In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we’re gonna talk about the insane costs of childcare and what you can do about it.
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In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we’re gonna talk about the insane costs of childcare and what you can do about it.
In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're gonna talk about the insane costs of childcare and what you can do about it.
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Transcript:
On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're gonna talk about the insane costs of childcare and what you can do about it.
What's up everybody, and welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of Master money.co. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we are gonna be talking about the insane cost of childcare and what you can do about it. If you guys have any questions, make sure you hit us up on Instagram.
Talk at Master Money Co and follow us on Spotify, apple Podcast or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, leave a five star rating and review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. Now, today we are gonna dive into one of the biggest costs for parents in the US and it's.
SANE costs of childcare and we're gonna go through a number of different things because if, even if you are planning on having kids in the future, this is an episode that you absolutely needed and listened to because most people don't understand the cost of childcare. So today we're gonna be going through the stats of childcare costs.
We're gonna go through why daycare is so expensive, and that's where most people are spending the majority of their money. Early on. Then later on, when you get to the teenage years, obviously there's extracurricular activities and a lot more expenses that come into play, but early on, childcare is very expensive and is becoming a burden for a lot of people.
When you need to consider, are you gonna continue to work or are you gonna put your kids into daycare and think through that process as well, depending on how much money you make. And how to decide if you should stay home or not. And then I'm gonna give you 11 different ideas on how to save money on childcare as well.
So this is something where you really need to figure out exactly what you wanna be doing. You need to dial in your budget, and that is one of the most important things that you need to be doing early on. The reason for this. Is that if you are spending a lot of your income on childcare, and we'll get through the statistics here in a second, but if you're spending a huge portion of your income on that childcare, your budget needs to be dialed in because you don't have as much disposable income as maybe somebody else who does.
So this is very, very important to think through as you start to put together your financial plan. It starts with that budget. It starts with tracking your income. This is the time where you need to be probably doing that most and dialing it in. Now you've heard us talk about the reverse budget where you can actually save off the top and then.
Whatever is left over. When you do that, it's important to understand that if you need to dial in your budget, if you need to get closer to the exact number, then you're gonna have to track it line by line. Now, line by line isn't that bad if you just take a couple minutes every single day to dial that in.
But that's number one thing that you need to be doing when you start to think through this process. Now, even if you don't have kids, even if you don't have children, you need to start thinking through this if you plan on having them in the future, cuz this is a very important cost that a lot of people don't know how high it actually.
Is now, I'm going through this right now. I have two kids that are in childcare, full-time childcare. They're in daycare while my wife and I work. And this is a major expense within our budget line item. And so I understand how you feel if you are going through this as well. I know what the pressure feels like.
I know what exactly how this is, and the reality for most of us is we have no other option either. You have to send your kids to childcare so that you can. Go to work, provide for your family, and start to build generational wealth for your family as well. This is why we provide and build wealth is so that we can provide these safe places for our family.
So this is incredibly important to understand, but for the majority of Americans or the majority of people across the world, childcare is a very expensive line item. Their budget. So care.com, it is the best all encompassing data and statistic information about childcare. And this is really important to understand because there's key findings in the care.com 2022 cost of care study.
So the cost of childcare for families in 20 22, 50 1% of parents say they spend 20% of their household income on childcare, and 72% of parents report that spending 10%. So this is up from 70% according to data in 2019, where over 20% of parents' income are just going straight to childcare immediately.
Now, the quality of childcare continues to be tough for a lot of parents, where 43% of parents say it's much harder to find good childcare as well. So you're spending all of this money on something and you don't feel you like you're getting quality childcare. So we're gonna talk through a couple of options on how to do that as well.
And then if you continue to struggle to pay for childcare, 59% are concerned about childcare. Now than years prior, and the cost of childcare continues to rise where 63% report that childcare is more expensive than last year. And 72% say they are spending 10% or more of their household income on childcare and every type of childcare is price year than it was pre pandemic.
So a lot of different things are happening here where a lot of folks are putting a majority of their. Towards childcare. This is some really important thing to understand. You have to understand this line item, and here's the national average childcare rates. If you're looking for something like this. So if you want to have a nanny, nannys were the most expensive way to have childcare provisions in 2021.
The National Weekly Childcare rates for a Nanny were $694 for a childcare center, $226 for a family care center, $221, and after school sitter 261. Dollars. Now if you have two children, those averages go up as well, but that's per child what's going on there? Now they did survey the average person, and they're cutting back on the essentials like vacation, leisure activities, food and dining, clothing extracurriculars.
A lot of parents are cutting back on some of these things in order to be able to pay for childcare Now. A lot of other folks they surveyed, 31% are considering taking a second job. 26% are reducing their hours at work. 25% are changing job and 21% are leaving the workforce entirely. I'm gonna show you exactly how to do the math.
If you wanna leave the workforce entirely or if you're even. Considering that, I'm gonna show you how to kind of think through that math, and it may not be exactly what you think. It's not just your income minus how much childcare costs. There's a lot of other considerations that you have to factor in when you think through this.
Now, why is childcare so expensive? Sometimes it's helpful to understand why it's so expensive, so I'm gonna run through some of these numbers here. Just so you understand it, we're not gonna take a bunch of time on this, but first one is state labor laws. There's a lot of state labor laws that you have to have in place to make sure you have the right quality people in place, and that's good for every single person that's out there.
Then there's location and real estate costs. A lot of childcare centers have to pay rent, or they own the real estate, and that's a high cost for them. Then there's insurance and licensing, and this is a very high cost as well, to have that insurance in place to make sure that you run that childcare center properly, and then employee training and salaries, a lot of these employees do not get paid enough.
They need to increase that pay so that. Have the best employees in place to take care of some of your children. And then lastly, obviously business marketing. So there was a lot of surveys done, and the average that someone should be charging with childcare should be $350 a week to actually become profitable.
Now, a lot of locations do not charge that much, so it's good to understand this early on, whereas that would be the average to become very profitable. So a lot of folks are charging less than that to be competitive as well. Now, before we dive into some of this deeper dive stuff, some of the caveats here is you should never.
Advice quality for price. Your children are what matter most when it comes to making sure that you have the right things in place to have the proper childcare. So never, ever sacrifice quality for price. It's very important to understand that because you've seen all the horrific childcare things on the news that have happened at daycare centers and things like that.
Never, ever sacrifice. Quality for price. It's not worth the money to sacrifice that. Number two, we all have different ways of raising our children, so making sure that you can take whatever I'm saying with a grain of salt. You don't have to listen to me at all. I'm just giving you suggestions as we go through this on how to reduce those costs, but still maintain the quality because the quality is the number one thing.
Maintain that quality. You don't have to listen to me at all. This is just ideas. I'm throwing out ideas to you on how you can reduce some of those. As well. And so this is what we're gonna be talking about today. We're gonna be diving into how we can reduce these costs. So without further ado, let's get into it.
All right, so here is how you should decide if you should stay home or not. If you're in a two-parent household. Now, obviously take whatever I'm saying. With the grain of salt, you make your own decisions. This is something that you have to. Side between you and your partner, you and your spouse, you and your significant other, to understand exactly what you should do and what's best for your child, what's best for you and your career, so that you can build that wealth and provide that generational wealth for you and your family.
Now, if you're considering this, if you're running through this, maybe some of the things that you're thinking about is, well, my income is about the same as what childcare costs. So my income is just a little more than what childcare costs. I'd rather just stay home and take care of the kids, and that's a great consideration.
But there are some other things that you. Think through, especially if your long-term goal is financial independence, or if you wanna retire early, these are the folks that we're really talking to. So you can think through, Hey, will my extra income, maybe it's even an extra 10 or $20,000 a year, will that help us reach financial independence that much faster?
As long as your children are being taken care of with the care that you can afford. So if you're considering not having childcare for your kids, here's a couple of consider. To think through if you wanna say yes to that question. If you feel the quality of care is subpar at the childcare place that you can afford, number two is if the job that you work at has no room to grow this.
So this is an extremely important one to understand. Say you're making $40,000 a year and childcare costs you $35,000 per year if you're working somewhere, and that is what's. That cost differential is, and there is no room to grow within your career and you're not loving your career. Maybe that's a consideration where one of the folks in the family can stay home, or maybe you can make money online to supplement that differential.
So say for example, you're working at that $40,000 per year job and your childcare costs $35,000 per year. Well, can you leave that job? If you don't like that job, there's no room to grow, and can you make some additional income online by starting a newsletter, a blog? Maybe you can sell things. Figure out something that you can do online in between maybe while the kids are napping or something along those lines.
The next one is maybe you don't like your career and you're looking to reset inside of your career. So maybe you wanna go back to school and start a career in a new field. Well, this is an important time where you can start to do night school. You can do online school in between while your kids are napping, and this is gonna get great time where you can stay home, save that money, and in addition, be able to move forward in your new.
Also another consideration is if you're not the primary benefit provider in the family, so this is health insurance, this is some of the other things like life insurance. If you're not the primary benefit provider, then maybe that's another consideration that you can think of or another consideration is you can work weekends on something else and make close to the same amount, or your job allows you to take a leave of absence.
So that's a really cool perk that a lot of jobs are allowing now is where you can take that leave of. Now when not to leave. These are some of the considerations of when not to leave yourself. So you feel your mental health would be strained if you stayed home with your kids. This is a big one for a lot of people.
They don't understand the mental health aspect of just being home with your kids all day long. So if you feel like that would be strained from you staying home, then maybe that's a consideration to stay home. Or if your child is thriving at daycare, that's another reason why potentially you would want to continue to work instead of coming home, even if the differential is not that.
Or if you love your career and there's room to grow, this is the biggest one because if you love your career, there's room to grow. There's no reason to stay home just for a five, $10,000 differential, even if it's break even, because what you're getting there is the potential to earn more income. And as you earn that income, you can put that towards financial independence or if your benefits are the main benefits of the family.
Say for example that your health insurance is amazing and your health insurance is the main benefit, that's a cost you. Factor in when you're running these numbers, even if your salary is exactly the same as what the daycare salary is, you have to factor in your benefits and say, for example, your spouse or your partner does not get any benefits, well, your costs are gonna rise immediately by another thousand, $2,000 per month just for health insurance alone.
You gotta understand and consider that as well. Now, if you have no desire to run a business on the. To earn more income. That's another consideration to stay at your job if your work brings you joy and satisfaction. Obviously our money is there to bring us value, bring us joy, and if your work brings you joy satisfaction, it's something you've always wanted to do, then that's another consideration to not leave.
If your income is far greater than childcare, that's another consideration to not leave. Another obvious consideration. If you are a single parent or the only income earner, you definitely wanna leave in that situation. Or if you need to buy a house soon, or you're gonna make a huge purchase soon, you definitely don't wanna leave because those two incomes look better on your mortgage statement.
You can get better interest rates, all those things. So if you're considering buying a house within the next year, Banks look at your income first. They look at your job, your w2. That's another consideration to stay working during that timeframe. And if you anticipate a pension to be vested soon, that is another consideration as you go through this process.
So there's a bunch of things you have to think through when you are considering, Hey, should I stay home? Or should I continue working? And so we're gonna show you how to do the math on this because the math is very, very important and a lot of people only consider one thing they consider income versus how much childcare actually costs.
But the real math is income minus expenses, obviously minus benefits, minus tax breaks. So a couple of things to consider here is the benefits we've already talked about here as we've talking through the show, but your benefits that you have in place at your job, if you are the primary benefit holder, meaning you have the health.
You have other benefits that come into play. Maybe you have an extended time off, like you have four to eight weeks time off or even longer that you can utilize because you've been in that company a long time. These are all things to consider cuz if you get paid for some of these things, then you have this time off in longer stretches, but also the tax breaks.
So childcare is a tax deductible event, meaning that if you pay childcare. Not if you can pay a nanny under the table or something like that, you're not gonna get the tax breaks on this. But if you send your children to daycare, for example, you get a tax deduction on that money that you spend at daycare, you have to consider that number in there cuz it's significant.
Say for example, you're spending $30,000 per year. And so you gotta look at that and say, Hey, how much money does this save me per year in taxes as well? So it's income minus expenses, and then you gotta look at your benefits and the tax breaks as. There's other things that you can have in there with the benefits, like a pension.
If you have that pension coming soon and that pension is going to be vested, then it may be worthwhile just staying that extra year to get that pension vested. That way you can actually earn that income throughout your lifetime and have that available to you as well. So think through these four things before you actually make this consideration.
And now we're gonna jump into the 11 ways that I have that you can. On childcare. All right, so here are the 11 different ways that I have on how you can save on daycare. If you have more ways to save on childcare that would still provide high quality care for your children, let me know on Instagram, TikTok, shoot me an email, any of those different places, and we can talk through some of those as well in the future.
So number one is to ask family for help. So a lot of people now are getting their. In-laws or their parents to come and actually help and take a day or two to reduce the cost of childcare. So for me personally, we had my mother-in-law would come one day every single week for the first two years of my youngest life where she would help and reduce that cost of childcare.
So we didn't have to pay a couple hundred dollars every single day for a nanny to come an additional day. And then additionally, Down the line. My dad started helping every single week, once a week because he was retired. So this is something where you can look at your social circle or you can look at your family and say, Hey, would anybody be willing to spend more time with their grandchildren?
It's a great win-win situation where your parents or your in-laws would be able to spend additional time with their grandchildren, and also you get some great care as well as you go through this. A lot of times this is also helpful if you have emergency situations. Maybe your kids get sick, you can't send 'em to daycare.
Well, this is also helpful to have these folks in the back pocket so that you can have them available, cuz it's super stressful if you've ever had that happen, where you can actually go through and make sure that you have somebody available there. Number two is to work from home once a week or look for jobs that allow for a.
Flexible work schedule. So I've seen a lot of people do this now where they have jobs where they can work from home and maybe they work remotely and get on meetings while their kids are sleeping or napping. And, uh, one day a week they're able to do that. Or if you can do that for longer periods of time than get the rest of your work done while they're sleeping at nighttime, that's another way for you to reduce that cost.
And a lot of people have started to do that now, and a lot of companies have allowed that for folks who have children so that they can go through that process number. Is look into dependent care, flexible spinning accounts. So this is a pre-tax benefit account that parents can use to pay for dependent care services like daycare, preschool, and summer camps.
So if you're eligible for this, you can actually use this as a tax advantage account. So I would go look this up. We'll leave a link down the show notes to where you can actually look for more information and see if you're eligible for this account, because the tax advantage account is where you can pay the pre-tax.
Put it into this account and then pay for some of these expenses so that you can reduce those taxes up front. Number four, this is one of the negotiation taxes. We tell you all the time here on the Personal Finance Podcast that you need to be negotiating every single bill. So if you have multiple children in daycare, negotiate a lower rate for having those multiple children in daycare.
This is a powerful way that a lot of daycares actually already allow this. Maybe they'll give you five, 10% per child that you add. But if you can negotiate the even higher, that's a great way to reduce some of the cost for daycare every single week. Because if you're paying $35,000 per year and you negotiate down another 10%, you're saving $3,000 every 10% that you negotiate down.
So it's really important to be able to do that and do it in percentages, not dollar amounts. Make sure you do it in percentages because you'll save so much more money. Think about that 10% of $35,000 is $3,500 per year. If you can get it even higher, maybe you get it to 20%, you're saving $7,000 per year on that number.
So it's really important to negotiate this. That is one of the most powerful ways that you can do it up front. Anybody can do that. All you can do is ask. And the worst thing they can do. Is say no. Who cares if they say no? Make sure you at least ask so that you can go through that. Number five is ask your employer about changing your work schedule.
So we talked to a number of people who are looking to reduce their childcare costs, and one person said, when my kids were small, I did three to four 10 hour day weeks. And so what they did was they worked three or four days per week for 10 hours and reduced their schedule so that they had one day free every single week.
And they. Save money on childcare. Just having one day free every single week could save you 2, 3, 4, $500 depending on how much money that you are spending every single day on childcare, cuz childcare is typically a weekly rate. So if you can reduce some of those numbers down, it's really important to be able to do that.
Another way to do this is if you have different schedules. So maybe mom is a teacher and works from 6:00 AM to 3:00 PM and dad is a police officer and can work night shifts. Well, if you can do that and make that work, then that would allow you to actually have childcare provider all the time and reduce that cost.
So this is another way to reduce that cost is to adjust some of those schedules. Ask your employer if you can adjust your schedule so that you can get to that point where you can reduce some of those. Another way to do this is you can check out the Childcare and development fund. So this is for low income families, and this is one where you can go through this fund, see if you qualify, and if you do qualify, it helps low income families cover childcare so parents can work or get professional training.
So it's called the CC D F will link it up down in the show notes below as well. But it's the childcare and development fund, so it's another way where you can get a subsidy to maybe reduce that childcare cost as well. Number seven, if your workplace has daycare, take advantage of that daycare even. One of those things where maybe you don't wanna see your kids every single day while you're at work.
It's worth it to take advantage of that so that you can use those dollars to put towards their college fund or towards your retirement or other wealth building activities. So if your workplace has that, make sure you take advantage of it. Number eight. Now, this is a creative one, and number eight is one I've seen a lot more people doing is you can try what's called a nanny share.
So, We have families in our neighborhood. There's a lot of young kids in my neighborhood where I live now, and a lot of folks will do nanny shares, meaning they have one nanny and each household has a child, and they split that nanny, and the two children go with one nanny and they rotate households where they're gonna be each and every day.
This is a way where you can reduce costs, especially if you have friends who live close by or if you have acquaintances who live close by. There's people in your network. Who are looking for childcare providers. This is a way that you can significantly reduce the cost of a nanny. And obviously if there's two or three kids, you're gonna have to pay the nanny a little more than you would for just one child.
But at the same time, it's a great way where you can subsidize pool in money and reduce that cost every single week. It's a very creative way to do that. Another one is to find. Seasonal daycare options or scholarships. So there's other places like local summer camps, Y M C A and community centers where you can have free childcare for seasonal situations, especially in the summertime.
A lot of summer camps are going on. So if your kids are in elementary school, maybe you have to pay for afterschool care, or if you're looking for ways to reduce child costs in the summertime because you still have to work full-time and your kids are not going to school every single day, then looking for some.
Seasonal options is a great way to reduce that childcare. Now if you're in the military, number 10, look for military childcare assistance. So there are active duty service members can actually apply for childcare assistance if there's no childcare provided on base. So look for that if you are active duty, cuz that's another way that you can reduce that cost for our service members.
And then lastly, see if you qualify for the child independent care credit. So we're gonna link this up down below as well. But if you have a qualifying child under the age of 13, and if you pay for childcare so you can work, you may be eligible for this tax credit. So best way to look for this is actually with your accountant, or you can talk to a Tax pro to look through this, but I will link it up down below so that you can get some more information on this from the irs.
This is, Credit that you may be able to get to reduce that cost of childcare as well. So these are the 11 ways that we have here. If you guys have any other ideas, send them over to me. We'll make talk's YouTube videos on them so that we can help everybody out, and so that each and every person can learn about some additional ways to reduce this massive cost for you.
And if this is a massive cost for you, it is still a massive burden. Like I said, having that budget in place is the number one thing to do. Number two is to start to build up. Additional funds so that if you lose your work or you lose your job, you still have the funds available so that you can go on interviews and have that childcare provided as well.
And as you think through this, make sure that you're just thinking through the long-term implications of your career and also think through what brings you joy, what brings you happiness, cuz that is what money is there to do. And if your career brings you joy in happiness, then utilizing it so that you can continue on in your career is another powerful thing that you can do with your dollars.
Listen, I hope you guys enjoy. And you learned a ton of different information about how to reduce your costs in childcare. Again, if you guys have any questions, make sure you hit us up on Instagram, TikTok at Master Money Co. And don't forget to leave that five star rating and review. I truly appreciate each and every single one of you doing that.
It is one of the best things that I get to read every single week, so I appreciate each and every single one of you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode, and we will see ya on the next episode.
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