Are daycare costs negotiable?

[jinkies]

I am very excited to have landed a great part-time job working 3 days/week, from 9 am to 3:30. I have family to watch my kids one of the days, so now I am researching daycare for the other 2 days, and I am experiencing some serious sticker shock.

I thought I was going to be making decent $, but at $1200/month for 2 kids, 2days/week, daycare is going to eat up over half of my income.

So 2 questions- is it possible to negotiate with daycares? I'd love to get the cost closer to $1000 month.

Second, just out of curiosity, how much would you have to bring home a month to be worth it to work?

[biscoffcookies]

I think it might depend. Here, the waitlists for daycare are huge, so the centers have no incentive to negotiate as there is someone behind you ready to pay full price. Also, I would expect that you might have more luck with an in-home or smaller center as opposed to a big corporate center.

[Deleted]

are you just looking at centers or in-homes too? I'd say centers probably have the least incentive to negotiate (IMO).

[Deleted]

You could also look at alternatives like a student or another SAHM that could work the schedule you need. I agree that a person might negotiate, but a large center won't.

[brit1017]

You might want to look at in-home daycares. We have odd schedules/day-care needs, and centers made no sense for us. They needed us to fill a "slot" (for adult/ child ratios), so they wanted to charge us a ton even though we didn't need care all of those hours. We use a wonderful woman with an IHDC who is very flexible. We pay her a higher hourly rate than we would the daycare, but overall we save a ton of money by only paying for the hours that we need.

[Deleted]

What about a drop in care center or a moms day out place for the 2 days you need care?

[pierogigirl]

We go to a non-corporate center and they let my kids go part-time in the summer for a part-time rate. It can't hurt to ask, but I wouldn't count on them accepting your offer unless they are not full/no waiting list.

[jinkies]

Thanks for the feedback. I haven't accepted an official offer yet from the job. I guess my next step is to see if they can up the salary at all.

I am looking at centers over in-home care or a babysitter. My son is 4 and half, so I really want him to go some place with a preschool program this year, since he will be in kindergarten next year. I had him enrolled at the same preschool he went to last year, but want someplace that my daughter can go to as well.

I don't think there are mom's day out programs in this area? I will double check, though.

[Deleted]

A sitter or in-home can take and pick up from pre-school if you have a program you like already. My dayhome has kids that go to pre-school at the school down the street.

[hocus]

You can ask, but if there is high demand the center won't have a lot of reasons to work with you.

I spend 3/4 of my take home pay on childcare and house keeping. There is no magic amount of money that will make it "worth it" to go back to work. If you clear $400 and *need* that each month then that it enough. I'd probably work even if I was at zero take home because I don't want to be home.

[evynsmama]

$1200 a month for 2 days a week is ridiculous, that is what I will pay when I have 2 in daycare 4 days a week at an in home childcare in SoCal. If you find the right in home childcare your child will be learning just as much as they would in preschool, IMO. Or I'd take them to different places to save the money, afterall starting next year they'll be in different places anyway.

If I was working just to pay for daycare and gas to get to and from work then it would not be worth it to me to go back to work because then you factor in new work clothes, lunches, etc and it would cost me money to go to work and that wouldn't make sense, but I am also not cut out to be a SAHM so as long as I liked my job and made a little money then it would be worth it.