Having kids is expensive. And after you get past the costs you probably were expecting (hospital bills, baby clothes, bottles and diapers), you’ll get to the single largest cost working parents have when it comes to having children. The cost of daycare. The cost is staggering and takes most parents off guard. So how much does daycare really cost?
Cost Varies by Type of Facility
In 28 out of 50 states, state college tuition costs less than the average annual cost of daycare. That should put it into perspective. In our house, we call daycare ‘Infant University’ because it most definitely feels that way. We are shelling out crazy money each and every month for two kids to be in a daycare center.
While researching daycare centers a few years ago, we knew care our impending bundle of joy was going to be expensive — we were not exactly prepared for HOW expensive. When I checked the Economic Policy Institute’s figures for my state, the average annual cost of infant daycare was listed as being $8,977. That’s obviously a lot of money. I don’t care who you are. So we planned for that figure but hoped we could find somewhere cheaper when we started looking for options.
So I set up appointments to tour a few in my area. At the end of my first tour when we sat down to review pricing, my eyes nearly popped out of my head seeing the numbers.
$279 / week. PER WEEK PEOPLE! That was our car payment… per week! And that added up to more than $14,500 per year!
It turns out the EPI’s figures included in-home daycares as a part of their average, which brings down the average significantly. I wish I’d read the fine print on that one.
Childcare Aware of America puts out statistics each year on the average annual cost of home-based and center-based daycare costs by state. You can see a significant difference by the two types.
So How Much is Daycare Going to Cost me?
So how do you know how much daycare is going to cost for you?
There is a lot that goes into calculating the number beyond the base cost and this post should give you the tools to calculate your out of pocket costs and give you a few ways to save yourself money in the process.
Just in the 7-8 daycare centers I toured a few years ago while pregnant with my first child, I saw a huge difference in what was included in each of the centers. Here are the things to take note of when your are calculating how much your daycare is really going to cost you.
Baby Supplies
At one of the centers, diapers, wipes and pureed baby food were included in their fee. At others, none of these items were. And at a few, it was a combination.
It could be nice not to have to worry about dropping off baby food, diapers and wipes on a consistent basis if your daycare included but know that its coming at a premium. The benefit isn’t that great if you want to provide these materials anyway. If you don’t like the brand of baby food or like to make your own homemade baby food, this is an amenity that you are paying for but not going to get anything out of.
Number of Days
Depending on your work schedule, you may want to have your child in daycare less than 5 days a week. Which is a great option — lower childcare costs! But first, you’ll have to find a facility that will accommodate that request.
Many of the facilities we toured wouldn’t allow less than 5 days a week for babies. Even if you only brought them in for 3 days, you would pay for 5. Others would accommodate it if you could line it up with another child in the class who would be gone on a different day(s). This allowed the center to have the same number of teachers to keep their required class ratios consistent day to day.
Facility Hours
In my experience, some daycare centers have more restrictive set hours with additional weekly fees if you need to dropped your children off before or picked them up after. Pay attention to these fees and be realistic about what time you’d be picking up your child each day. Is your spouse or someone else able to pick them up if you get held up?
Other centers were open from roughly 6:30am to 6:30pm daily which allowed any parent on a regular 9-5pm work schedule a wide window to drop off and pick up. If you work an atypical work schedule, daycares may not be the right fit and you’ll have to look into another type of childcare.
Vacation Time
The number of weeks you can go on vacation in a year without paying your weekly fee are important. I found that some had pretty lenient policies that allowed you to not have to pay as long as you gave them some notice.
Others had a set number of weeks you could be out without paying. This becomes important depending on the number of vacations you typically take a year. Don’t forget to add in the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas if you are typically off work the entire week.
Keep in mind that you can take as much vacation time as you want… you just may be paying your daycare fee even if they aren’t there.
Summer
Are there extra fees to keep you child there over the Summer? Many daycares hold summer camps for older kids over the Summer and offer a wider variety of activities for the kids in attendance. For my infant, even though they weren’t old enough to take advantage of the field trips or weekly snow cone truck, we had to pay the annual summer camp fee of $100.
Do you plan on pulling your kids out of the daycare for the Summer? Do they let you keep your spot for the Fall? Or are you at the mercy of whether there are spots available?
Discounts
Are there any available discounts? Can you pre-pay for a certain number of weeks to get a week free? Can you have the cost automatically debited from your account for a set percent discount? Is there a discount for multiple children if you plan on adding to your clan? I’ve seen many daycares offer a referral program. Take advantage of as many of these discounts as you can. It adds up.
Your Commute
Consider your commute time to and from any daycare facility that you are looking into. Is it on your way to or from work or will you need to drive out of your way to get there? The extra mileage most likely won’t move the needle much monetarily but can be expensive as far as how much it will ‘cost’ you in your time. If the twice daily detour is going to add 30 minutes to your commute daily, it’s something to consider along with the other factors when picking your center.
So be better prepared than I was and do your research. Unfortunately, you can’t get more daycare center costs online and you usually have to tour the facility to get their pricing.
Tour as many as you can in your area to get a feel for which is going to be the best fit for you and your family.
Find more useful tips in my post on How to Choose a Daycare Facility
I hope that this gives you the tools to determine how much daycare really costs. It is a huge expense and everyone should be prepared for it and plan as much as possible. Good Luck!
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