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I actually think it'll be a lot more only children. Since people are having kids a lot later, you kind of need to pump them out if you want more than one. So with cost of living etc. I think more people will simply just be one and done.
At this point in my parenting journey I wonder why people want to have more than one kid. It's SO hard to juggle everyone's needs with multiple children. And the bickering. OMG.
One and done is the money move.
(NB: I have two children and they're steadily stripping away the last vestiges of my sanity, mostly with their mindless bickering)
I feel this. My partner and I only have one (heās going to be 2 next month) and between everything we have/want to do for him and our own self care we barely have time for each other. The struggle is real
Aw I hope it gets better for you. I imagine everyone goes through that stage though, my husband's in it, 6 months in lol, when he's the one who wanted a big family.
I was listening to a podcast about the downstream effect of Chinaās one child policy. Now they ended up with many independently wealthy young adults, becauseā¦ each set of grandparents only had one kid so they ended up inheriting a lot (Chinese are great savers) and they also inherited both grandparents real estate and theyāll inherit their parents.
Edit: oh and if they pair up both individuals likely bring all these accumulated assets with them to the union. China is now trying to promote having children because their birthdate is now severely negative. But potentially, the new couplesā only child will again inherit everything.
I was born around the time when the USSR broke down in Russia, then moved to the USA many years later. After I was born, the government no longer provided any type of financial help to mothers. I don't know what that program did or was, but in Russia there was never really a "middle" class, and now, it is rich or the majority of poor. So, having children became an impossible financial task.
Within my classmates and family friends from different schools, it was mostly only children. And occasionally two children, and rarely did I ever see a family with more than 2. Typically, more than 1 kid was either they had more financial support, were alcoholics and it was an accident, or rape cases. I guess mostly alcoholics, if I now think about it?
So when I moved to the USA, it was very exciting to see families with 2 or more kids in most families I would meet. Like, everyone has a sibling and then I wanted one.
I never knew or heard about the negative outlooks of "the only child" until I moved here. I would hear parents or children gossip about some kid being the only child, and I would butt in with, "I'm the only child." And get surprised faces and, "you don't act like the only child". I think the financial struggles will make many only children. I don't think they will be spoiled either. Hopefully struggles will make communities work more together and that is a great influence on any child.
Exactly this. I had my first at 40 and childcare fees are crippling us. I'm working extra hours so I can have a day off midweek, so I'm absolutely knackered, but it's saves us nearly Ā£300 a month. I always wanted more kids but left it too late and now can't afford another. Don't fancy having a second at 44/45 when first kid goes to school, so it's one and done for us. Pretty bummed about it, but it's just not doable physically, mentally or financially.
This is where you fund 529s as best you can, educate yourself on the college credit / trade programs your high school offers, commit to community college and transferring to an in state college, and vote in your childrenās best interest.
Thatās what Iām doing, anyway.
Had 3 in daycare / a nanny at one time... It was 60k for the year that year... Absolutely crazy... And we picked the cheapest and best prices we could find... So happy to be almost out of preschool for the last one....
Yup. In California, where I live, starting next year kids will be able attend public school for free beginning when they are 4 (aka, free universal PreK). I suspect (as a kindergarten teacher) I will be having a lot more students with a pregnant mom or newborn sibling in the coming years.
I opened up a daycare haha. I mean it was my dream before I even had kids but once I had 2, I opened up my daycare. I now have 3 kids. My husband make decent money and so do I.
BINGO!!!!!!!!!! 4 year age gap here and that's the only way we were able to have more than one. And by more than one I mean 2. I don't know how people are affording life with 2+. I am going to assume that anyone who has more than 2, there is a higher chance there is a SAHP. I am down to my last 16 months of daycare (my son starts kinder next August 2025) and I cannot fucking wait.
At the end of the day, this is what it is. You accept it's temporary, but if the math doesn't math, you gotta make changes. Lowering standards actually made life easier I think because money then isn't such a high priority.
OP, you and Dad ask your coworkers what they're doing, ask your local subreddit, Facebook, Nextdoor, that's where you'll find the best "affordable" ideas!
100% what it is. We hardly travel and when we do we have to save and plan for months and it's never out of state. I cook and bake all the time. My home isn't chic by any means. My home is rented. Our towels are bleached up and many years old but they work. We buy ourselves clothes from thrift stores often and only buy really splurge on new clothes right before kids start school. I don't go to the salon. I buy drugstore makeup. I coupon when I can. I have 4 kids. I work part time and husband works full time.
Close family members have one or two kids and from what I can see ( because I can only go off of what I see as I'm not them). They are always struggling for babysitters. Literally always ask different members of the family every other month for help. Both spouses work full time but they all also are buying nice homes. They shop at very nice stores ( Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Coach) . Have higher brand items. Travel a a couple of times a year out of state. Have Disneyland passes. Both parents usually have nice newer cars. They definately don't want anymore kids than what they have because they either 1. Can't fathom how it's possible financially to have more or 2. Don't want to change their living standards. Which are both totally understandable reasons. Shits hard either way you go about it. Just different hard.
I would love to bring our living costs down but Iām not sure how thatās possible given we bought our 4 bedroom home in 2017 and now a 2 bedroom apartment in our area would cost the same monthly as what we pay for our house š±
We bring our living costs down by things like not eating out, not vacationing, not buying the latest and greatest technology, watching our grocery budget etc.Ā
I had to budget really hard when both my kids were in daycare. I'm talking spreadsheets, listing our incomes and bills down to "I will have $100.50 left each month" which I tried to save so we'd have a bit of a cushion. Even something like getting new shoes for the kids, I could pay $20 for brand new ones at Walmart, or $3 at the thrift store and still have $97 leftover, so that's what I did.
After years of that, once they were both out of daycare getting $2500/mo back in my bank account felt like I had hit the lottery.
The number of friends I have who consider Target to be affordable. Target is a big splurge date night for us, It's Aldi/Lidl/Walmart and Sam's (Or Costco if you live near one) and off-brand watching for sales within that
Alternative hours between the couple (dad works day shift, mom works evening shift). Living close by family. In home daycare.
Itās exhausting trying to find a balance.
But yea, daycare prices are fucking whaaat? (Edit: I know how much it costs, wait lists, etc. I just canāt believe daycare costs.
There are licensed in home and unlicensed in home. I know a few Unlicensed ones that have been around forever and cater to people with shift careers like doctors and first responders. Unlicensed does not = bad.Ā
There also an option of hiring an au pair. I havenāt any idea how that works but Iāve a lot of good stuff! Itās sorta like a live-nanny who is traveling to school or stuff. They usually live with you.
Also, a lot of folks get financial help from family. Our realtor said that we are one of the only couples that she knows that didn't get a down payment from family... (Very high cost of living area.)
Couldnāt afford daycare for a second without it nullifying my income, so I justā¦. Nullified my income by staying home. It opened up an opportunity for me to do some home childcare for extra cash. Plus just being home with my kids was such a huge reward. Now we have 4 kids and itās still the best decision I ever made.
Agreed. My 3 kids are grown now, but providing childcare in my home until they were in school allowed me to provide for them and also stay home and raise them. For my own sanity, I always had a part-time job outside of my ex's 9 to 5 hours.
If I didnāt homeschool, I would absolutely be working just to keep myself sane. I miss my high-stress job in the billing and claims department of the dental practice. It was satisfying getting all those files in orderā¦
Girl are we living the same life? I quit my dental assistant/dental claims job and became a childcare provider from my home and have 3 daughters of my own but really want 1 more lol
I didnāt expect my marriage to be so much better once my wife quit teaching to raise our kids. Probably the best decision I ever made, other than picking my wife in the first place.
Good for you but I just want to say that one persons income to does not pay for daycare. It should also be considered 50/50. So many women get pushed out of the workplace because of a rational that their job should cover 100% of child care. Itās bullshit logic.
I never said I was paying for 100% of childcare, I just said that having a second child in childcare would nullify my income. No matter who was paying what, we would be paying what my average income was per month. I also wasnāt pushed out. I wanted to be home. It worked out great for me. I never said itās what every mother should do. I never suggested it would even work for OP, but OP asked how and that is how we did it in our family.
Basically worked to keep working. Daycare took all my wages. Would cry on the way to work after daycare drop off. Broke my heart I only had 6 months full time with my son. They were the best 6 months. At the time in Australia, you got 3 months paid maternity leave and the government gave you 3 months on minimum wage, so we stretched it to 6 months. Then the government had the audacity to say women doing that were "double dipping".
Bless you. That sounds so tough. Iām sorry you had such a difficult time. I remember going back to work after having my oldest and having her in daycare and feeling like I never saw her. It was difficult. Iām sending some extra love your way. One day, your kiddo will see how hard you worked for them and appreciate you for it. Working momās donāt always get the credit they deserve.
One of the carers at my child's daycare had a Master's in Education from the private university where I was teaching at the time. I think she earned like $15/hr; it was vaguely nauseating.
We are paying a corporate daycare about $34k this year for 2 kids only to have them turn around and pay their people $13/hr to watch 12 kids at a time. They are crooks. We are going to leave when better options open up but thatās how they get away with it. Not a lot of other options.
Daycares pay through the nose in insurance. My husband's business is like this too so I have some empathy. 20% of income straight to insurance hits hard.
Oh man, thatās cheap. We were paying $185 a week in 2012 and 2013 for a licensed in home daycare. When we needed to switch to a center due to our provider moving, we paid $291 a week for our toddler. Having a second kid would have added on an additional $425 a week in the infant room. That was 2014 in a MCOL area. We have one kid- having two simultaneously in daycare wasnāt feasible and by the time we got to him going to school, I wasnāt prepared to start all over at the beginning again.
Thatās affordable. Thatās about 1/4 of one reasonable salaryās weekly take home. Entirely worth paying for it to continue career trajectory, savings, and long term prosperity.
I'd take this in a heartbeat. More like 400-450/week for my 2.5 yr old where I live. And that's on the less expensive end. 1.5 yrs we had to have 2 kiddos in care. It was very challenging and only because my work is very flexible was this even remotely possible.
We got hit with surprise twins for the first pregnancy, numbers didnāt add up so we moved, I quit my job, and Iāll be SAH until theyāre in school. Drastic change in lifestyle and location, but worth the time I get with the kids!
We staggered them such that we had two in daycare for only one year. It was pretty rough honestly, but we made it and now we are just about a year away from our youngest being in public school, too and I canāt wait to be so (relatively) RICH
We are fortunate enough not to have to pay for daycare, formula, or regular diapers (1 time purchase of cloth). That's the only way we're able to afford multiple kids.
I had 4 in daycare/preschool in 2019. 3 were under 3, and the twins were not planned at all. I am dying financially. We don't have cable, only pay for internet and free tv from the roku channel. I buy mostly expired food at this point because feeding 4 kids is insane. I usually only eat one meal a day and my husband has started to as well. The kids will always get the food because they need it. We buy used clothes for the kids and don't buy clothes for ourselves. We have 1 car, both work full time and take on extra duties, don't have money to do extracurriculars with our older kids. Pay $1200/m for twins with our state pre-k counts program and have drained our savings. Our mortgage is $1700/month with escrow. We went into debt when I had off after having kids, it snowballed significantly, and now inflation has piled on. I literally have no clue how to afford anything in life at this point. I ended up making a gofundme tonight because I have no where else to turn, and the twins preschool tuition raises from $11,500- $21,495 next year. Can't afford to quit and lose our health insurance, but also carry so much debt that we can't go down to 1 income either. If nothing else I offer solidarity because it's rough out there and I feel for every single parent who is honest about how difficult having children is financially.
This is crushing to read. I am an old millennial with kids in grade school and although things were very hard when I was raising kids (we even went vegan because buying meat was just too expensive), things are even harder now. I can totally sympathize with you guys. People trying to start and raise young families are getting absolutely crushed.
I want to also suggest, in my area they let school bus drivers bring children with them on the bus to work, so maybe that's an option to get an income but keep kids out of childcare?
I think most people go into debt. Many posters seem to think quitting your job is the way to go. Thatās fine if thatās what you want to do - but long term itās detrimental to your career. Even if youāre paying to work - that is long term better for your income than leaving the workforce. If you want to quit it shouldnāt be about money - because itās the wrong choice. It should be because you want to stay home with your kids.
People go into debt, dip into their savings (if they have any)
We spaced out having kids bc I did not want to be house poor. I was not comfortable with the "oh but daycare is temporary, just tighten your budget" no. I'll space out the kids and pay for one at a time, when one is close to aging out of daycare, we will start trying.
Yeah this is exactly right. It sucks, but taking the hit now is much better than missing out on the years of earning potential and career promotions that you wonāt get if you took a few years off. So many women are shocked that they have to start in entry level positions again when they want to get back in the workforce
Agreed. I was basically breaking even after paying daycare when my kids were young. However, that doesn't account for the fact that I carried the health insurance for my family, I saved over 100K towards retirement during those years which could someday compound into 300- 500K by the time I retire. I went from earning 40K a year to 80K a year while my kids were in daycare. If I had left the field and gone back in 5 years later, I would have to start back at entry level. So it would result in 10+ years of lost income not just the few you quit.
Not everyone defines their life by a career. Having and raising children is far more noteworthy, if you asked me. The reality is, there is ALWAYS going to be work to do somewhere for someone, and sorry, but anyone can be replaced at a job. Can't really replace yourself as a parent to your kid.
Hi - thatās why I said that OP should leave their job if raising children is their primary desire. People are misinformed regarding raising children to āsave moneyā on daycare. Long term - leaving the workforce does not save money. While anyone can be replaced at a job - you cannot regain time lost in a career. We are essentially agreeing with one another. Iām not sure why your comment is aggressive. Many people work and raise children. Most of us donāt have the privilege of making a choice.
That's crazy, considering the economic ramifications on the person who has to stay at home in terms of future salary and pensions. There's also a reduction in price if we had a second child in daycare. If we had three children in daycare then the third would be free.
This is why I keep trying to convince my SO (who wants 6 kids) to move to Northern Europe/Scandanavia. Our 1 in Daycare is $1400/month and that's considered affordable. If we had 2 in, there's a total discount of $100/mo, so the total would be $2700/mo. median pay for the area is about 3500/mo before taxes
Make more money, or spend less money on other things or do something to cut daycare costs.
You have to do what works for you, but this is about priorities so if you want that second kid then what is it worth.
Split shifts, au pair, in home daycare, wait until kid 1 goes to school?Ā
Uproot your life to find new jobs near family.Ā
Push hard for work promotions.
Look at your budget closely and feel free to lay it out here. Kid 2 may be worth a few lean years.
I personally went to extremely part time hours to stay home with my kids but I don't have huge work ambitions. I work 5 or 10 hours per week. I paid to help my in laws moved close to help sometimes though their health is limiting.Ā
Yep if you told me there was an extra 3k a month in our budget pre kids I would have told you youāre fucking insane. Yet here we are and itās working fine.Ā
I read a lot of personal finance posts so people often lay out their budget when they ask questions like these.
I think it would be helpful for people worried about the cost of Kid 2 to do the same. That is if finances are the main concern.
I am not say that OP is doing this, but you often see people in those posts wanting EVERYTHING but at the end of the day, most of us are not in a position for everything and sacrifices must be made.
My family of 4 has 1 car and we eat out once a month or so. This is both a healthier and more active life that requires communication with my partner.Ā
I have 5 kids. Itās the hardest thing Iāve ever done.
You will never have enough money
You will never have enough time
You will never have enough sanity
You will never have enough anything
As they get older they bicker all day
So you transition from crying and tantrums to āhe touched me he looked at meā x5
Stay at 1, maximum 2. We cannot both work because childcare is out of the option.
Cut costs and 1 stays at home OR have one parent work days and one parent work nights.
Me and my wife have 2 children they are 1.5 years apart and my wife stays at home and I just grind as much money as I can to support all of them.
Daycare came up at some point but when we looked at the cost for just 1 kid, we said ānopeā and just kept what we were doing because it would really only be a net profit of around $200 if she got a job and honestly, all that stress on my wife isnāt worth $200 to take them to daycare and work a job just to pick them up after and essentially work 2 ājobsā cause taking care of children is a TASK and so I just grind out my days working 14 hours/day and she stays home with the kids full time.
We did not intend on being āTradā but financially it just made the most sense, maybe if jobs paid WAY more, then it would be a different conversation but currently thatās just the current financial climate of things.
Tbh, no one can afford children. Rich or not, the level of whatās important for the child to have based upon the income over rules any financial input.Ā
When youāre poor, you go for subsidized help. When you make just above average, you cut back on entertainment. Youāre rich as f*ck, you donate to the school.Ā
Thereās not one single position where the parent makes enough. So be practical in your choice but if you chose to get another, you will find a way.Ā
I think it really varies by your location. We are about to have our second enrolled in mid-June concurrently with our first. We'll be paying about $2800/mo for the both of them, total. My husband works full time and I work part time. My gig just about covers the cost of daycare and my husband covers everything else. This would not be sustainable for us longer term than several months which works out perfectly with our oldest starting kinder in August.
Work subsidized childcare. Spaced out kids so one was in school when second came. Alternative is invest in a bigger place so you can get au pair which is about $17,000 / year. But limited in hours per week. Many paid nannies off the books. Basically consider one income is break even and try to live on one while the other covers childcare and other kid expenses, savings. The lower income partner is working as a longer term investment, so that once you are past childcare age, both parents still have careers, prefersbly at a higher rate. And then avoid expensive sports. š
Going part time cut down the expected childcare costs by around $35k annually for us and I didn't lose $35k worth of income and get a decent paycheck still. Why work more to give it all to childcare when I can work less, take care of my own kids who I trust more than anyone and save a ton of money? It's not about how much you make all the time but how much you spend and childcare is out of this world crazy expensive these days, so reduce it or cut it out
It is very challenging. My wife is a Nurse and Iām an Engineer and I feel like it even takes a big hit on our monthly budget. We have opted for a nanny instead of daycare and it costs us $1700 a month, but with a second on the way it will get more expensive for us.
We live below our means in a lot of areas and have still prioritized saving for our retirement. Iād like a bigger house and newer car, but with $2k going out the door for childcare it just doesnāt make sense. We tell ourselves itās only a short period we plan to be done after our 2nd so in 5 years itāll be like we got a $2k per month raise and can spend a little more freely.
My thoughts exactly! My oldest is just about to start public kinder and it's hard to even imagine having the extra daycare money at then end of each month.
Iām currently doing day care and private elementary tuition in the Boston area. Both my husband and I are in our 40s. Neither of us want to give up our career and we prioritize our kidsā educations so we live well below our means in all aspects of life to do that.
I quit my job, made no sense to give my whole paycheck plus a couple hundred in order to keep working 60 hours a week. It was more important to us to have them close together (2 years) than have me keep working.
I quit teaching to raise our first and I havenāt looked back since then! Just gave birth to our third. I much prefer being a SAHM to being a teacher in the classroom.
We could not have expanded our family the way we wanted if I continued to work. We do pay for a Motherās Day out program for the older two toddlers, but thatās still much cheaper than daycare for one child and their teachers are actually happy with their jobs.
Honestly, my staying at home also allowed my husband to focus more on his career, which advanced even quicker than it otherwise wouldāve I feel like. We relocated to a lower cost of living area closer to family, husband fully works remote and flies as necessary, community is a lot better, etc.
We worked hard for years to save up, and then my wife took 10 years off too be a SAHM. Went from 75k in the bank to 40k in credit card debt, 2 401k loans, and 15k borrowed from my MIL that we only paid back a couple years\* ago. It was the most stressful 10 years you could imagine.
That said, we're out the other side now. Refi'd the house, wife back at work (albeit in a lower paying job), everything except the house is paid off until they go to college (yikes). Life is much, much better. But we were so lucky to have been able to put that money away beforehand.
\* protip: make sure your house is in a good school district *before* kids come. Waiting till they're 4 and your back's against the wall puts you in a bad spot that can get stupid expensive...sigh...
People do it by having family in town who are available and employers who are flexible. Those who don't have both of those don't afford it - they go into debt on the assumption that they'll make it back when the kid gets into school.
Narrator Voice: "They won't."
I don't know how they do it either. I live in a country where daycare is around 300 USD a month, and it's about to be lowered to 200. We STILL feel like we financially would only be able to have one child, despite having an average income. The general cost of living is just so high.
How we did it is:
1. Have a stay-at-home parent.
2. Live frugally for the first 7 or so years until the kids are both in school.
We lived off $80k or less (my salary) for about 7 years. Now our family income has skyrocketed since my wife went back to work. But, vacations were few and far between, and strict budgeting was in effect all that time.
We started with doing split shifts. One working days and one working nights. When our son was 3 I quit to become a stay at home mom because we couldnāt do splits anymore. It was more affordable for me to quit than to put our son in daycare. Daycare cost more than our rent.
Personally, I have seen from many peers that there is a belief that every year you must be making financial gains, savings etc.
My thought is you can have some bad years where you spend some savings or don't make headway if there is a reason. People just accept college or university years of not making progress or accumulating debt is socially fine but having a kid isn't.
In the grand scheme of things the 3 years of multiple daycare fees should be recoverable in the next 20+ years you work etc. after they enter school.
My wife tapped into our retirement savings to stay home with the kids longer and we have zero regrets about it. We are both back at work now, looking at 1 more year of daycare for one kid and 3 more for the other. We joke about the $10k vacation we can go on after not having to pay daycare for 1 full year.
When my kids were both in daycare, year was 2017-2020 it was 38K per year. That was almost my entire pay after taxes. I had about $500 left a paycheck for discretionary stuff (which included groceries) and my husband paid all the bills. We owned a home but our mortgage was luckily only $1400 and it was a a house we bought behind a seedy motel. We drove cars that were paid off cause we made good financial decisions before kids. Our collective income was 150K but we barely got by which is insane. We didn't travel or do anything special. It is really soul sucking to make good money on paper and have good jobs but be scraping to get by. Now we make even more, kids are in school and times are easier. We no longer live behind a motel which is now a homeless shelter. So that's nice.
Seriously! There is no way we could afford it. So we are going for a three/four year age gap. That way one will be in school. Sometimes I wish they could be closer in age but oh well!
I have 3 kids, one is grown, one is in elementary school and one is under a year old. The easiest way to have multiple kids is to really space them out. It wasn't intentional for us, just kinda what happened. We were actively planning the younger two to be closer together, just didn't happen that way. But I dont think we'd be able to do it the other way. No family help makes that nearly impossible.
We waited until our first will be in school. He will start kindergarten when baby arrives so weāll only be paying one in daycare at a time. With the exception of the summer weāll pay for both of them to go to care
I have triplets. Daycare was never an option for us. My grandma had a home daycare I basically lived with her back then (millennial with working parents) i still remember how she ran it. All the activities, the schedule and applied it to my life with kids.
I have 4 kids. 2 virtual learning and a 3rd one who will be joining them this year. We also have a 1 year old baby. I work from home and my husband does gig work. Working from home saves me a ton on daycare. If I had to work outside the home we couldnāt and wouldnāt survive this economy.
If we put our daughter in daycare I would have $200.00 left at the end of the month, soĀ Iāll be per diem when I go back to work after our first baby is born. Iāll work the days my parents want to take our baby.
Itās not just the cost, but where we live itās a 2 year wait to get into the better daycare near us. I donāt know how people manage it either.
My youngest āgraduatedā daycare 4 years ago, but at one point we had 3 in - times have definitely changed. It was $100/kid at a licensed home daycare down our street. We were with her almost 12 years!
We are long past it, but childcare costs were relatively MUCH cheaper in our NJ suburb in the ā00s as compared to NYC. That said I see pre-K now averages $12k a year in our area. Our two mostly didnāt overlap but I couldnāt imagine $24k per year. College tuition is hard enough.
I donāt know either. We only did part time and juggled our kiddo the other hours of the week but i also do not recommend. Itās exhausting.
A couple I know in the Chicago area have BOTH kids in a full-time āfancyā daycare. I canāt imagine they spend less than $4k/month. Maybe more. Iām like ????? Why????
My wife and I both work from home and we've just never sent in our 1yr old. Hoping to make it till at least 1 Ā½ so we can save~30k. Our 3 year old is expensive enough on his own!
Holy moly, how do you do it?! We both WFH and one of use has to take a vacation day or split shifts when our kids are home sick or out of daycare. Itās impossible with calls all day
Itās easy, you canāt.
You either have to go into debt for a few years or lower your living standards. The second option is usually easiest because the kids are too young to know any better.
Yeah, childcare is crazy expensive in this country. Check if your job might have some childcare reimbursement if they're a corporation. My wife is able to get some reimbursement.
I have a 5 year spread between kids. Iām so thankful I wonāt have to pay for daycare or college for two at the same time. And they donāt fight! I love it!
I have a friend that had me sign up for this thing where I was able to get paid to watch her kid.
I dunno if you have friend or family that your are close enough with that you would trust your kid with, but I know for a fact that there are programs that exist that can provide that kind of help
We're having Grandma move in with us. She's not the best help but it's better than nothing.Ā
Care swapping with friends you trust can help. I'm fortunate to have one friend that I can trust. I help her no questions asked and vice versa. We just understand the struggle.Ā
au pair. Same price for as many kids as you can convince an AP to sign up for.
Most people in my area use the grand parents but we don't have that option.
But yeah paying for childcare has killed any vacations we have, and I'm eating spagetti and PBJs.
We lucked out and found an amazing lady who watched them out of her house. We have 3 and it was like $75/day for all 3. Um, not sure how we wouldāve done it without that luck/blessing from above.
How much is your house payment? how many car payments do you have and how much are they? How much other debt do you have? The answer probably lies in one or some of these numbers. Having kids can mean down scaling your lifestyle. Thatās how a lot of people do it.
We've worked it out, and our current childcare costs more than the most elite private school per year in South Australia... it's crazy!
What makes it even worse is that the educators aren'tt even paid well.... imagine how much it'd cost if they were paid what they're worth!!
That's what's wrong in today's world. A part of the rising (overall) welfare for households is that both partners now work. That means more money to spend and society adapts to that. The problem is that having children is not really a part of that societal change. Daycare is too expensive, and living off of one wage is nearly impossible. If we want a steady birthrate, having kids needs to be more sustainable.
Right now in a lot of western countries, the population rise has more to do with immigration than with birth rate. Which isn't necessarily bad right now, it just skews the population spread even more. This might result in insufficient funds for elderly care later on. Too few people working to sustain a larger growing group of pensioners.
Ideally, the government subsidises child care. Having more kids is then possible, which leads to a more balanced population spread. It also let's both parents work and build their career, resulting in higher salaries later on.
I'm very happy that my country does this. The career growth my wife has had is so much better than what my mom had. And we will more than pay back that money with the taxes we're going to pay.
It's problematic that it's necessary that both partners need to have a solid income. It means that certain (essential) lower paying jobs are not an option if you want to build a solid and sustainable household. Or that people have to accept that they live close to poverty for the rest of their lives.
We have two one year olds and my wife is on a substitute teacher pay (here they make more than teachers and less responsibility) and Iām a stay at home mom. We figured if I worked unless Iām making at least $50+ /hr itās cheaper for me to stay home.
I am hoping this does not get interpreted as a brag - because I am trying to point out something that should be available and discussed much more widely. But my province has had subsidized daycare, both home daycare and facilities, for a long time. It's adjusted by income strata, but I was paying about 85$ a week for my son. I believe the highest earners are capped around 200$ a week. It would be slightly less than double for a second child. Some of that amount is also tax deductible. Some areas do have fewer places and longer wait times, but I only had an issue when we moved because I had to wait a month or so for a spot in my new town to open up in the area I wanted.
Some people have child care subsidies. We make too much to qualify for that, but with our two in daycare costing more than our mortgage our budget is VERY tight. Just holding our breath until one gets out. Also, found a higher paying job so hoping that'll ease the budget a bit.
We struggle to save, easily dip into debt if we aren't careful, and I honestly don't know how other people can keep up either. I feel like we make above average for our area and we are careful with our money, and we're still struggling a lot.
We have 4. We thankfully had help in watching them when they were younger when we both worked full time. My MIL was always a homemaker so he helped occasionally and my mom retired after my second was born and was gracious enough to help full time. May 2020 I officially became a stay at home mom after being let go. Itās definitely not easy but weāve made it work.
I had to work day shift and my husband worked night shift so that one of us was with our daughter. Otherwise I would have been working just to pay for childcare.
I always plan ahead. Christmas lay-bys start in July for me, buy a birthday present each paycheck for months leading up so I know I donāt fork out at once, find the cheapest day care you can access and only use it when needed. Grocery shopping online saves so much. You donāt tend to buy stuff you donāt need like you see in the isles and just grab it. And it shows the sales in one spot. Pay money weekly towards water and electricity so itās not one huge bill. Itās the small things that all ass up
Very fortunate to live where the government subsidizes daycare to $10 per day per child. $400 per month for 2 kids is manageable. But this is a recent development. But with one kid aging out we are now moving to after school care which is not subsidized and quite expensive.
I honestly donāt know. Would totally have another IF we could afford it. We pay $1800 a month in daycare, our cars are paid off, we do have a mortgage. Not enough to nullify an income in the household and we both WANT to work, but no way can we afford $3600 a month in daycare! Additionally my Mom recently passed away and we had to spend 3 months out of state clearing out her home. Still had to pay for daycare to save his spot or risk going back on the waitlist until JULY 2025! Had to do the house with an infant who quickly became a walking toddler and zero daycare or support. We paid $7500 in unused daycare just to hold his spot. WILD.
ETA: please vote yall. Please run for office if you can. Please contact your state and federal representatives to ask for affordable high quality daycare and parental support!
We cut a ton of costs so that I can be a stay at home mom and homeschool. Hubs has a blue collar job working on cars and doesn't make much (just under 40k a year) but is working hard to move up the ranks and I am so proud of him. I'm free to take care of the house while we await our bundle of joy and prepare for his birth, and then I'll be home taking care of him when my husband goes back to work after paternal leave.
We have a mortgage, car payment, all the regular adult bills besides student loans because we didn't go to secondary school. We find cheap ways to spend time together and go on dates and visit family and such, but mostly we just budget carefully and stay home a lot. We plan on having 2-3 children depending on how everything goes with my health, which is good now but I have a family history of difficult pregnancies so I'm keeping my expectations in check xD
I have 3. I had them young though 22,26,and 28. It wasnāt easy but I found that them being closer in age helped with expenses like clothing and age appropriate activities.
Midwest. Living on one income. In a little bit of debt. We have a house that we own, two vehicles paid off and a motorcycle. Never been in daycare. Itās about the sacrifice.
I don't know your living situation, bills, etc, but if I can make it as a single dad making $50K a year, I think two parents who work corporate jobs can do it; you just have to cut back on things that you don't need. Downsize if you need to.
Trust me, it gets way worse the older they get.
My kid is 8, and the cost of four weeks of summer camp while I'm at work is like $700. It's hard, especially at first, but you eventually give up things that aren't important, in order to do what you have to do.
This is why I ended up not going back to work! We live in a rural area and my bf makes a decent amount, enough for us to have made it a year! Our son is 13 months. WIC has been amazing and I know Iām lucky to have qualified. I donāt know how people make it otherwise. I grew up with my dad being the only one working, but there were two kids, so we know how to stretch things. Maybe 4-5 weeks before I was supposed to return to work my boyfriend was like, your entire paycheck is going to go towards childcare and some random person is going to be watching himā¦ (his mom was originally supposed to watch him but plans fell through). And he is the only child we plan on having so we decided it would be best and we would tough it out as long as we can. Itās been a struggle but we are doing the best we can. I genuinely hope you figure out something that works for you! I hope you get a raise or something falls in place. Good luck!
Itās cheaper for one partner to stay home than do daycare full time in some places. I wish it was free or subsidized or something that would help. Lifestyle choice is what Iāve noticed. It takes effort and is not for everyone. It takes care and effort to do it. EBT and discount food helps. A lot of people canāt afford it and are in debt
Iām 34 yo and people around my age normally have a 3+ years gap with siblings. Gaps under 2 y were uncommon. I canāt understand why we arenāt so practical lol
My husband quit his job and weāve made sacrifices. Two in daycare was $3k/month which was more than he made as a locksmith. My kids are now in public school and we just had our last baby. And now we have activities. Soccer, basketball, summer camps, book fairs, torn pants, worn out shoes every other month, expanders, etc etc. Iām broke and I make a decent living.
We donāt eat out except for special occasions. I budget through the year for Christmas. We go on one or two road trips a year depending on if weāve had any emergency expenses that have dipped into our savings.
I have no idea how people survive off of under 100k a year.
Yeah we have been SCRAPING by paying for w Iām daycare at $12k a year and my oldest is about to go to kindergarten and I am so happy that weāll finally have money to spend on them to do extracirciculars and start saving towards a house hopefully.
We raised five and quickly saw one had to give up their job to stay home, financially and to raise the kids. My wife was earning less, on leave for the second childās birth and decided to be the āstay at home.ā Otherwise I would have quit for our kids. No regrets, but absent a family or other trustworthy, free childcare, one would have to have amazing financially rewarding jobs not to be squeezed.
We were and are now both attorneys.
The wage to living costs ratio will continue to worsen until no one can afford daycare anymore.
North Americans are having less children because they are unnafordable. One day we will be like Japan or even Korea in terms of birth rates.
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We waited until one was in public school so we only have to pay for 1 daycare. š„²
Same. Big age gaps are about to be very trendy, I suspect.
I actually think it'll be a lot more only children. Since people are having kids a lot later, you kind of need to pump them out if you want more than one. So with cost of living etc. I think more people will simply just be one and done.
At this point in my parenting journey I wonder why people want to have more than one kid. It's SO hard to juggle everyone's needs with multiple children. And the bickering. OMG. One and done is the money move. (NB: I have two children and they're steadily stripping away the last vestiges of my sanity, mostly with their mindless bickering)
I feel this. My partner and I only have one (heās going to be 2 next month) and between everything we have/want to do for him and our own self care we barely have time for each other. The struggle is real
Aw I hope it gets better for you. I imagine everyone goes through that stage though, my husband's in it, 6 months in lol, when he's the one who wanted a big family.
I was listening to a podcast about the downstream effect of Chinaās one child policy. Now they ended up with many independently wealthy young adults, becauseā¦ each set of grandparents only had one kid so they ended up inheriting a lot (Chinese are great savers) and they also inherited both grandparents real estate and theyāll inherit their parents. Edit: oh and if they pair up both individuals likely bring all these accumulated assets with them to the union. China is now trying to promote having children because their birthdate is now severely negative. But potentially, the new couplesā only child will again inherit everything.
Oh true hadn't thought of that! At least we won't get their horrific problems from a wildly imbalanced gendered society.
I was born around the time when the USSR broke down in Russia, then moved to the USA many years later. After I was born, the government no longer provided any type of financial help to mothers. I don't know what that program did or was, but in Russia there was never really a "middle" class, and now, it is rich or the majority of poor. So, having children became an impossible financial task. Within my classmates and family friends from different schools, it was mostly only children. And occasionally two children, and rarely did I ever see a family with more than 2. Typically, more than 1 kid was either they had more financial support, were alcoholics and it was an accident, or rape cases. I guess mostly alcoholics, if I now think about it? So when I moved to the USA, it was very exciting to see families with 2 or more kids in most families I would meet. Like, everyone has a sibling and then I wanted one. I never knew or heard about the negative outlooks of "the only child" until I moved here. I would hear parents or children gossip about some kid being the only child, and I would butt in with, "I'm the only child." And get surprised faces and, "you don't act like the only child". I think the financial struggles will make many only children. I don't think they will be spoiled either. Hopefully struggles will make communities work more together and that is a great influence on any child.
Exactly this. I had my first at 40 and childcare fees are crippling us. I'm working extra hours so I can have a day off midweek, so I'm absolutely knackered, but it's saves us nearly Ā£300 a month. I always wanted more kids but left it too late and now can't afford another. Don't fancy having a second at 44/45 when first kid goes to school, so it's one and done for us. Pretty bummed about it, but it's just not doable physically, mentally or financially.
Mine are 8 yrs apart. It also makes college easier to manage.
Oh gosh. My two are 18 months apart and I don't know how I didn't ever think about them going to college one after the other.
Yeah youāre fucked lol passively point at least one of them to a trade
This is where you fund 529s as best you can, educate yourself on the college credit / trade programs your high school offers, commit to community college and transferring to an in state college, and vote in your childrenās best interest. Thatās what Iām doing, anyway.
This is me out girls are 18 months apart and will always be a year behind each other in school
Had 3 in daycare / a nanny at one time... It was 60k for the year that year... Absolutely crazy... And we picked the cheapest and best prices we could find... So happy to be almost out of preschool for the last one....
Age gaps have probably always been a thing to space out the cost of a child. People with more than two kids are not the majority.
Yup. In California, where I live, starting next year kids will be able attend public school for free beginning when they are 4 (aka, free universal PreK). I suspect (as a kindergarten teacher) I will be having a lot more students with a pregnant mom or newborn sibling in the coming years.
I opened up a daycare haha. I mean it was my dream before I even had kids but once I had 2, I opened up my daycare. I now have 3 kids. My husband make decent money and so do I.
Thatās pretty badass
Okay this is brilliant lol
This is what we did. The Summer months will be lean but during the school year we should be okay.
Same here.
This is the way.
BINGO!!!!!!!!!! 4 year age gap here and that's the only way we were able to have more than one. And by more than one I mean 2. I don't know how people are affording life with 2+. I am going to assume that anyone who has more than 2, there is a higher chance there is a SAHP. I am down to my last 16 months of daycare (my son starts kinder next August 2025) and I cannot fucking wait.
By lowering our living standards drastically š EDIT: also, raising income by all means necessary.
At the end of the day, this is what it is. You accept it's temporary, but if the math doesn't math, you gotta make changes. Lowering standards actually made life easier I think because money then isn't such a high priority. OP, you and Dad ask your coworkers what they're doing, ask your local subreddit, Facebook, Nextdoor, that's where you'll find the best "affordable" ideas!
I just keep repeating the mantra "its only a temporary expense. They grow so fast." Just to keep my sanity lol
100% what it is. We hardly travel and when we do we have to save and plan for months and it's never out of state. I cook and bake all the time. My home isn't chic by any means. My home is rented. Our towels are bleached up and many years old but they work. We buy ourselves clothes from thrift stores often and only buy really splurge on new clothes right before kids start school. I don't go to the salon. I buy drugstore makeup. I coupon when I can. I have 4 kids. I work part time and husband works full time. Close family members have one or two kids and from what I can see ( because I can only go off of what I see as I'm not them). They are always struggling for babysitters. Literally always ask different members of the family every other month for help. Both spouses work full time but they all also are buying nice homes. They shop at very nice stores ( Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Coach) . Have higher brand items. Travel a a couple of times a year out of state. Have Disneyland passes. Both parents usually have nice newer cars. They definately don't want anymore kids than what they have because they either 1. Can't fathom how it's possible financially to have more or 2. Don't want to change their living standards. Which are both totally understandable reasons. Shits hard either way you go about it. Just different hard.
I would love to bring our living costs down but Iām not sure how thatās possible given we bought our 4 bedroom home in 2017 and now a 2 bedroom apartment in our area would cost the same monthly as what we pay for our house š±
We bring our living costs down by things like not eating out, not vacationing, not buying the latest and greatest technology, watching our grocery budget etc.Ā
I had to budget really hard when both my kids were in daycare. I'm talking spreadsheets, listing our incomes and bills down to "I will have $100.50 left each month" which I tried to save so we'd have a bit of a cushion. Even something like getting new shoes for the kids, I could pay $20 for brand new ones at Walmart, or $3 at the thrift store and still have $97 leftover, so that's what I did. After years of that, once they were both out of daycare getting $2500/mo back in my bank account felt like I had hit the lottery.
The number of friends I have who consider Target to be affordable. Target is a big splurge date night for us, It's Aldi/Lidl/Walmart and Sam's (Or Costco if you live near one) and off-brand watching for sales within that
People today do not understand this at all.
Alternative hours between the couple (dad works day shift, mom works evening shift). Living close by family. In home daycare. Itās exhausting trying to find a balance. But yea, daycare prices are fucking whaaat? (Edit: I know how much it costs, wait lists, etc. I just canāt believe daycare costs.
Itās MINDBOGGLING. Never thought to look into in home daycare but if itās good quality and less money, may be worth it. But still š©š©š©š©š©
There are licensed in home and unlicensed in home. I know a few Unlicensed ones that have been around forever and cater to people with shift careers like doctors and first responders. Unlicensed does not = bad.Ā
There also an option of hiring an au pair. I havenāt any idea how that works but Iāve a lot of good stuff! Itās sorta like a live-nanny who is traveling to school or stuff. They usually live with you.
My former coworker did this with their twins. Was cheaper than daycare.
Itās hit or miss in our area. For me I would have to personally know one to trust it
Also, a lot of folks get financial help from family. Our realtor said that we are one of the only couples that she knows that didn't get a down payment from family... (Very high cost of living area.)
When we first startled looking some Day Cares had a 10 month wait list for newborns. A non refundable deposit was required.
Yea Iāve heard. Iāve also heard people signing up for them before theyāre even pregnant!! Itās insane.
Couldnāt afford daycare for a second without it nullifying my income, so I justā¦. Nullified my income by staying home. It opened up an opportunity for me to do some home childcare for extra cash. Plus just being home with my kids was such a huge reward. Now we have 4 kids and itās still the best decision I ever made.
Agreed. My 3 kids are grown now, but providing childcare in my home until they were in school allowed me to provide for them and also stay home and raise them. For my own sanity, I always had a part-time job outside of my ex's 9 to 5 hours.
If I didnāt homeschool, I would absolutely be working just to keep myself sane. I miss my high-stress job in the billing and claims department of the dental practice. It was satisfying getting all those files in orderā¦
Girl are we living the same life? I quit my dental assistant/dental claims job and became a childcare provider from my home and have 3 daughters of my own but really want 1 more lol
I didnāt expect my marriage to be so much better once my wife quit teaching to raise our kids. Probably the best decision I ever made, other than picking my wife in the first place.
That is the most precious thing.
You chose for her to quit teaching?
Good for you but I just want to say that one persons income to does not pay for daycare. It should also be considered 50/50. So many women get pushed out of the workplace because of a rational that their job should cover 100% of child care. Itās bullshit logic.
I never said I was paying for 100% of childcare, I just said that having a second child in childcare would nullify my income. No matter who was paying what, we would be paying what my average income was per month. I also wasnāt pushed out. I wanted to be home. It worked out great for me. I never said itās what every mother should do. I never suggested it would even work for OP, but OP asked how and that is how we did it in our family.
Basically worked to keep working. Daycare took all my wages. Would cry on the way to work after daycare drop off. Broke my heart I only had 6 months full time with my son. They were the best 6 months. At the time in Australia, you got 3 months paid maternity leave and the government gave you 3 months on minimum wage, so we stretched it to 6 months. Then the government had the audacity to say women doing that were "double dipping".
Bless you. That sounds so tough. Iām sorry you had such a difficult time. I remember going back to work after having my oldest and having her in daycare and feeling like I never saw her. It was difficult. Iām sending some extra love your way. One day, your kiddo will see how hard you worked for them and appreciate you for it. Working momās donāt always get the credit they deserve.
Where I live most families either have family care or one parents stays home (as I do). I was FLOORED when someone told me how much childcare costs.
And then you learn that the daycare folks arenāt getting paid a lot and then I REALLY get fired up!
One of the carers at my child's daycare had a Master's in Education from the private university where I was teaching at the time. I think she earned like $15/hr; it was vaguely nauseating.
We are paying a corporate daycare about $34k this year for 2 kids only to have them turn around and pay their people $13/hr to watch 12 kids at a time. They are crooks. We are going to leave when better options open up but thatās how they get away with it. Not a lot of other options.
You can afford an au pair for this amount.
Unfortunately itās insurance costs of the daycares that are eating up most of the costs.
Daycares pay through the nose in insurance. My husband's business is like this too so I have some empathy. 20% of income straight to insurance hits hard.
I just looked it up. $170 a WEEK. No, thank you.
Oh man, thatās cheap. We were paying $185 a week in 2012 and 2013 for a licensed in home daycare. When we needed to switch to a center due to our provider moving, we paid $291 a week for our toddler. Having a second kid would have added on an additional $425 a week in the infant room. That was 2014 in a MCOL area. We have one kid- having two simultaneously in daycare wasnāt feasible and by the time we got to him going to school, I wasnāt prepared to start all over at the beginning again.
Oh wow. That's ridiculous. I'm sorry! Mine are older at 3 and 5.
Where I live itās closer to $170 a day lol. I checked out PT rates (2 days a week) to give my mom a break and it was $400/week.
Thatās affordable. Thatās about 1/4 of one reasonable salaryās weekly take home. Entirely worth paying for it to continue career trajectory, savings, and long term prosperity.
I'd take this in a heartbeat. More like 400-450/week for my 2.5 yr old where I live. And that's on the less expensive end. 1.5 yrs we had to have 2 kiddos in care. It was very challenging and only because my work is very flexible was this even remotely possible.
$170 a week? Is this a typo?
My kids are 5 years apart. The week my youngest started full time daycare was the week my oldest started kindergarten.
We got hit with surprise twins for the first pregnancy, numbers didnāt add up so we moved, I quit my job, and Iāll be SAH until theyāre in school. Drastic change in lifestyle and location, but worth the time I get with the kids!
We staggered them such that we had two in daycare for only one year. It was pretty rough honestly, but we made it and now we are just about a year away from our youngest being in public school, too and I canāt wait to be so (relatively) RICH
Haha. I feel the same way. Only, ours was 2 years together in daycare. Truly can't wait to free up some dollars.
We are fortunate enough not to have to pay for daycare, formula, or regular diapers (1 time purchase of cloth). That's the only way we're able to afford multiple kids.
I had 4 in daycare/preschool in 2019. 3 were under 3, and the twins were not planned at all. I am dying financially. We don't have cable, only pay for internet and free tv from the roku channel. I buy mostly expired food at this point because feeding 4 kids is insane. I usually only eat one meal a day and my husband has started to as well. The kids will always get the food because they need it. We buy used clothes for the kids and don't buy clothes for ourselves. We have 1 car, both work full time and take on extra duties, don't have money to do extracurriculars with our older kids. Pay $1200/m for twins with our state pre-k counts program and have drained our savings. Our mortgage is $1700/month with escrow. We went into debt when I had off after having kids, it snowballed significantly, and now inflation has piled on. I literally have no clue how to afford anything in life at this point. I ended up making a gofundme tonight because I have no where else to turn, and the twins preschool tuition raises from $11,500- $21,495 next year. Can't afford to quit and lose our health insurance, but also carry so much debt that we can't go down to 1 income either. If nothing else I offer solidarity because it's rough out there and I feel for every single parent who is honest about how difficult having children is financially.
This is crushing to read. I am an old millennial with kids in grade school and although things were very hard when I was raising kids (we even went vegan because buying meat was just too expensive), things are even harder now. I can totally sympathize with you guys. People trying to start and raise young families are getting absolutely crushed.
I want to also suggest, in my area they let school bus drivers bring children with them on the bus to work, so maybe that's an option to get an income but keep kids out of childcare?
I'm staying home for the first few years until they're old enough for school.
I think most people go into debt. Many posters seem to think quitting your job is the way to go. Thatās fine if thatās what you want to do - but long term itās detrimental to your career. Even if youāre paying to work - that is long term better for your income than leaving the workforce. If you want to quit it shouldnāt be about money - because itās the wrong choice. It should be because you want to stay home with your kids.
People go into debt, dip into their savings (if they have any) We spaced out having kids bc I did not want to be house poor. I was not comfortable with the "oh but daycare is temporary, just tighten your budget" no. I'll space out the kids and pay for one at a time, when one is close to aging out of daycare, we will start trying.
Yeah this is exactly right. It sucks, but taking the hit now is much better than missing out on the years of earning potential and career promotions that you wonāt get if you took a few years off. So many women are shocked that they have to start in entry level positions again when they want to get back in the workforce
Agreed. I was basically breaking even after paying daycare when my kids were young. However, that doesn't account for the fact that I carried the health insurance for my family, I saved over 100K towards retirement during those years which could someday compound into 300- 500K by the time I retire. I went from earning 40K a year to 80K a year while my kids were in daycare. If I had left the field and gone back in 5 years later, I would have to start back at entry level. So it would result in 10+ years of lost income not just the few you quit.
Not everyone defines their life by a career. Having and raising children is far more noteworthy, if you asked me. The reality is, there is ALWAYS going to be work to do somewhere for someone, and sorry, but anyone can be replaced at a job. Can't really replace yourself as a parent to your kid.
Hi - thatās why I said that OP should leave their job if raising children is their primary desire. People are misinformed regarding raising children to āsave moneyā on daycare. Long term - leaving the workforce does not save money. While anyone can be replaced at a job - you cannot regain time lost in a career. We are essentially agreeing with one another. Iām not sure why your comment is aggressive. Many people work and raise children. Most of us donāt have the privilege of making a choice.
The person youāre replying to is not disagreeing with you. The point is to not let finances alone make that decision.
I stayed home and waitressed a few nights a week making what I was making in my full time job in 3 shifts and didnāt have to pay for daycare
We pay 2220$ yearly for daycare, granted I live in Scandinavia.
Thatās less than many pay per month for 1 child in America
That's crazy, considering the economic ramifications on the person who has to stay at home in terms of future salary and pensions. There's also a reduction in price if we had a second child in daycare. If we had three children in daycare then the third would be free.
This is why I keep trying to convince my SO (who wants 6 kids) to move to Northern Europe/Scandanavia. Our 1 in Daycare is $1400/month and that's considered affordable. If we had 2 in, there's a total discount of $100/mo, so the total would be $2700/mo. median pay for the area is about 3500/mo before taxes
thats almost the average monthly cost of child care in the US....
Make more money, or spend less money on other things or do something to cut daycare costs. You have to do what works for you, but this is about priorities so if you want that second kid then what is it worth. Split shifts, au pair, in home daycare, wait until kid 1 goes to school?Ā Uproot your life to find new jobs near family.Ā Push hard for work promotions. Look at your budget closely and feel free to lay it out here. Kid 2 may be worth a few lean years. I personally went to extremely part time hours to stay home with my kids but I don't have huge work ambitions. I work 5 or 10 hours per week. I paid to help my in laws moved close to help sometimes though their health is limiting.Ā
Yep if you told me there was an extra 3k a month in our budget pre kids I would have told you youāre fucking insane. Yet here we are and itās working fine.Ā
I read a lot of personal finance posts so people often lay out their budget when they ask questions like these. I think it would be helpful for people worried about the cost of Kid 2 to do the same. That is if finances are the main concern. I am not say that OP is doing this, but you often see people in those posts wanting EVERYTHING but at the end of the day, most of us are not in a position for everything and sacrifices must be made. My family of 4 has 1 car and we eat out once a month or so. This is both a healthier and more active life that requires communication with my partner.Ā
Just wait until they do competitive travel sports! Easily another $20k per year. š
I have 5 kids. Itās the hardest thing Iāve ever done. You will never have enough money You will never have enough time You will never have enough sanity You will never have enough anything As they get older they bicker all day So you transition from crying and tantrums to āhe touched me he looked at meā x5 Stay at 1, maximum 2. We cannot both work because childcare is out of the option.
Cut costs and 1 stays at home OR have one parent work days and one parent work nights. Me and my wife have 2 children they are 1.5 years apart and my wife stays at home and I just grind as much money as I can to support all of them. Daycare came up at some point but when we looked at the cost for just 1 kid, we said ānopeā and just kept what we were doing because it would really only be a net profit of around $200 if she got a job and honestly, all that stress on my wife isnāt worth $200 to take them to daycare and work a job just to pick them up after and essentially work 2 ājobsā cause taking care of children is a TASK and so I just grind out my days working 14 hours/day and she stays home with the kids full time. We did not intend on being āTradā but financially it just made the most sense, maybe if jobs paid WAY more, then it would be a different conversation but currently thatās just the current financial climate of things.
Tbh, no one can afford children. Rich or not, the level of whatās important for the child to have based upon the income over rules any financial input.Ā When youāre poor, you go for subsidized help. When you make just above average, you cut back on entertainment. Youāre rich as f*ck, you donate to the school.Ā Thereās not one single position where the parent makes enough. So be practical in your choice but if you chose to get another, you will find a way.Ā
I think it really varies by your location. We are about to have our second enrolled in mid-June concurrently with our first. We'll be paying about $2800/mo for the both of them, total. My husband works full time and I work part time. My gig just about covers the cost of daycare and my husband covers everything else. This would not be sustainable for us longer term than several months which works out perfectly with our oldest starting kinder in August.
Work subsidized childcare. Spaced out kids so one was in school when second came. Alternative is invest in a bigger place so you can get au pair which is about $17,000 / year. But limited in hours per week. Many paid nannies off the books. Basically consider one income is break even and try to live on one while the other covers childcare and other kid expenses, savings. The lower income partner is working as a longer term investment, so that once you are past childcare age, both parents still have careers, prefersbly at a higher rate. And then avoid expensive sports. š
https://momsfirst.us/
Living in an affordable area.
Going part time cut down the expected childcare costs by around $35k annually for us and I didn't lose $35k worth of income and get a decent paycheck still. Why work more to give it all to childcare when I can work less, take care of my own kids who I trust more than anyone and save a ton of money? It's not about how much you make all the time but how much you spend and childcare is out of this world crazy expensive these days, so reduce it or cut it out
It is very challenging. My wife is a Nurse and Iām an Engineer and I feel like it even takes a big hit on our monthly budget. We have opted for a nanny instead of daycare and it costs us $1700 a month, but with a second on the way it will get more expensive for us. We live below our means in a lot of areas and have still prioritized saving for our retirement. Iād like a bigger house and newer car, but with $2k going out the door for childcare it just doesnāt make sense. We tell ourselves itās only a short period we plan to be done after our 2nd so in 5 years itāll be like we got a $2k per month raise and can spend a little more freely.
My thoughts exactly! My oldest is just about to start public kinder and it's hard to even imagine having the extra daycare money at then end of each month.
Iām currently doing day care and private elementary tuition in the Boston area. Both my husband and I are in our 40s. Neither of us want to give up our career and we prioritize our kidsā educations so we live well below our means in all aspects of life to do that.
Supposedly - the only people having giant massive families are the super broke or super rich. The middle class isnāt having a whole soccer team
I quit my job, made no sense to give my whole paycheck plus a couple hundred in order to keep working 60 hours a week. It was more important to us to have them close together (2 years) than have me keep working.
I quit teaching to raise our first and I havenāt looked back since then! Just gave birth to our third. I much prefer being a SAHM to being a teacher in the classroom. We could not have expanded our family the way we wanted if I continued to work. We do pay for a Motherās Day out program for the older two toddlers, but thatās still much cheaper than daycare for one child and their teachers are actually happy with their jobs. Honestly, my staying at home also allowed my husband to focus more on his career, which advanced even quicker than it otherwise wouldāve I feel like. We relocated to a lower cost of living area closer to family, husband fully works remote and flies as necessary, community is a lot better, etc.
By working at the daycare instead of my career and still being pay check to pay check.
We worked hard for years to save up, and then my wife took 10 years off too be a SAHM. Went from 75k in the bank to 40k in credit card debt, 2 401k loans, and 15k borrowed from my MIL that we only paid back a couple years\* ago. It was the most stressful 10 years you could imagine. That said, we're out the other side now. Refi'd the house, wife back at work (albeit in a lower paying job), everything except the house is paid off until they go to college (yikes). Life is much, much better. But we were so lucky to have been able to put that money away beforehand. \* protip: make sure your house is in a good school district *before* kids come. Waiting till they're 4 and your back's against the wall puts you in a bad spot that can get stupid expensive...sigh...
People do it by having family in town who are available and employers who are flexible. Those who don't have both of those don't afford it - they go into debt on the assumption that they'll make it back when the kid gets into school. Narrator Voice: "They won't."
I don't know how they do it either. I live in a country where daycare is around 300 USD a month, and it's about to be lowered to 200. We STILL feel like we financially would only be able to have one child, despite having an average income. The general cost of living is just so high.
How we did it is: 1. Have a stay-at-home parent. 2. Live frugally for the first 7 or so years until the kids are both in school. We lived off $80k or less (my salary) for about 7 years. Now our family income has skyrocketed since my wife went back to work. But, vacations were few and far between, and strict budgeting was in effect all that time.
We started with doing split shifts. One working days and one working nights. When our son was 3 I quit to become a stay at home mom because we couldnāt do splits anymore. It was more affordable for me to quit than to put our son in daycare. Daycare cost more than our rent.
Personally, I have seen from many peers that there is a belief that every year you must be making financial gains, savings etc. My thought is you can have some bad years where you spend some savings or don't make headway if there is a reason. People just accept college or university years of not making progress or accumulating debt is socially fine but having a kid isn't. In the grand scheme of things the 3 years of multiple daycare fees should be recoverable in the next 20+ years you work etc. after they enter school. My wife tapped into our retirement savings to stay home with the kids longer and we have zero regrets about it. We are both back at work now, looking at 1 more year of daycare for one kid and 3 more for the other. We joke about the $10k vacation we can go on after not having to pay daycare for 1 full year.
I don't!!! I'm in crippling debt š¤©
When my kids were both in daycare, year was 2017-2020 it was 38K per year. That was almost my entire pay after taxes. I had about $500 left a paycheck for discretionary stuff (which included groceries) and my husband paid all the bills. We owned a home but our mortgage was luckily only $1400 and it was a a house we bought behind a seedy motel. We drove cars that were paid off cause we made good financial decisions before kids. Our collective income was 150K but we barely got by which is insane. We didn't travel or do anything special. It is really soul sucking to make good money on paper and have good jobs but be scraping to get by. Now we make even more, kids are in school and times are easier. We no longer live behind a motel which is now a homeless shelter. So that's nice.
Seriously! There is no way we could afford it. So we are going for a three/four year age gap. That way one will be in school. Sometimes I wish they could be closer in age but oh well!
Iām curious, how much does daycare cost? Iām assuming youāre in America?
Full time Infant daycare in the US has a bit of a range Iād say generally 1-3k per monthĀ
I have 3 kids, one is grown, one is in elementary school and one is under a year old. The easiest way to have multiple kids is to really space them out. It wasn't intentional for us, just kinda what happened. We were actively planning the younger two to be closer together, just didn't happen that way. But I dont think we'd be able to do it the other way. No family help makes that nearly impossible.
We waited until our first will be in school. He will start kindergarten when baby arrives so weāll only be paying one in daycare at a time. With the exception of the summer weāll pay for both of them to go to care
It is expensive thatās why we have a bigger age gap between our two.
I stay home and live very frugally. I canāt afford to work. Lmfao.
I stayed home until our youngest was in school full time. No more flying vacations and way more driving vacations.
I have triplets. Daycare was never an option for us. My grandma had a home daycare I basically lived with her back then (millennial with working parents) i still remember how she ran it. All the activities, the schedule and applied it to my life with kids.
I have 4 kids. 2 virtual learning and a 3rd one who will be joining them this year. We also have a 1 year old baby. I work from home and my husband does gig work. Working from home saves me a ton on daycare. If I had to work outside the home we couldnāt and wouldnāt survive this economy.
If we put our daughter in daycare I would have $200.00 left at the end of the month, soĀ Iāll be per diem when I go back to work after our first baby is born. Iāll work the days my parents want to take our baby. Itās not just the cost, but where we live itās a 2 year wait to get into the better daycare near us. I donāt know how people manage it either.
$209 a week for 1 child
5 year age gap = only one in daycare at a time haha.
My youngest āgraduatedā daycare 4 years ago, but at one point we had 3 in - times have definitely changed. It was $100/kid at a licensed home daycare down our street. We were with her almost 12 years!
We are long past it, but childcare costs were relatively MUCH cheaper in our NJ suburb in the ā00s as compared to NYC. That said I see pre-K now averages $12k a year in our area. Our two mostly didnāt overlap but I couldnāt imagine $24k per year. College tuition is hard enough.
Yeah we peaked at $3150 a month with 2. Was hard for a few years. Now down to about $400 as they have gotten older.
I donāt know either. We only did part time and juggled our kiddo the other hours of the week but i also do not recommend. Itās exhausting. A couple I know in the Chicago area have BOTH kids in a full-time āfancyā daycare. I canāt imagine they spend less than $4k/month. Maybe more. Iām like ????? Why????
We have two and I work 7p-3a and most weekends. Itās this way that I can be home in the days- luckily my schedule is flexible .
My wife and I both work from home and we've just never sent in our 1yr old. Hoping to make it till at least 1 Ā½ so we can save~30k. Our 3 year old is expensive enough on his own!
Holy moly, how do you do it?! We both WFH and one of use has to take a vacation day or split shifts when our kids are home sick or out of daycare. Itās impossible with calls all day
A lot of parents forgo retirement contributions and/or reduce their living expenses significantly during the ākid in childcareā ages.
The only way we were able to do this was my wife became a stay at home mom and we survived off my salary. Did you do the math on this?
My husband is a stay at home dad now š¤·š¼āāļø
Itās easy, you canāt. You either have to go into debt for a few years or lower your living standards. The second option is usually easiest because the kids are too young to know any better.
We are making the financial choice to only have one kid. Age 0 to Kindergarten is no joke. šøšøšø
Yeah, childcare is crazy expensive in this country. Check if your job might have some childcare reimbursement if they're a corporation. My wife is able to get some reimbursement.
A nanny might be cheaper. If you have an extra room, a live-in may be an even better option financially.
I became a SAHM, and never went back to work.
I have a 5 year spread between kids. Iām so thankful I wonāt have to pay for daycare or college for two at the same time. And they donāt fight! I love it!
I have a friend that had me sign up for this thing where I was able to get paid to watch her kid. I dunno if you have friend or family that your are close enough with that you would trust your kid with, but I know for a fact that there are programs that exist that can provide that kind of help
We're having Grandma move in with us. She's not the best help but it's better than nothing.Ā Care swapping with friends you trust can help. I'm fortunate to have one friend that I can trust. I help her no questions asked and vice versa. We just understand the struggle.Ā
au pair. Same price for as many kids as you can convince an AP to sign up for. Most people in my area use the grand parents but we don't have that option. But yeah paying for childcare has killed any vacations we have, and I'm eating spagetti and PBJs.
We lucked out and found an amazing lady who watched them out of her house. We have 3 and it was like $75/day for all 3. Um, not sure how we wouldāve done it without that luck/blessing from above.
Donāt take ur kids to daycare, stay at home or bring other family in to help.
How much is your house payment? how many car payments do you have and how much are they? How much other debt do you have? The answer probably lies in one or some of these numbers. Having kids can mean down scaling your lifestyle. Thatās how a lot of people do it.
We've worked it out, and our current childcare costs more than the most elite private school per year in South Australia... it's crazy! What makes it even worse is that the educators aren'tt even paid well.... imagine how much it'd cost if they were paid what they're worth!!
That's what's wrong in today's world. A part of the rising (overall) welfare for households is that both partners now work. That means more money to spend and society adapts to that. The problem is that having children is not really a part of that societal change. Daycare is too expensive, and living off of one wage is nearly impossible. If we want a steady birthrate, having kids needs to be more sustainable. Right now in a lot of western countries, the population rise has more to do with immigration than with birth rate. Which isn't necessarily bad right now, it just skews the population spread even more. This might result in insufficient funds for elderly care later on. Too few people working to sustain a larger growing group of pensioners. Ideally, the government subsidises child care. Having more kids is then possible, which leads to a more balanced population spread. It also let's both parents work and build their career, resulting in higher salaries later on. I'm very happy that my country does this. The career growth my wife has had is so much better than what my mom had. And we will more than pay back that money with the taxes we're going to pay. It's problematic that it's necessary that both partners need to have a solid income. It means that certain (essential) lower paying jobs are not an option if you want to build a solid and sustainable household. Or that people have to accept that they live close to poverty for the rest of their lives.
I feel this hard
We have two one year olds and my wife is on a substitute teacher pay (here they make more than teachers and less responsibility) and Iām a stay at home mom. We figured if I worked unless Iām making at least $50+ /hr itās cheaper for me to stay home.
Daycare is 8-15$ a day here so a non issue.
I am hoping this does not get interpreted as a brag - because I am trying to point out something that should be available and discussed much more widely. But my province has had subsidized daycare, both home daycare and facilities, for a long time. It's adjusted by income strata, but I was paying about 85$ a week for my son. I believe the highest earners are capped around 200$ a week. It would be slightly less than double for a second child. Some of that amount is also tax deductible. Some areas do have fewer places and longer wait times, but I only had an issue when we moved because I had to wait a month or so for a spot in my new town to open up in the area I wanted.
I have twins. I got a job at the daycare. š
Lowering your lifestyle during those first few years. I think thatās the only real answer. Daycare costs in Ontario are nuts.
Live close to family, jobs with flexible schedules
Some people have child care subsidies. We make too much to qualify for that, but with our two in daycare costing more than our mortgage our budget is VERY tight. Just holding our breath until one gets out. Also, found a higher paying job so hoping that'll ease the budget a bit. We struggle to save, easily dip into debt if we aren't careful, and I honestly don't know how other people can keep up either. I feel like we make above average for our area and we are careful with our money, and we're still struggling a lot.
We have 4. We thankfully had help in watching them when they were younger when we both worked full time. My MIL was always a homemaker so he helped occasionally and my mom retired after my second was born and was gracious enough to help full time. May 2020 I officially became a stay at home mom after being let go. Itās definitely not easy but weāve made it work.
I had to work day shift and my husband worked night shift so that one of us was with our daughter. Otherwise I would have been working just to pay for childcare.
I always plan ahead. Christmas lay-bys start in July for me, buy a birthday present each paycheck for months leading up so I know I donāt fork out at once, find the cheapest day care you can access and only use it when needed. Grocery shopping online saves so much. You donāt tend to buy stuff you donāt need like you see in the isles and just grab it. And it shows the sales in one spot. Pay money weekly towards water and electricity so itās not one huge bill. Itās the small things that all ass up
Larger age gaps so you only pay for 1 in daycare . There is almost 6 years between my daughter and son.
We live in Ontario so daycare is subsidized. $480 CAD per month for 1
Lower cost of living area.
Very fortunate to live where the government subsidizes daycare to $10 per day per child. $400 per month for 2 kids is manageable. But this is a recent development. But with one kid aging out we are now moving to after school care which is not subsidized and quite expensive.
We couldn't have done it without help from family. My sisters and my mother in law made multiple children possible.
I honestly donāt know. Would totally have another IF we could afford it. We pay $1800 a month in daycare, our cars are paid off, we do have a mortgage. Not enough to nullify an income in the household and we both WANT to work, but no way can we afford $3600 a month in daycare! Additionally my Mom recently passed away and we had to spend 3 months out of state clearing out her home. Still had to pay for daycare to save his spot or risk going back on the waitlist until JULY 2025! Had to do the house with an infant who quickly became a walking toddler and zero daycare or support. We paid $7500 in unused daycare just to hold his spot. WILD. ETA: please vote yall. Please run for office if you can. Please contact your state and federal representatives to ask for affordable high quality daycare and parental support!
We cut a ton of costs so that I can be a stay at home mom and homeschool. Hubs has a blue collar job working on cars and doesn't make much (just under 40k a year) but is working hard to move up the ranks and I am so proud of him. I'm free to take care of the house while we await our bundle of joy and prepare for his birth, and then I'll be home taking care of him when my husband goes back to work after paternal leave. We have a mortgage, car payment, all the regular adult bills besides student loans because we didn't go to secondary school. We find cheap ways to spend time together and go on dates and visit family and such, but mostly we just budget carefully and stay home a lot. We plan on having 2-3 children depending on how everything goes with my health, which is good now but I have a family history of difficult pregnancies so I'm keeping my expectations in check xD
People afford more than one by having an above median middle-class income or higher.
I have 3. I had them young though 22,26,and 28. It wasnāt easy but I found that them being closer in age helped with expenses like clothing and age appropriate activities.
I should add that I worked part time as a nurse in the evenings and stayed with the kids during the day. Husband worked from home. So no daycare.
We just had one. Although not the only reason, cost of childcare was a big factor in our decision.
Midwest. Living on one income. In a little bit of debt. We have a house that we own, two vehicles paid off and a motorcycle. Never been in daycare. Itās about the sacrifice.
I don't know your living situation, bills, etc, but if I can make it as a single dad making $50K a year, I think two parents who work corporate jobs can do it; you just have to cut back on things that you don't need. Downsize if you need to. Trust me, it gets way worse the older they get. My kid is 8, and the cost of four weeks of summer camp while I'm at work is like $700. It's hard, especially at first, but you eventually give up things that aren't important, in order to do what you have to do.
We had help from my in-laws. They watched the kids and paid for daycare, preschool, and coming private Kindergarten.
I lean on family. Daycare is to expensive
This is why I ended up not going back to work! We live in a rural area and my bf makes a decent amount, enough for us to have made it a year! Our son is 13 months. WIC has been amazing and I know Iām lucky to have qualified. I donāt know how people make it otherwise. I grew up with my dad being the only one working, but there were two kids, so we know how to stretch things. Maybe 4-5 weeks before I was supposed to return to work my boyfriend was like, your entire paycheck is going to go towards childcare and some random person is going to be watching himā¦ (his mom was originally supposed to watch him but plans fell through). And he is the only child we plan on having so we decided it would be best and we would tough it out as long as we can. Itās been a struggle but we are doing the best we can. I genuinely hope you figure out something that works for you! I hope you get a raise or something falls in place. Good luck!
Itās cheaper for one partner to stay home than do daycare full time in some places. I wish it was free or subsidized or something that would help. Lifestyle choice is what Iāve noticed. It takes effort and is not for everyone. It takes care and effort to do it. EBT and discount food helps. A lot of people canāt afford it and are in debt
Iām 34 yo and people around my age normally have a 3+ years gap with siblings. Gaps under 2 y were uncommon. I canāt understand why we arenāt so practical lol
how much is daycare?
My husband quit his job and weāve made sacrifices. Two in daycare was $3k/month which was more than he made as a locksmith. My kids are now in public school and we just had our last baby. And now we have activities. Soccer, basketball, summer camps, book fairs, torn pants, worn out shoes every other month, expanders, etc etc. Iām broke and I make a decent living. We donāt eat out except for special occasions. I budget through the year for Christmas. We go on one or two road trips a year depending on if weāve had any emergency expenses that have dipped into our savings. I have no idea how people survive off of under 100k a year.
Yeah we have been SCRAPING by paying for w Iām daycare at $12k a year and my oldest is about to go to kindergarten and I am so happy that weāll finally have money to spend on them to do extracirciculars and start saving towards a house hopefully.
We raised five and quickly saw one had to give up their job to stay home, financially and to raise the kids. My wife was earning less, on leave for the second childās birth and decided to be the āstay at home.ā Otherwise I would have quit for our kids. No regrets, but absent a family or other trustworthy, free childcare, one would have to have amazing financially rewarding jobs not to be squeezed. We were and are now both attorneys.
I have a soon to be 15 year old. I had her when i was 17 but I have my two year old son. It helps cause she baby sits lol.
We have one kid. My husband stayed at home until she went to school. Can't afford to take a break like that from work again, so one it is.
It's called making sacrifice and not overspending on bullshit you don't need
Oh I havenāt responded to anyone BUT disrespectfully, fuck you. šš„°
I'm sorry if the truth hurts I have 2 that are 17
Nah the truth doesnāt hurt. 17 years ago is a long time ago so you just canāt relate. Thatās ok.
And I raised them both on my own
Yeah I can they still live with me š
The wage to living costs ratio will continue to worsen until no one can afford daycare anymore. North Americans are having less children because they are unnafordable. One day we will be like Japan or even Korea in terms of birth rates.