Childcare Cost Cutting

So did anyone see the segment on Good Morning America last week about how to trim child care costs? It got me wondering how other moms around here have gotten creative with daycare, babysitter or nanny costs.

Childcare, or specifically daycare costs, actually led me to give up a great job that I’d planned to return to after my son was born. It turned out that the cost of daycare versus the actual paycheck I’d receive were the same. So in essence it didn’t make sense to work just to pay for daycare. I have a career that’s adaptable to working from home and got into a routine of freelance writing with minimal babysitting support in the early months. My mother in law watched Will for me one afternoon a week. My grandmother played with Will in another room of the house while I was doing a phone interview or writing.

As I took on more writing assignments, and Will became older and more social, we went to two days a week of daycare; then three and eventually five. I opted for a home based daycare for the more one on one atmosphere, but also the cost, which was significantly less than a center based daycare program.

As the economy has, well, declined to put it mildly I have friends who have lost their jobs and ended up staying home with their child or children. Some of them have launched home based businesses and use the corner coffee shop as their office while a parent or friend watches their child for a few hours.

There’s no question daycare costs are a huge hit for most families today. But then you factor in the cost of a weekend babysitter when you want a night out and what you once paid for a weekend away overnight you pay for a few hours of sitting plus dinner.

Here’s some creative ways to approach this. One idea that a lot of people seem to subscribe to is a childcare coop agreement where a different parent watches a small group of children every day, or week, and the parents swap around who watches the kids. Other parents might team up to pay one babysitter to watch their children together while they go out to dinner. I am a big fan of taking advantage of nearby relatives and in-laws to babysit Will when we need a night out.

I noticed on the Good Morning America segment they suggested shopping around for babysitters and suggested that many people ended up paying their sitters too much. I’ve done a little poll of parents in the area and most that I know pay their older, more experienced sitters $10 per hour. Though I’ve recently learned that if you get a younger sitter who is just starting out you can start them for less per hour. (You can also teach them/mold them the way you like). With the younger sitters, there’s also the option of using them as a “mother’s helper” where they watch the little one while you are at home.

Here’s some other suggestions:

http://workingmoms.about.com/od/childcareissues/a/childcarecost.htm

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/106025/Five-Ways-to-Save-on-Child-Care-Costs

http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/deals/5-ways-to-save-on-child-care-costs/