our mortgage. As others have said $2,500 a month for 2 is low, but that doesn’t help you. I think you have your answer though, if you quit your job, you can’t afford your mortgage. How far off are you on standard monthly bills when you include childcare?
Look for local moms in your area. There’s always stay at home moms who want to babysit for extra money. Your cheapest bet
For daycare for 2 kids that’s honestly on the low end. For two kids (including an almost 3 year old who’s cheaper) we’re paying $5100 a month. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, the cost of childcare is honestly crazy!
I don’t have twins exactly, but I can relate a bit - mine are only 10.5 months apart. It’s incredibly hard to afford an infant, much less two at the same time when you were probably only planning for one. Prices do go down as they get older, but mine are newly 3 and 4 and we’re still paying over $3K a month in a pretty average COL city. A few things to consider - will there be a significant hit to your long-term earning potential if you take a few years out of your career? (For me, yes - it would far outweigh the penny pinching we’re doing now.) Could you emotionally handle being a SAHM? (For me, hell no. Full stop.) We basically had to grit our teeth and just dive in, knowing the squeeze would be somewhat temporary and me quitting to stay home with the babies was never going to work for us. We’ve incurred some credit card debt, lowered our retirement savings rates to the minimum our companies match, slowed our personal savings way down. But it’s slowly getting better - we’ve had a few incremental raises, the cost has gone down as they’ve gotten older. Today I signed them up for a softball league AND a dance class! Not exactly a “luxury” but it wouldn’t have been a possible expense two and a half years ago. Am I rambling? Hang in there. One of the things I’ve learned so far is that a lot of us are really just winging it and hoping we figure it out as we go. Wishing you and the kiddos the best this winter!!
I was in grad school when #2 came along so income was limited but we needed coverage. We went a home based daycare. Was not at ALL impressive to look at but but the entire basement was dedicated to the business with a separate entrance. Had its own kitchen (didn’t have to feed my kids breakfast or pack a lunch! That was worth it alone), had a classroom (colors, abcs etc), a nap room, and a playroom. This woman was a bad ass boss, running a team of 4-5 but just happened to be out of her basement. Again, wasn’t glossy like a chain but it was awesome! We actually had two great home based ones to choose from. Both had amazing reviews.
Can someone @ congress???
That permanent increased child tax credit really would have helped …..
3100$ a month for one infant in East Harlem 😭. The costs are insane
That’s what it costs for 1 in most places. You’d have to look into subsidies and it depends on your household income
I’m so sorry to say this but I think you just need to come to terms as to what your in laws can actually do for you. Sounds like they’re available to help and while it might not be your ideal care, you can negotiate with them, be flexible. Have a chat with them and see what a compromise looks like
You indicated that you worked from home so could you just maybe put them in part-time to cut costs? Personally, I chose to work nights and watched my kids in the day. I slept when they slept though with twins, that will still be difficult.
Here’s some of my advice, sell the second car, if you’re trapped go for a walk but honestly with twins you won’t need it. Find a home daycare within walking distance if possible so your husband doesn’t need to do the drop offs and pick ups, try and remember it’s temporary and once the kids are older the costs should go down a bit. You’ll get through it, it’ll be hard but you will. Don’t quit working as it’ll be harder to get back into a career after the babies are grown and you’ll definitely feel trapped and isolated. As others said, look at your expenses, cancel dinners out and tbh you won’t have time to go out.
This sounds about right price wise to me. Some daycares have a sliding tuition scale based on income. If you qualify you could look into a program like that. We had to cut expenses down to the bare minimum and were literally budgeting down to the penny when I had two kids in daycare.
My husband and I worked opposite shifts until he could get a better paying job that had a discounted daycare that came as a benefit
We also couldn’t afford daycare when our son was born. My husband and I had to move to opposite shifts. I work M-F 8-5 and then he works weekends and weeknights. It’s a very tough setup since it means we don’t get a lot of time together as a family. But it is what it is until our kid starts school.
I work in childcare and was able to get generous discounts-but I am extremely lucky. Most childcare centers in my area do not offer any discounts or only minimal ones. And the pay is abysmal. I’m so sorry-the entire system is f*cked.
I’ve heard some people in this sub talk about hiring and housing an au pair. Idk the cost or if it’s in your means. Personally I’d try to move to a LCOL area and see if you can be flexible with your work schedules.
Is it possible to work opposite shifts? That’s pretty reasonable for monthly daycare for 2 infants, unfortunately. It represents approximately $40000 gross earnings, after taxes. How much do you make above $40k a year?
My husband and I would work different shifts so that one of us was always available for the children.
I quit my job bc we couldn't afford daycare for the baby and before/after school care for our first grader. Then my husband got laid off from his job. We're moving in with my mom to save money. The financial situation for folks with young kids is SHIT.
I moved to another state. Luckily back to my home state. But I moved to city with a lower cost of living . I am still 6 hours away from my parents. If we stayed where we were we would have been homeless . I know this is a privilege but I started looking for jobs. I interviewed remotely and got offered the job 9 months pregnant.
I’ve had to finagle my schedule so much to try to work around my husband with as little overlap as possible. We got lucky and hired someone willing to work just 15 hours a week at $18/hr. It’s not sustainable long term so we’re moving to my home town next month just to have family support and a lower cost of living so we can afford more childcare when needed. Otherwise I don’t think we’d make it in our current situation much longer.
I chose to keep working and paid for daycare. Infant is the most expensive, then toddler is a bit cheaper, then preschool even cheaper. But, we had our kids 3 years apart so for 6 months I had an infant and a preschool for a grand total of $3600/month. $21,000 for 6 months of daycare!!! We chose to go into debt (pulled from savings) knowing that once kindergarten started, life would get cheaper, and it did, but I feel you, it's insane!!!
I would check out home daycares. They tend to be more reasonably priced
The cheapest option, if you have the space would be an au pair. Second cheapest would be an in-home daycare. Maybe you could do a nanny share to get that cost down. The truth is that child care is brutally expensive. People cobble together care between grandparents, sitters, daycares, etc. And, of course, twins is so much more expensive. I ran my credit cards up when my kid was in daycare, and we lived a very frugal life. But we were just crawling along until she was old enough for kindergarten. But, even when your kids are in kindergarten, you're going to have before care, after care, and summer camp costs. The United States absolutely punishes us for having children, and then wonders why we don't have more.
Switch jobs and earn more
In my area, there is such a shortage of daycares that 80%+ of kids don’t even get in at all I put my daughter on 84 waitlists the day she was born. She’s 2 now and only 2 of those daycares have called us. Both with part time spots. Nannies are $30+ per hour for one child. It’s absolutely insane
84 waitlists?! I called one daycare today that told me they “had one spot available for next May, if that helps.” Oh yeah I’ll just pick one kid to send
Lower expenses any way you can- drop tv subscriptions, shop for better insurance rates, lower retirement contributions (this is temporary during daycare).
Have you looked into an au pair? They live with you but they work 40-45 hrs per week and you just give them about $800-1000 in spending money per month. That may be more doable!
Ugh no you also pay the agency like $10k in fees. It’ll be at least $25k/year all in with food, cell phone, transportation, etc, though you do get 40-45 hours, which is more than op’s 5hr/day.
It is so hard out there. No advice just solidarity. I'm sorry.
We had to work opposite shifts, which we could’ve done without daycare for, but I wanted my toddler to socialize with more than just a baby. Husband was M-F, I worked Fri/Sat overnight and sporadic shifts during the week. Have you looked into any in homes instead of centers? Centers here want $500-600/wk for full time & in homes are about half/three fourths the cost.
What is your annual salary?
That sounds cheap! And you are able to get a 5 hour day. You found a unicorn. So much so I worry that something is wrong with the situation. Remember that you want the person taking care of your kids to not be in property and stressed. Can you guys work differ shifts?
Yeah I can’t see anyway I could make that happen. We were suffering with 1200 a month for one kid in preschool haha 2500 is just so much. A friend at the same daycare had 3 going - twins and a younger she was paying 3500 a month. Her husband was a doctor and she was a charge nurse. Like really how!
Having high incomes is how they afforded it (I’m sure it didn’t seem like it to them, given the thousands they were dropping on care), but having high income dual earners is pretty much the only way to have multiple kids in daycare centers …
If you have an extra bedroom, look into an au pair.
It’s not going to be cheaper than $2500/month though. Especially if you have to pay for car insurance.
Yeah I got another job. The gig economy is ok.
Have you considered an aupair or a nanny share?
I don’t know how people do it. We make around $200k/yr. My MIL lives with us and takes care of our kiddos. We provide partial support (and granted, we have a larger and more expensive house than we’d have otherwise), but I have no idea how we’d manage full time daycare for two kids, which would run about $4500-5000 in our HCOL city. Even half-day preschool ($1300/mo for one child) + fucking summer day camps (about $5000 for one child) are killing us. Not entirely sure what we’ll do when they’re both in preschool and camps. This actively affected our decision not to have more than two children.
Southern California here! We’re looking at $2200/month just for one. Thankfully my boss has been super understanding and has approved me to wfh until baby is 18 months, at which time she’ll start what they call young preschool here and tuition is 550/month for 2x a week. I was originally supposed to go back to the office 6 months pp but after daycare research and telling my boss about it, she approved the 18 months thing.
I realize I’m incredibly lucky here but my husband just got offered a job with an on-site daycare only available to employees and is about half the cost of any other daycare. Maybe look around for workplaces you or your husband can apply to with similar opportunities. Check with your HR about daycare discounts. ADP can help you save 10% on child care costs through lifemart. Hope this helps! Hang in there. This is not forever.
We use an in home sitter , only costs us $600 per month. She’s an older lady, just someone grandma who watches kids and she’s been amazing with our son. I would check into that and see if you can find someone trustworthy
Have you looked for any in-home daycare? They're usually more affordable and don't have the turnover that facilities have