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We're paying about $80,000 in daycare costs for our child from birth through age 5, which is about double what a college education would cost in our state.
It's not just daycare - it is full on early childhood education, and we choose to send her to one of the most expensive programs out there. We believe it is worth the cost.
But yeah, when I hear parents whine about college costs, who have had 18 years to save up for college, I mentally dig out the worlds smallest violin and start playing the saddest song ever.
What is "full on early child education"? Sounds like that daycare in "Meet the Fockers"
And some of us roll our eyes when someone has one wee one with a double income with little insight as to what different situations families face. I have 18 years to save for a disabled child that will never be independent, I guess that is too bad for his college-capable brother. Been a parent for a few years and have everything figured out eh?
I don't believe I've heard you whine, aliss. The whiners that annoy me are my coworkers who make double what i do but didn't save for college.
Our daycare for two kids (one 2.5 y-o and one 10 mo-o) is $18,500 a year. And we get a $100 weekly discount (from $450 to $350 a week). Includes one snack per day for the 2.5 y-o. Otherwise, we supply all food, etc. Makes me ill...........but they are great and actually teaching my kids. The older one knows all of the continents, planets, knows her name by sight, can count to 50, etc. Is it worth it??? I guess so. No choice!
I'm going to open up a private school stream day care that offers one other language, dance, art, gallery, painting, drawing, rhythm, musical instruments, drama, theatre, ceramics, paper folding, scissors, shadow play, the environment, and outdoor education. Would parents pay $60k per child to have this enriched learning environment?
I wouldn't. Doesn't sound any different from a normal daycare, certainly not worth 60k.
We're paying about $80,000 in daycare costs for our child from birth through age 5, which is about double what a college education would cost in our state.
It's not just daycare - it is full on early childhood education, and we choose to send her to one of the most expensive programs out there. We believe it is worth the cost.
But yeah, when I hear parents whine about college costs, who have had 18 years to save up for college, I mentally dig out the worlds smallest violin and start playing the saddest song ever.
Privileged much? I think I'll go look through my couch cushions and start saving that money.
I think people are complaining that college costs have become much more expensive compared to the minimum wage jobs kids use to pay for them. When I was in school, you could feasibly work the summer and pay for that education-try that now...
2014: 8,000/year for public school-then you have got to drive there, cars are not cheap. Just the tuition would be around 1100 hrs for a min wage job.
It was 3,000 dollars last generation, so at the then 4.25 min wage that would be 705 hrs, not to mention gas was a whopping THREE times cheaper then.
If it costs more than college for me, it is because I had to drop out of the workforce. It became too expensive (not just in terms of money) to work.
I never thought my kid would be as old as she is and still cost so much for daycare, but live and learn. Just keeps reinforcing the fact that I made the right decision just to have one.
I'm not saving for college. She'll go to vocational school, community college, or extremely low cost university back in her second citizenship country. University here in the US she can forget unless she gets a full-ride. I'm not bankrupting myself for a US university education with a very questionable ROI.
Because Daycare is a service while college is education. I still think that both are overpriced as is and if most mothers or fathers stay home and take care of their kids the demand would go down and so will the prices.
Same for college, if less people go to college then they would have to drop tuition. As some point they will have to because the cost of college will become prohibitive even with grants.
When a state college goes above $25k/yr then we have a problem.
Well, you choose to waste money on day care like that so I have an even smaller violin.
From a purely financial perspective, which is what the topic of the thread is, a much larger sum of money is given up when a parent decides to stay home. MUCH larger in many cases. The parent of an infant recently told me full time infant care is about $1400/month. That is in a high COL area. That's $16,800/year. The cost goes down each year from there. If a person is making, say $45,000 and decides to quit so as not to "waste" money on day care, s/he is giving up an additional $28,200/year. As child care costs go down, the amount saved by staying home goes down, and the amount lost by having quit goes up.
$28,200 X 4 = $112,800. With the decrease in child care cost yearly, and possible increases in pay, $112,800 is the absolute minimum someone making $45,000 would give up to quit work for 4 years. That doesn't even take into consideration the money lost when mom goes back to work and has to start over again at the bottom. Had she stayed, maybe she'd be making $50-55K by that time, but instead she has to start over again at $40K. So, add in $10,000/year for, possibly the rest of her working years, because she may never ever catch up to the position and salary she would have had, had she continued to work. That $10,000 X 20 years = 200,000.
$112,800 + 200,000 = $312,800 lost if she stays home.
$180,000 total salary for 4 years without subtracting day care costs.
$67,000 "wasted" on day care if she chooses to work for those 4 years.
Of course there are many factors. A lot of people would have more than 1 child in those 4 years. A lot of people make more than $45,000. There is health insurance to think about. It is far from a one-size-fits-all situation. But I think this demonstrates, from a financial perspective, that in many cases, far more money would be thrown away by quitting, than by paying for 4 years of child care.
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The fact that child care costs more than college is not surprising. I don't think the study took living expenses into consideration, though.
From a purely financial perspective, which is what the topic of the thread is, a much larger sum of money is given up when a parent decides to stay home. MUCH larger in many cases. The parent of an infant recently told me full time infant care is about $1400/month. That is in a high COL area. That's $16,800/year. The cost goes down each year from there. If a person is making, say $45,000 and decides to quit so as not to "waste" money on day care, s/he is giving up an additional $28,200/year. As child care costs go down, the amount saved by staying home goes down, and the amount lost by having quit goes up.
$28,200 X 4 = $112,800. With the decrease in child care cost yearly, and possible increases in pay, $112,800 is the absolute minimum someone making $45,000 would give up to quit work for 4 years. That doesn't even take into consideration the money lost when mom goes back to work and has to start over again at the bottom. Had she stayed, maybe she'd be making $50-55K by that time, but instead she has to start over again at $40K. So, add in $10,000/year for, possibly the rest of her working years, because she may never ever catch up to the position and salary she would have had, had she continued to work. That $10,000 X 20 years = 200,000.
$112,800 + 200,000 = $312,800 lost if she stays home.
$180,000 total salary for 4 years without subtracting day care costs.
$67,000 "wasted" on day care if she chooses to work for those 4 years.
Of course there are many factors. A lot of people would have more than 1 child in those 4 years. A lot of people make more than $45,000. There is health insurance to think about. It is far from a one-size-fits-all situation. But I think this demonstrates, from a financial perspective, that in many cases, far more money would be thrown away by quitting, than by paying for 4 years of child care.
~~~
The fact that child care costs more than college is not surprising. I don't think the study took living expenses into consideration, though.
Not to mention that many families would not be able to adequately save for retirement on only one income. I'm guessing that those who look down their noses at 2 working parents would also be the first to deride older folks who don't have adequate savings due to choosing to stay home. You can't win with those people - they clearly don't feel good enough about their own situation, so they must push other families down in order to feel good about their own. I feel sorry for those kinds of people.
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