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Something to consider, although it may not work, is if your child does not make the cut off and you have to pay for an extra year of day care, consider a pre-school that has a Kindergarten program and would allow your son to enroll (currently private schools can be more flexible with admissions). Then find out if the school district will allow him to enter first grade after he completes Kindergarten in a private program (some districts will, others will not).
My district only has a half day kindergarten and my daughter misses the cutoff so I am looking an an extra year of pre-school and then another year of 1/2 day care. That's almost an extra 10K. I wont push her if she's not ready but I'm pretty sure she will be.
We are not in NJ but you probably know it is known as the highest taxing state in the nation. Child care in a home environment is most like what your child would have if you could stay home. The structure of care and payment is important. After 30 years we found parents pretending that grand parents were coming to town and would be taking care of Junior. Remember one very important thing. Providing child care is a very demanding business with long hours. A business has expenses that you probably never think of. One kid will be at least 155.00 week or 8,000 a year. Here you pay for a whole week even if you come one day. We never have been able to fill that temporary vacancy. Enrollment takes time, contracts notarized, immunizations required, financial agreements filled out and emergency medical care set up just in case. Not easy for a day or two.
School starts at 5 years old. Give younger kids a chance to be kids and play. Disposable diapers and wipes cost you money. Food programs under the USDA exist but may get pulled. Add another 5 bucks a week. We have a good time with kids, change a zillion diapers, go to parks and if old enough they learn how to swim. We have to take (and pay for) First Aid, CPR, Medication Classes, Dietary Classes, and do a lot of paperwork. Unannounced visits come from Licensing Reps, Food Programs, and breast feeding parents. Kids cost money and few people think about the costs past delivery. A surprise is awaiting people with school age kids. The teachers union has them taking an amazing number of days off, plus Xmas vacation, spring vacation, summer vacation, etc., etc. Suddenly parents have to scramble to find care for kids during these days. Sometimes I feel that parents hire out child rearing, lawn mowing, snow shoveling, tree cutting and oil changes instead of doing it themselves. We love these little kids like our own but in the end a business has to be successfull or it fails. Try to consider all of this before having a zillion kids unless you are staying home with them.
My son is 3 as well. We are in Jersey City. We use Jewish Community Center Nursery and it's $885 per month and $350 member fee per year. The average cost is around $900 per month. They have structured classroom setting so that I will consider it's more like preschool. The montessori school charged around 15000-17000 per year excluding after school and summer camp. Therefore, the average cost per month will be 1500-1700. My cousin lives in Princeton and used to send her younger one to Montessori and it's round $1500 per month as well. Child care/preschool in NJ is not cheap. We used to pay $350 per week for daycare when my son was 1 year old.
My child is in Jewish preschool and the basic tuition for 5 days from 9-11:30 from September - June is $3600/year. Since I work fulltime, I need many more hours...when all is said and done with all of the enrichment and wrap around care (such as Karate, yoga, cooking, etc...) we are at around $1200 a month and that is without taking summers into account. That is for the extended hours of 8:30 - 6:30 5 days a week.
So, you can see how the cost varies widely depending upon how many days/hours. I just finished looking into preschool programs for next year with better hours for working parents and they all came in around the same price per month for those type of hours.
Good Luck!
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