I have been trying to research childcare options for next winter. It's a really scary thing for me. I hate researching things like this, plus I think its hard to know what is the right option for our family. Each option has positives and negatives that come along with it. However, in my beginning search, I did come up with some interesting facts.
1) Did you know that Minneapolis, MN is rated the most expensive city for child care in the nation?
2) The average costs for infant care is $1,000 a month. My friend worked at a daycare center and for age 0-2, they charged $1,200 a month. Average rates for in home care are $630 per month, per child. This is past age 2.
3) The average family in Minneapolis spends 15% of their monthly income on daycare.
OUCH.
I guess this means a few things. This means that we will really have to count the cost of me working with putting the kids in daycare. We may have to leave the "city" and move to the suburbs. Maybe we can get friends or family to help a day or two a week. I don't know. All I know is this is stressing me out!
If you use daycare, what percentage of your income do you spend on it? How did you find it? How did you know they were going to take care of your child the way you were comfortable with?
4 comments:
This was the one thing that stressed me out more than anything when I was pregnant with Laura. I booked our daycare lady in May... being that I was due in October... i wouldn't be returning to work until possibly January... I wanted to make sure we had a good spot! I started with the same questions you have - I didn't even know where to begin looking. I opened the book and called one of the two daycare centers I knew about... they told me it was $1,560/month for an infant!!!! Yikes! ...but then he told me everyone qualifies for scholarships because of being a student (which we're not) or because of being "low income" (which we're not)... so, maybe that's why no one pays full price there is because they can't afford to! ha! Anyways, I figured if I called that place first (they get all cornell students/professors!) then anything after that would sound "cheap!" ...Then I called our local county daycare council. I told the lady what hours/days we needed and where we lived and worked. she went through the list of registered home and daycare centers and sent me a list of names and phone numbers (no addresses). I sat and plugged all the numbers into whitepages.com to see where these places were... then we drove around to scope out a few of the closer to home ones. THen I started making phone calls... started with the one closest to home and worked my way out. I asked these basic questions when I called: How much do you charge for full time infant? and Will you have opening in Dec/Jan? My first three calls quoted me $145-$150/week and had no openings expected. Then I hit the jackpot! ... 4th call, 4 miles from home... $110/week and would have TWO openings when I needed it! Then I asked her if Rich and I could come by and visit to meet her and ask her some things... I took a LONG list of questions and after about an hour of visiting, felt very comfortable and told her we'd be back with our daughter in the fall.
Oh, and when I mean I was stressed about finding daycare... I mean, I was more scared about that than I was about labor/delivery! Everyone asked (as a first time mom) if I was worried/scared of that... my honest answer was no, I was scared about finding a good place to send Laura.
Thanks SO MUCH. It is the one thing that has stressed me out since being pregnant with Lacey. I'll definitely use some of the things you suggested. Thanks, thanks, thanks!
Annie! I didnt know you had a blog. Fun.
I dont know about sending kids to daycare since I dont have any of my own, but I did work at a wonderful one for 4 years. It's called Grandma's House childcare and it's located on 31st and Lyndale. Its inside of a nursing home so its very intergenerational and both the young and the old benefit greatly from it! I still have contacts there if you need an "in." Let me know. Good luck!
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