What the heck do you do for daycare!?

[Ancient Games]

First off I appologize for posting about daycare but the new twins are my focus now and I did some research the other day about costs. WOW, crazy eye opener. Twins are awesome but it really changes things.

Laura and I are crazy happy about our 2 babies. Obviousely she's staying home for the first year and then I'm taking a 1 year leave of absence from my work. After that though we don't know how to proceed with daycare. Costs seem to vary but its likely going to be around $2000-3000 a month but theres a snag. Laura works 12hr shift work w. weekends/2weeks nights/2weeks days and I work 7 days a week from may to july/sept to oct and 6 days a week from july to sept. We rarely see each other in the summer. And, because of the cutbacks at my work my schedule is even worse including April/Nov and Dec.

How did you guys/gals manage? Family is scattered all over for me and not very close. We also live in the country. It will be 20 years at my job when the time comes and I hate to quit but I don't think I have an option.

I know I need to sit down and crunch the numbers but thats not the biggest issue. Its our damn schedule that isn't flexible and daycares just don't work those hours.

hmm, an thoughts other than "quit". And Adam, I already know what your thinking...SHOOSH!

Mike

 

[REVOLUTION]

Holy crackers! What daycares are you looking at? The one we were looking at for Aiden is $250 per week, and that cost goes down once he's a toddler. You've got the benefit of the twins not hitting daycare 'till they're 2 years old, so your costs will already be lower than if they were still babies.

There's always the home-daycare option.. it's much cheaper but it's a bit of a crap-shoot.

 

[mwong168]

From the sounds of it the cost associated of putting your kids in daycare you are better off just sponsoring and pay a live in nanny. At least it will cater more towards your schedule and if you can spare a bedroom in your house then the nanny's living costs can be factored into their salary. The only problem I see would be your location because lots of them work 5 days and get weekends off so they spend with family and friends so travel expense and time to Toronto could be a factor. But looks like you and Laura have hectic work hours so probably best to seek a nanny for the entire week. Also having a live in nanny has its advantages because you don't have to drop off and pick up from daycare and some of them charge $1/min you are late too I think! Another plus side is you don't have to worry about your kids getting sick from others because I will tell you one thing there is nothing worse when these little guys get sick as it offsets their mood, eating and sleeping schedules.

My wife is filipino and has lots of filipino friends that are nannies so if you want I could have her ask around to see if they know anybody back home looking for sponsorship. Typically sponsorship is for 2-3 years I think and then they are eligible to get their paperwork for Canadian status so by that time both your kids will be going to school full time or things might change for work. I can find out more about this process if you want to sponsor someone cause it could take up to a year to process the paperwork or else I believe there are agencies you can speak to that have nannies currently waiting for work at the moment or some coming in the near future that will be ready to work.

Let me know and I can easily find out the answers to any questions you might have or put you in touch with the right people.

 

[frolic]

I have 2 kids, but I work from home. Sounds like that's not a solution for you.

 

[mark]

Daycare for two kids costs me just over $2k a month

 

[brewmanager]

My 2 kids were rather far apart in age, and we did varying different things with them depending on where we lived at the time.

My brother had two boys 15 months apart, and determined that it was more economical to go the sponsored nanny route. Their nanny actually wound up becoming a part of the family, and it seems like it might be an answer to your shift-work issues as well - no daycare is that flexible.

That being said, I think I read somewhere about a decision forcing workplaces to accommodate workers with small children in regards to their shifts....hope that helps.

 

[g-man]

As a completely unhelpful observation, I have no idea how people can afford daycare. My hat's off to those who actually manage it. I make more than $2K a month, but if all of a sudden I had to pay someone $2K just to look after my kids while I went to work, I gotta tell ya, I wouldn't be going to work. I would be finding some way to make half of what I used to make from my livingroom.

The whole "double income" movement really came back to bite us all in the ass. How did we not see that coming ?

At least you have a couple of years to think about it. A ton of crap can happen in that time.

 

[WARLOCK]

It costs those of us with 2 children in this country the "most" to function in this modern age.
My wife and I went the daycare route. We had to, but we paid the most $$$ that way, it is true.

Family and friends have gone the "nanny" route. Less money, and you now have another family member in reality.

If we did it all again, would have gone the "nanny"route? Our daycare people were awesome to our children too.
I can't complain. I did the math as a business person, and I would never be in the child care industry either, no way.

There is no winning in this situation from a $$$ perspective, believe me, I tried every possible scenario I could invent.

There is only doing what is "best" for you and for your family and for your children, and their care and upbringing.

 

[Ancient Games]

Holy crackers! What daycares are you looking at? The one we were looking at for Aiden is $250 per week, .

granted, but with 2 kids at your cost its still 2g's. Not to mention our jobs aren't 9-5. They include nights/weekends/7days a week etc. IF we could find a daycare to accomodate us i'm sure it would cost us way more.

My wife is filipino and has lots of filipino friends that are nannies so if you want I could have her ask around to see if they know anybody back home looking for sponsorship. Typically sponsorship is for 2-3 years I think and then they are eligible to get their paperwork for Canadian status so by that time both your kids will be going to school full time or things might change for work. I can find out more about this process if you want to sponsor someone cause it could take up to a year to process the paperwork or else I believe there are agencies you can speak to that have nannies currently waiting for work at the moment or some coming in the near future that will be ready to work.

Let me know and I can easily find out the answers to any questions you might have or put you in touch with the right people.

Hmm, the issue is my location and the hours. Not to mention space. But I would be interested in finding out more. I had thought about a German (my fam background is german) Opare(?) and want to look into it.

I have 2 kids, but I work from home. Sounds like that's not a solution for you.

If I could find something to do from home I would. Whats your secret ? I had done ebay as Ancient-Games years ago during layoff times and it went well. I could start auction hopping and picking again but it seems everyone and their brother is doing it now and margins are much smaller.

That being said, I think I read somewhere about a decision forcing workplaces to accommodate workers with small children in regards to their shifts....hope that helps.

My employer, the Federal Goverment hasn't mention that. I actually called my boss about options. If I had a 9-5 job, mon-fri I wouldn't be worrying about it.

At least you have a couple of years to think about it. A ton of crap can happen in that time.

Agreed.

There is only doing what is "best" for you and for your family and for your children, and their care and upbringing.

Absolutely. Although it worries me to leave my job after 20 years and then having to start over once the kids are in school. I'll be 43... but I will do it.


thanks for all the input everyone. Keep it coming. I have 2 years to come up with a solution. Maybe we should sticky this so I don't have to keep bumping it for the next 2 years .

Mike

 

[Chris Bardon]

My employer, the Federal Goverment hasn't mention that. I actually called my boss about options. If I had a 9-5 job, mon-fri I wouldn't be worrying about it.

Actually, the decision had to do with a couple who both worked for Canada Customs, so you might be in a good bargaining position with a government job.

As for the cost etc, I certainly feel your pain. Both my kids are in daycare now, and it's pricey. Katie's almost 5, and that's $215/week, and Calvin is 1, and that's still $265, so almost $25k/year for the two of them. Prices do go down as kids get older (and ratios change), but it's still a lot. You do get a lot for your money though-if your kids are in a good daycare, they end up learning a lot, and you can't underestimate the effect that having them out and being with other kids has on them. Makes starting school much less traumatic.

Now, we don't have the same problem with shifts (although Emma and I are both an hour or so from work), but it's still tough to work within the system. Even when you have the ability to have kids in daycare from 7-6, when you have a 60m+ commute to/from work, it makes it hard to handle pickup/dropoff. No idea what we're going to do when they start "real" school, but there's still time to figure that out.

 

[QN]

We are just coming off of the daycare train, our girls are now 11, 9 and 7. My wife worked shift work as well, but kept to nights and weekends, so that actually helped as she wouldn't need to go into until mid-day so we only had to pay for half a day. We also just went the homecare route, neighbours, etc, that charged the minimum since a registered daycare wouldn't deal with the half-day, they wanted to suck someone in full-time.

As others have said, we were very close to taking the nanny route as well, but because of our schedules we couldn't justify it, but it sounds like it would work well for you.

Also, if you're stuck on money, remember that you will get 30-40% of that back at tax time, so to make things easier during the year, you can take out a loan for say 25% of the cost and use it to pay the daycare, then use your return to pay it off.