What are you going to do with all your day care money?

[halfpint]

When your kids aren't in full-time daycare anymore?  We were adding up how much we've paid last night, and I was like, damn, when Ben moves to preschool we are going to be BALLERS. Or, you know, just have a savings account. Whatever. 

So where will you filter your daycare money when it's no longer going to fund finger painting, Goldfish cracker snacks and field trips? Or if you fancy, Spanish lessons and quinoa?

[bearbaby]

College savings...womp wommmppppp.

But I maybe also have my eye on a nice purse for our FIRST DC cost free month

[Deleted]

Pay for private school :-(

[mlvmd]

2/3 to college savings and I'm anticipating 1/3 to before/after care then later sports and activities. We have only been partially funding college savings to this point with the assumption that the daycare money will compensate.

[karinothing]

Disney :-)

Then college, then savings. So exciting

[niq]

after school care, summer camps, travel, and eventually either private high school or moving into a different neighborhood/HS.

[Deleted]

I have a feeling as the daycare bill fades (and it's not like it actually stops until the DS is 12), the activity and food and clothing bills will rise. Our daycare bill is pretty low compared to many around here.

[simpsongal]

Vacations, actvities/lessons, college savings, house projects, etc.

[halfpint]

So no one is considering a daily house cleaning service? No? Just me?

Responsible bastards.

[ohgillian]

After-school care, save cash for next cars, then college savings. Fun.

[cincodemayo]

Most likely just funnel the payments to after school care and activities. I don't imagine us all of the sudden feeling like we are making bank.

[Deleted]

College savings, activities for the kids, and preschool is still pricey around here so a good chunk will go towards that and then maybe after school care depending on how I adjust my work schedule.

[mrshandy]

We're t-minus 10 months or so away from DS going to K. I'm so excited. But we will still be paying for before/after care. I did the math one day when I was bored and after before/after care and summer care we will save about $100/week. So not tons of money but a decent chunk of change.

When they both go, Oh baby!!!

I'm hoping to increase college savings, maybe a little more travel, and we will probably have to add in a car payment some day since I think we can only get away with one car for so long.

[justjen]

Cleaning lady, house updates, college savings, vacations.

Not that I'm already spending it

[h]

Dec 19, 2014 10:50:07 GMT -5 @notquiteblushing said:

Pay for private school

Sadly, this. We currently pay more for private school than we did for day care. It will get worse as they get older, then a lot worse for college. But after they graduate from college, we will totally go live it up in Europe, assuming we have anything left.

[cherry1111]

Hopefully some to retirement and some to a bigger mortgage.

[madringal]

I think I felt the difference for the first month or two, and then it just kind of slips away again. I went from paying $400 month in childcare to paying $120/month for swim team, $100/month for afterschool care, and the rest goes to God knows what. But I know some of you are paying way more then $400 a month.

[lauralala]

Moving to a more expensive neighborhood with better schools. Our rent there will pretty much equal rent + preschool here.

[Ashley&Scott]

I'm not getting my hopes to high for rolling in extra dough. I'm assuming we'll have different expenses that will be phased in as daycare is phased out - before/after school care, extra curricular activities - leftover funds will probably go to travel, new car, etc. 

[Deleted]

When DS1 goes out of preschool, we will hopefully get a different car. We pay quite a bit for DC, but will not need before/after school care, except in the summer.

[my4girls]

Between Catholic school tuition and the cost of the after care program, there is no extra money we actually pay more for DD2 to be in pre-k at our catholic school than we did for her at our daycare, since daycare gives us a great break

[ssmjlm]

Activities, possibly after school care, and hopefully a cleaning service (although I want to bring this up when E moves up another room in the spring.)

[hocus2]

There really isn't a big windfall when both kids are in public school largely because camp is very expensive

Monthly daycare = $1300 a month or 31,600 per year for 2 kids.
Monthly after school = $550 a month and camp is 5,000* for the summer or 21,000 per year. Add in mini camps for school closures like winter break, presidents week and Passover/Easter week and the week between camp and school then we're at 24,000 or so for the year.

There are cheaper camps but the cheapest camp I saw was 3000  for the summer which is still a lot more than day care would be for 8 weeks.

When both kids are out of elementary we may consider skipping after school but I figure activites will be fairly expensive at that point.  So basically I figure will be paying the equivalent of  20K per year on kid care or kid enrichment until the kids are in later high school/college. 

[swarley]

New cars because I'm pretty sure ours will be about ready to fall apart!

[cjeanette]

My baby is in first grade now. We pretty much took on a car payment two months after our last kindergarten payment.

[mslhb]

We bought a bigger house in a much better school district so majority of the "extra" money went to that. Given before/after school care, summer camps and more expensive activities I would say costs are about 40% cheaper then when DD was in full time daycare.

[jeaniebueller]

Probably pay for summer camp and activities and after school care.

[Velar Fricative]

We may or may not need after-school care. DH is a teacher and always works at the after-school center at his school, so we would have to crunch numbers to see if it's worth it for him to continue working after school for the extra money if all it would go towards is DD's after-school care. But he works about 25 minutes from home so I don't know how timing would work to pick DD up.

Okay, this is all so far off so not worth dwelling on today lol.

But it would likely go towards a mix of activities, college savings and after-school care. DD will definitely attend public school.

[Deleted]

I have no idea how much aftercare costs, but I know we'll be paying for it. And then summer camp and babysitters for all those school breaks. If those things are less than daycare, I'm not expecting a dramatic decrease.

I also haven't ruled out private school if we stay here. Public school in the Bible Belt scares me.

[Deleted]

Probably private school too. Which is a bit cheaper than daycare at the moment so we'll save some but a not a ton.
We'll probably put some in the kids' savings accounts and just absorb the little bit that's left for the increase in day to day stuff.