Can't I Just Give You an Arm and a Leg?

Oh how I hate daycare costs! How is a person supposed to work when more than half their income is going towards the care of their children? While my husband was in school, we had a reduced rate in our childcare. Now that he is out of school and working full time again, we have to pay the full tuition. Understandable, right? So let's break this down. I have one toddler who goes full-time. $147/week. I have two children who go part time before and after school. $85/week each. Now add that up and I'm looking forward to $317/week. Now multiply that times four and we're looking at $1,268/month. Gulp. That's a tough pill to swallow. And of course, that goes up in the summer when the older two change to full-time. Do people really pay this?! Uh, not really an option to me. That's more than my house payment. So now that I've had a big slap in the face, I've had to look into alternative options.

Understand this. I work so that we can pay our bills and progress enough to save money and allow my husband to complete his professional career path as a pilot-not because we have sunk ourselves into debt. We actually live within our means and are really good at planning our finances. We really only have our household payments to make. But with my husband's lack of English fluency, he has no luck finding a really good job that will support us in our current home. Besides, I really do like having the extra money and being able to help him go to school (which constitutes student loans we will start paying on soon). I'm not ashamed of having to work and have learned to enjoy it. Anyway, I got off track here. I can't just quit my job and stay home because daycare is too expensive! Even if I choose to pay the $1,268/month fee, it would be financially benificial for me to work. Besides, I enjoy it, as I've mentioned in my previous blogs. So in order to maintain sanity in my finances, I have looked into different ways to accomidate our work schedules. If I changed my schedule and came in after my kids went to school, I would loose more money that if I paid to put them in daycare, and I work too far from home to leave early enough to pick them up from school. So my wonderful husband changed his schedule to work 5:00-3:30. This way he can pick them up from school and we don't have to pay for after school care. Bam. That saves us $360/month. Plus he found somebody who can watch our younger one for $50/week. Bam. That saves us another $388/month. My husband's got the connections going on here! To some, what I'm about to say may sound like a negative thing, but to us it's a good thing-Bebito's babysitter only speaks Spanish. Bad for me, but considering my husband's primary language is this, it will work out well. The benefit you ask? Our little one will once again be around the spanish language most of the day and aquire his bilingual skills that my husband has been working on.

Bebito, spanish for "little baby boy", was being watched by my husband's cousin (who is also bi-lingual but speaks Spanish in her home) when he was younger and first learning to speak and he was able to understand everything that my husband would say to him. (He speaks directly to Bebito in Spanish so be will become bi-lingual.) However, he has regressed in what he says and understands since being primarily around English-speaking caregivers. So having a Spanish-speaking caregiver again will be a huge benefit for him and save us money at the same time!

Back to my topic. Using our resources (and after much stressing), we are able to save $764/month and pay only $504/month. Although it's more than what I was paying before, it's still a pretty cheap chunk of change for three kids...especially when comapred to the first option. My morning will start a little earlier since I'll be seperating the little one from the big kids (they will still go to the daycare in the mornings), but it's well worth the savings. I'll even save a whopping $4 this summer when I can combine them all together again in the same house! Am I good or what?!