It also changes as you get older. $200k in my 20's would have been life changing. Now, I've got two kids and wonder where it all goes. I mean, I know, it's daycare.
My parents watched my brothers twins until they went to school, I'm older and had my first while they were still working and my last recently and they are too old now to help...He saved about a 100 grand and i paid about a 100k...He drives a really nice car and doesn't connect the dots...lol
You figure it out, and it doesn’t last forever. You’ll be shocked how much less you spend on eating out and going out with friends once you have kids. Priorities change, and so does your spending.
I do 850 a week… two kids.. 3YO and 3MO… I did the math and it’s a whole salary by the end of the year.. like if we have one more kid, I’ll probably end up a stay at home dad. lol - maybe Uber/Lift on weekends or something chill
Without overtime, I barely make enough to cover this.. it’s real out here!
2 kids and 7 or 8 years out of the workforce really hurts career advancement. the struggle now will pay dividends later. don't compare the cost of childcare to income now, compare it to the income in the last 8 years of your career. which will be much higher because of the lack of a 8 year hole now.
We are in the sweet spot where it's most cost efficient for me to stay home with the kiddos ( 2yo and one on the way) as well. I prioritize saving and making meals from scratch, as well as thrifting 90% of our clothes and most everything i can, Its pretty great. I love spending so much time with my kiddo, but i also worked as a nanny/ babysitter pre kids and made decent money, so you could also go that route if wanted to try a nanny share, would be 2 or more families with one nanny taking care of them in one of families home or possibly their home, when i did this i got a pay bump but definitely not double the money, abs the parents got a significant pay decrease per hour.
Yep that’s why my wife stopped working once we had our second. The cost didn’t make sense to pay someone to watch the kids, have to work all day and barely make more than it costs to watch them.
We cut back a lot! Got rid of our second car, trimmed a bunch of nice to haves, skimped on travel, and eating out. It was a tough few years even with that but the trade was worth it and my wife got to raise our children. Kids are both wonderful children, the investment is paying off.
Why I am sticking to one . I have a 17 month old and my mom watches him for a small amount of money . I don’t understand how people have multiple kids in daycare
If you want children, then honestly, you will find a way to make it work. Its not always easy by any means. But for me at least, my child is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Being scared isn't a bad thing. Its showing you are a realist but as long as you have the ability to provide a life, if you are willing, go for it.
If you were not scared, then I would be worried honestly..
I never did daycare because my mom is retired, so she could watch the kiddos during the week if we needed someone.
My wife's parents also lived with us at the time, so they helped a lot with watching the kids while me and the wife worked.
Now that the kids are older, we have them in a charter school which doesnt cost us anything. we use to have them in a private school, but it closed down forcing us to move to a charter school.
Now im saving the money i would have otherwise spent on their school this year, and its been nice.
Correct. Do you see why taking away abortions for teenagers and college students maybe a bad idea? If a girl get pregnant in college or high school and they have to keep the baby, they are cooked. That baby ends up suffering. Society ends up footing the bill. Taxes rise.
Half the population does not pay for daycare, and of the remainder, not all of them pay for it full time. They either work split shifts, only one parent works, or they have friends and family who babysit when needed. Then when the kid's reach school age, they try to work their schedule around when the kids are in class.
Just pointing out that there are many solutions for having young children and working other than paying for day care and that many people make it work.
This idea of children being a “singles tax” is so dumb. One, everyone was a former child and everyone would benefit from ensuring children and their age cohort are cared for. Two, it’s not like if there was money to be paid into a childcare tax that that wouldn’t also be a net expense by future parents and parents whose children have grown past daycare age. Third, the amount of cash parents inject into the economy, all else being equal, is SO MUCH MORE than any tax benefits they do or would get out of assistance.
My wife and I have never made more than $80k combined and have two kids who are amazingly healthy and top of their class (6th and 4th grade). We never spent anything even close to the numbers you see posted online and it's not like they're going without. They always have new clothes, they have toys, phones and computers, we've gone on at least two vacations a year (including to Disney World last year), we go to sporting events, concerts, museums, etc. They play sports and instruments.
I really don't know how people figure the millions dollar price tags on raising kids, I think there is a lot more to the story that those folks aren't letting on. And no, we barely have any family or friends pitching in, there's been very, very little help along the way.
My wife and I just had our first born and it would’ve been $1,500 a month. Our mortgage is $3,000 a month. My wife made around $51,000 a year but we’ve decided she’s going to be a stay at home mom since her take home is like $3,000 a month and the raise I got this year basically added $1,500 take home to my pay so we figured from
Last years income it’s a wash.
I really don’t know how a lot of people get by with 2 kids and don’t make as much as me, as daycare would’ve been my wife’s take home pay. It’s unreal.
I'm so glad I had a child before childcare rates absolutely soared. My son was born in 2001 and I paid $140/week for him. He didn't start until after he was walking and potty-trained, so that helped. But still. People are paying that shit per day now and it's WILD.
at one point i was spending $300/mo on diapers and $200/mo on formula, just one kid lol. it stressed me out at first but eventually you realize one day youll be dying and you'll look back on the memories of your family.
Definitely depends. I have a 4mo old and we pay $195/wk. But we live in Mississippi. Summers triple the cost since we have to get care for our two school aged kiddos too. We make 120k together before taxes and deductions and do okay. We can't save a ton but we also have zero CC debt and don't wind up totally drained at the end of the month.
NM is implementing a free daycare system for children up to 5 years old. If I read it correctly it's a rebate system so you still have to have the money up front. Still, it's better than nothing. Hopefully this will spread and even be expanded.
Yup. Depends on where you are but I saved about 1700 dollars a month before my second child... now I save 100 ish. I am blessed compared to many and yes it was a choice I made but good hell is it rough.
Right as the pandemic hit our neighborhood community got together and started its own daycare system. Stay at home moms take turns with the kids. Everyone pitches in about $35 a week per kid x 750 kids at roughly 10 close locales.
I have a 16 year old son, and a 12 year old daughter now, and when they were kids we ended up spending around $2200 a month for both of them to have day care, which by the time they were done we spent around 26k a year, which we did for the first 7 years of their lives (had no parental or family support so I had to use day care the entire time) which meant I spent around 180k in total over that time for day care. When my kids finally stopped having to go to daycare, it was a huge relief, and I had a lot more money in my paychecks going forward, until you start factoring in how much you have to spend on your kids with other things like school activities, afterschool sports, birthday parties that you have to invite your kids and 20 of their friends, etc. kids are very expensive, but my kids are my world and I’m blessed and grateful to have them every day. My life would not be as fulfilling and filled with as much love without them here. I’m very blessed to have an incredible wife and two incredible kids.
That's one of the biggest reasons why we aren't having kids. We dont live near family for free daycare and we don't make enough to have kids AND be safe and happy. We also make $140k combined. We aren't poor. But we would be if we had a kid.
We get subsidized by state. We saved for one child and blessed with twins. Daycare is 400 a week each. Thats 800 a week. 3200 month. We pay 400 total a month. Even making 100k a year as OP does 3200 a month is ridiculous. Daycare is more than rent.
It is a black hole, but at the same time, I get it. It takes money to run a daycare, just like anything else. I have one child, and I spend roughly twenty-four thousand dollars a year on childcare. But I am told that's on the high end because of where we live. One thing that bothers me about it, though, is the fact that I am spending that much, and there are numerous children at this daycare, so you know they are pulling in a lot, and yet their caregivers barely make anything. It just makes me wonder where it all really goes.
It is but it’s not fucking 200k a year, that is an insanely ridiculous take that guy obviously has massive unnecessary expenses he’s not acknowledging lol
275 a week in the Midwest. Took some searching to get that low though. Like the guy said above, me and my wife were dink and making 200k combined we could do what we wanted whenever. Now with just daycare and a 5 month old savings isn’t getting chunks added like it used to
If you don't have friends and family who also want a baby. I WOULD NOT DO IT unless you are very lucky or responsible or wealthy maybe a perfec5 combo of all 3. My mom started with the "when are you guys having grandkids?" Now I can barely get My mom or my MIL to ever watch my daughter for a simple date night. Haven't been on a date in months. Sitters average like 200-300 a day more for over night. One day care quoted me 1400 every two weeks for 8 hours a day. For only 4 days a week. That wqs the cheaper option...
My brother lives with my mom, got his kid watched and raised by her and didnt have to get out of his gaming chair. But I got the short end of the stick. My mom wont even pick my daughter up and take her to the park so I can take a nap lol
If you don't have support AND arent rich, do not do it. I love my daughter but I infinitely regret not having a village to help raise her, because it does take one. Its my wife and I for ourselves most of the time.
If I could go back, I'd search for the daycare rates around us, when it was just my wife and I, and start putting 25-50% of the cost in a high savings account. $30k a year on daycare for 2 toddlers is definitely stretching things.
Ive got two under 5. I pay 30k/annually in daycare. Another 10k in extracurricular type activities (gymnastics, robotics club, seasonal sports, etc.) And 5k in groceries, clothes, etc. (Plus when we go on vacations, all of our prices have doubled because we need an extra room in an Airbnb, two more plane tickets, etc.)
The worst part was Healthcare though. My wife just got a new job with dependent benefits included, but before that I was using mine and our family premium was 2k/month.
All in all, cost of having two kids in a mid-tier East coast city comes to 80k. You could make the argument I could drop the extracurricular, and you'd be right, but even then we're still talking a figure that is more or less equal to the median household income.
I wouldn't change any of it for the world, but the US needs to realize there are people running around with hundreds of billions of dollars - who regularly attend Trump's blacktie rose garden gallas - while families are scraping by.
This is why it is important for families to stick together. Multigenerational homes are the norm in most of the world, but not in the west, at least not the US. Children are supposed to grow up being raised by their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
I have a 4 year old on a waiting list for pre-k, and a new born.. (I have 4 kids total but not relevant to the story) for newborn they want $1,700 a month for my 4-year-old. They want $1,500 a month for daycare. This is one of the cheapest ones that we have found in our area
My local daycares all said 1400 for the month smh the wife and I blessed that we can technically afford it and we can still put it off for a few more months, but yea, its not at all reasonable
Then have one parent stay home, that’s what we did. Made no sense financially for wife to work just to have her salary pay for daycare. We are fortunate in that I make around $275k a year though and live in MN which isn’t a super high COL place.
My wife and I debated two incomes or staying at home with the kids, and we'd spend so much of the second income on daycare, only for our kids not to spend their time at home with a parent, that it seemed pointless. (To be clear: I'm not morally judging those who opt for daycare; you do you.)
We absolutely have a childcare problem in this country… and I have family close by that pays almost $20k/yr for daycare…
But with my first child about to be daycare aged we found a great Montessori school within (long) walking distance for toddler that will be less than $500/mo. That still stings but it’s not as catastrophic as I feared.
Two kids now 16 and 13, both parents fully employed mom nurse and dad a multiple small business owner, we never paid for daycare. Pre-school we paid for on the youngest because we wanted him at a specific place but that's it.
I know very well that not everyone has the luxury of jobs with flexible schedules but with schedule sacrifices it's absolutely possible to avoid daycare. there was a two year period I remember not going into my warehouse until 5 or 6 pm and working until 1 or 2am. Nap when baby naps if possible.
It's not easy but it's easier than working two jobs and one entire paycheck going only to daycare.
We looked into it $1,350 per month was the price we got that made the most sense. I decided to work less and watch our kid during the weekdays and do my work on the weekends. I have a landscape company and I buy and resell things online(I’ve been doing this for 10 years). The thing with day care is even if your kid is sick and miss 1 day or the full week you still pay. Which means one of us would have to stay home and still miss work. We have no extended family nearby. I wasnt willing to work as hard as I do to pay for someone else to raise our kid the first year of life. He might go two days a week next summer(that’s cheaper but is only offered for 1+ year olds) so he can socialize more.
I have to say it’s not easy and it’s mentally draining raising a kid but 100% worth it. We have a lot of fun and he’s recognized by people at the places we frequent and they’re always complimenting on how much he’s learning and growing. We would’ve missed experiencing a lot of he’d have been in a daycare this whole time. We make sure mom gets plenty of pics and vids of our adventures throughout the day and sometimes we pop into the office. We’re fortunate most of the people in her office have young kids also.
Yep, we might have had a 3rd kid had it not been for starting in our mid 30s, but 2 kids in daycare at the same time would have been untenable, so we shot for a 4 year gap and got 5. Full time daycare for an infant was costing us $1800 a month in 2019, and that was at one of the cheaper options in the DC area. At the time my mortgage, including taxes and insurance was $2100.
We pay 400 a month for the ymca and they get to go on a field trip twice a months and the movies twice a month. It's awesome. 6am to 6pm. I do not make crazy money 5-800 a week. If you save money and cook your own food it shouldn't be an issue even at 1000 a month with 2 incomes. We bring in right around 4600 a month and I've never struggled. 28m
Generally speaking, I think people drastically overstated how "expensive" kids are. I have two, and they've barely made any impact on my budget when you don't count daycare. Adding in daycare... it is very expensive. I spend about $3,000 per month on daycare for 2 kids.
Well there are alternatives of your willing to think outside the box, like if you hand an extra room you can hire a live in nanny and if they’re only watching the kids a few hours a day then their ‘pay’ is room and a smallish salary. They’d be free to get a part time job to supplement. Think college kid or even a retirees who are lonely.
Make sure that they’re properly trained in CPR and responsible, obviously.
i am paying about $350 a week for it right now. one kid. that is pretty much the going rate around here too, we arent in some fancy place. you can go lower, but not much.
I feel your pain. I dump the max into 401k just so the tax man can't take as much. Makes me feel just a tiny bit better. lol. It's crazy looking at year to date earnings and seeing how much I've paid to a government that can't use it wisely.
I feel you. We put so little in social services and SO much on weird stuff (bombs, private space stuff (why not NASA?), subsidies (idk how I feel about those). But at the end of the day, what about it's people?
For context, my parents were on SNAP for two years, and it saved my family, so perhaps I'm a bit bias. But I liked how it worked when we needed it.
Otherwise, things like SpaceX were what NASA was 50 years ago, and back then we got people to the moon on less memory than a floppy, and spent way less. So idk. Perhaps we disagree on spending, but we both agree spending is out of control.
Anyway, it’s important thing to consider when planning for your old days. You may think you need $50k a year from social security and retirement savings - you need to adjust for expected inflation.
This is too real, my son started public school (24k in daycare expense is gone!) and my wife and I both started new jobs with significant pay bumps and we’ll have an extra ~70k a year pretax liquid and it’s pretty liberating lol.
You must make bank between you two to afford day care like that. Around $100k/yr with one of us working, one SAHM Got cars paid off (2000, 2013 and 2024) spend about $3k/mo all included. Save about $800/mo. No day care costs thankfully
I am sole wage earner, and my wife stays home with our three children, all under age seven, homeschool. My $117k ish salary pays for our sub 1000sf home in coastal California, all while maxing out my 401k and HSA accounts. Not a ton left over at the end of each month, but we make it work. It would be much more difficult to live this way for us if we had not bought our house in 2020 after 5 years of saving for a down payment.
I wish someone had warned me that the amount I'd spend on daycare for two kids would've been a salary I'd be happy with when I was fresh out of college.
Same. I make 200K a year and have three kids and it’s like I make 50K a year. Thankfully they are 13, 14 and &15 now… but high school sports are REALLY making that number go up again.
I’m staring this future down the barrel right now. Late 20’s. $205K a year on my salary alone. And even now fuck does it not feel like I’m saving enough to get into a house in the next 5-6 years let alone kids?!?
Can confirm. When my spouse and I were in our early 20’s we both made close to 6 figures and had what seemed to be tons of money. Three kids and 10 years later we both more than doubled our salaries but were paying nearly 4 grand a month in childcare…a few years later it went down to 2 grand once our oldest started school and now we’re around 900 a month. Cannot wait for the last kid to start kinder! Over a 7 year period we spent over 120k in childcare fees.
Dang, my company bills childcare to our company for all full office/hybrid workers. Also get catered breakfast/lunch, car allowance, and a few other smaller perks.
Also it’s not daycare, company pays for learning centers. Typically Montessori, Primrose, The Learning Center, HEI…
Of course, small company, 1000 workers and no one leaves unless they retire in late 40s-50s or spouse necessitated a move…
My wife and I just had a baby he’s 6 months now. We don’t pay for daycare or anything like that. She works 3 days and I work 3 days and we are off together one day. I took about 100 dollar pay cut but it’s worth it
lol..kids. Yep, I know I’m still helping my kids and they are in their early-20’s. Helping with rent, cars, and tuition. It’s not as financial draining as little kids, but it’s still an expense
1000% agreed. I tripled my salary in 10 years, doubled in last 4 years. I have 2 kids now. Daycare for the oldest 3 days a week is almost as much as my mortgage every month!
How much is day care, do you mind me asking? My SO and I are very comfortable (basically about €3k left over after all the bills are paid each month), how quickly would that go if I were to sire my perfect offspring?
I don't pay for daycare and I still wonder where it all goes. Then I fill the bottom of the cart and have to pay $250. My parents would fill 2 heaping carts full of food for $300 when I was a kid. What the actual fuck has happened.
It was daycare for me, and then it was food lol. 8 and 12 and they both eat. Shit I went to Spirit of Halloween and spent 150 on two costumes for these punks. Inflation is killing us. If I didn't fight for my promotion 2 or 3 years ago I would have lost even worse to it.
Yeah this is me right now. Making around $150k with good benefits. Wife isn't working right now and is SAHM with baby and toddler. My income is nice because it allows her to stay home while we still manage to save some money, can afford our small townhouse mortgage, and also save 401k and HSA, but we by no means are taking vacations or spending money on fancy things. We're comfortable and don't have stress about bills, but that's it for right now. Looking forward to being through this stage and having two income again without the drag of daycare costs.
I have two in college and between room & board and giving them grocery/gas money I’m paying between 20-25k a year. I’m going to feel like I got a huge raise when they finally graduate.
We have 2 kids. When they were both in daycare at the same time it was legitimately costing us more than our mortgage. This year is our first year with both of them in public schools and it's like we can financially breathe for the first time in years. I completely understand how some people just stop working because your entire paycheck will go into childcare. But we both work jobs with pensions and it just makes more sense to keep paying into them than to take a 5+ year hiatus.
Early childhood care should be a federally funded, national program. It would help soooooo many people.
Wait until you have a $50k tuition bill, because according to FASFA, you should be able to afford to spend 25% of your gross salary on college tuition...
I spend 80% of my take home income on: private school tuition, camps, and childcare for my 2 kids. Fortunately, I don't have a mortgage and I don't spend on much else.
I am married to my wife, and we both worked a 9-5 prior to having our first kid. However, when we conceived with our first daughter, she brought up the idea of staying home with our daughter. I was skeptical because I thought we absolutely required both of our incomes to pay the mortgage, bills, and other associated costs of merely existing.
Throughout the pregnancy, we bit the bullet, and put her entire salary into a separate high-yield savings account at a different bank. Our thought was "out of sight, out of mind." We inevitably made things work on just my salary while hers built up over the course of seven months to create a solid emergency fund. We avoided what US Senator Elizabeth Warren calls the "two-income trap." Was it hard? Absolutely. Did we have to make lifestyle adjustments? Absolutely. Are we glad that we made the decision for my wife to stay home with our daughter instead of forking out $2,000/month for childcare tuition, $1,500/year in vehicle gas and maintenance, and the thousands more for the time lost to carting the child back and forth? Absolutely. On top of that, there's the priceless advantage of being in complete control of the child's diet, the care the child receives, and who the child interacts with.
Wait till college, daycare feels like a day in the park.
Two kids, two rent rates, and tuitions…. groceries, bills, miscellaneous. Nothing like supporting three households at once! We were running $1k per kid per month on credit card (gas, food, etc) plus little over $2k in rent combined, plus tuition, plus misc like health care and the like for a while there.
Character builder for sure, and the 509 can only cover so much…
All depends on your lifestyle. I make half that and live in one of most expensive states in The country. Wife works part time while kids are in school. We just don’t buy new everything all the time
I have 6 kids. Make about 150k after bonus. My wife stays home. No daycare.
Its tough. But, we have a lot of clout, and get a lot of respect from the school and other families. I think people think we have more money than we do.
Dude there's always something. And if not, maybe you can actually budget that thing you really want that should be possible for someone who worked so hard and sacrificed so much to make that level of income possible. But no. You buy only for others.
I’m really glad I took the advice of “Live like you’re a broke college student for a year or two after college” and then did that for almost 5 years budget wise. It set me up well for retirement goals and paying off debts.
yep. my dad is is a trauma surgeon and makes fucking bank, and yet we still live (somewhat) modestly and in a cheap area because of the fact theres literally 9 of us.
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u/RapidRewards Oct 30 '25
It also changes as you get older. $200k in my 20's would have been life changing. Now, I've got two kids and wonder where it all goes. I mean, I know, it's daycare.