Expenses for School-Age Children

[gooddecisions]

I've seen on a couple of other threads now that there is no relief after daycare expenses end. Two in daycare costs 34K/year (for the licensed preschool environment I want in my area) and the public schools are excellent. So, I was hoping that once daycare ended we would have a lot more disposable income. Am I being naive?

[milee]

For $34k a year, I'd have a private nanny.

Back to the OP...  unless you send them to private school, most kids won't cost you $17k a year. Unless they have medical issues or are into horseback riding or sailing.

[Deleted]

No, I don't think you are being naive. Put it this way: if you want them in that daycare, you HAVE TO spend 34K a year, you don't have a choice. Once they go to (public) school for full days, your expenses are much more discretionary. Yes, there are indeed expenses, but they are unlikely to total 34K a year. 

In addition to MM's and Anne's lists, I'd add camp, school trips, electronics, more ambitious / expensive family vacations.

So that 34K certainly won't go down to zero, but it doesn't need to be ANYWHERE near 34K/year.

[gooddecisions]

I work from home, so I'm hoping before and after care won't be a problem. By school age, they should be a little more independent and can come home and do homework/play independently while I finish up (let's hope). I don't know what I'll do about summers, as a couple of hours/day is totally different than all day. Then again, I've seen some others have considered letting their children stay home alone, so maybe even then I could get away with no additional childcare expenses. Cross that bridge when I get there, I guess.

0 desire for a private nanny, not that there is anything wrong with it- it's just not for me.

[sbcalimom]

My DD1 starts kindergarten next year so we're hoping to drastically reduce her daycare costs.  Right now she goes full-time but we're hoping we can limit it to one afternoon a week after school.  The plan is for DH to pick her up the other three days a week and me the final day.  And, we'll probably have her keep going for school breaks and summers for a few more years. We both work from home with flexible schedules so we're hoping to maximize that.

Right now we're paying about $18,000 a year for both girls so we're hoping to reduce that by a little less than half once she starts school.  Then, two more years and DD2 starts kindergarten and we can get rid of most of the rest of that.

Ideally, we're going to spend a little bit each month on enrichment activities but nothing to the tune of $1500+ like we are now.

[swasat]

Mar 10, 2014 17:30:05 GMT -5 gooddecisions said:

I work from home, so I'm hoping before and after care won't be a problem. By school age, they should be a little more independent and can come home and do homework/play independently while I finish up (let's hope). I don't know what I'll do about summers, as a couple of hours/day is totally different than all day. Then again, I've seen some others have considered letting their children stay home alone, so maybe even then I could get away with no additional childcare expenses. Cross that bridge when I get there, I guess.

0 desire for a private nanny, not that there is anything wrong with it- it's just not for me.

My DH works full time from home too, and I have a child in 3rd grade and one in KG. 

I don't know how your job profile is but we have definitely needed after school care. School gets over at 3:30pm here and there is no way DH can take care of both kids for 2 hours while working. Elementary kids are not the quiet kinds and you need to keep them busy to keep them from disturbing you. Not possible if you are in a high profile job or if you are needed or pinged regularly.

After school care runs $90/week here per child. So thats $720 per month for me. Add in the summer care for both them and I am easily looking at $10-11K a year for child care. And I don't even live in a VHCOL area. I am in the midwest MCOL city.

Travel has definitely become more expensive. Even if we take a road trip feeding 4 people easily runs $50/meal for anything remotely resembling healthy. Tickets are killers too.

Shoes, clothes, jackets, evrything is more expensive for older kids. No $30 shoes. A simple sneaker runs $45-50, the most basic one with no fancy or frills. And then the kids decide to outgrow it in 2 months 

Sports  Soccer, gymnastics, football, swimming....almost everything is $120-$150 for a 8 week class.

I'd say you will probably not be spending $34k per annum once they are out of daycare, but don't expect to pocket most of it. Depending on wher you live and what activities your kids are into, you will still be spending big dollars. I'll hazard a guess.....maybe in the range of $10-15K.

Did I scare you enough yet? 

[gooddecisions]

I have a mentor in a high profile position who said her interior designer set up her home office so that her daughter's desk faced hers. She came home from school and did her homework in the office with mom. She said it was the best set-up and she never would have considered it without the help of the designer. She highly recommended that set up and it's intrigued me every since. I can see some real value in that type of time together- as opposed to running off to bedrooms to do homework in solitude. We'll see- too many variables and job situations could change.

[milee]

...::::: set up her home office so that her daughter's desk faced hers. She came home from school and did her homework in the office with mom. :::::....

We have a similar set up but it's a raised table/counter right off the kitchen looking into the LR.  It's a long, raised table (like a free standing breakfast bar) with two bar height seats on one side and two counter height seats on the other side.  My computer and work area is at one of the seats.  The boys sit one beside me and one catty-corner from me.  They do their homework and I do work-work there in the afternoons while they snack.  If I get done with my work, I can step into the kitchen and start dinner while they're working.  We have "family study hall" from when they get home (4:20) until 6:00 every night. 

I schedule my work so it's flexible and I'm not dealing with customers or time sensitive things during family study hall time, though.  My older son is completely independent with homework, but the younger needs a reasonable amount of help with math.  Some kids need more help, some less.

[luckyme]

Day care may be expensive, but your life will never be easier, then being able to drop them off in the am, then pick them up at the end of the day. So saving on money, but often more complicated.

You have holidays, early dismissal, late starts, teacher in service days, vacations, snow days, sick days, etc.  And often not much notice.    And my niece had to pay for summer daycare to keep her spot even though she is a teacher and is home in the summer.  So you will need day camp or some sort of agreeable daycare arrangements.  My kids enjoyed summer vacation for about 2 weeks then they started getting bored, so there was picking up and dropping off kids at friends' houses, or having them here running around.  Or we did a lot of day trips.

Also, kids don't just "play" anymore.  Everything is structured: baseball, b-ball, soccer, dance, gymnastics, and if you really want to get expensive, the travel teams.  Ice hockey and La Crosse are also very expensive sports to get into.  Huge expenses there for equipment as well as hotels, etc.

We have lost all the "kid" meal prices, so now when we go out we are buying for 5 adults.    We don't do that too much anymore.  

[sbcalimom]

 My DH works full time from home too, and I have a child in 3rd grade and one in KG. I don't know how your job profile is but we have definitely needed after school care. School gets over at 3:30pm here and there is no way DH can take care of both kids for 2 hours while working. Elementary kids are not the quiet kinds and you need to keep them busy to keep them from disturbing you. Not possible if you are in a high profile job or if you are needed or pinged regularly.


Our school gets out at 2 pm   so we're hoping DH can do 8-2 working, then get DD1 home and let her chill out/rest for an hourish and then let her play for a bit while he gets a bit more work done.  In all honestly, I don't see it really working out but he's adamant that he can do it so we're giving it a try.  If I can avoid $100/week for after school care, I definitely want to.  We have a school based option but from what I can tell is mostly older kids and I know she would hate that so if she goes anywhere I want it to be the daycare she's used to.  Starting school will be enough of a change for her as it is.

[swasat]

Good luck to your Dh, sbcalimom 

My kids are notorious for beeing needy right when DH or I are on an important conversation or a work meeting. DS is 9, so he is much better at entertaining himself. But DD, who is 6, still does not understand that "work" means Dad is not be dusturbed at random. Plus DH is in a high profile, high visibility leadership role. Makes it too much for him to handle.

if you guys can make it work, awesome for you!! I'd be over the moon if I could save those $720/month 

[sbcalimom]

Mar 10, 2014 22:08:35 GMT -5 swasat said:

Good luck to your Dh, sbcalimom 

My kids are notorious for being needy right when DH or I are on an important conversation or a work meeting. DS is 9, so he is much better at entertaining himself. But DD, who is 6, still does not understand that "work" means Dad is not be dusturbed at random. Plus DH is in a high profile, high visibility leadership role. Makes it too much for him to handle.

if you guys can make it work, awesome for you!! I'd be over the moon if I could save those $720/month 

Thanks, I think he's going to need it. Honestly, I think it'll last maybe 2-3 weeks before he's clamoring to put her back in daycare.  That's also one of the reasons I'm keeping her there 1 day a week so it's easier to put her back full-time need be.  I am notoriously the pessimistic one though so who knows, maybe it will be a huge success.

The one major positive is that DH's coworkers all have kids and work from home half the time so they're pretty flexible with stuff like that.  And, most of his actual work is pretty independent so he can arrange his meetings for the morning and his work time for later in the day if need be.

[Wisconsin Beth]

I think it depends on both the kids and your relationship with your family.  In our situation, the grandparents are retired and delighted to watch the kids.  Ok, maybe delighted is too strong a word but they want to spend time with them.  So they do the before and after care for us.  My parents won't take money, ILs is $20 a week (they do the bulk of the dropoff and pickup though.)    They also watch our son 2 days a week (Tues. = my folks; Thurs. = ILs)  They also live about 5 minutes from us.  In fact, my parents are about 1/2 way to work. 

We paid about $8K in 2013 for dcp. + whatever we paid MIL.  I expect that once DS starts K4 in Sept, we'll spend about 1K a year for both kids.  As for activities, we haven't really started on that yet.  DS is getting soccer once he starts K4.  DD wants dance and swim - both of which will be done though our county rec. dept. so maybe $25 per 8 week session. 

[alabamagal]

Are the 2 in daycare twins or close in age? 

When my kids were young they would go to DH business after work and do homework/quiet activities.  It started when they were in grade 4, grade 3 and grade 1.  Prior to that we had in-home day care.  Part of why it worked so well is that the kids are close in age and got along well, so would not bother DH or his employees.  I think it is harder with 1 kid.

You will definitely need to do something for summer for most of the time.  You might survive a day or 2 with kids home, but not all summer.

[973beachbum]

I never paid anywhere near $17K a year for day care, closer to $6, but I am sure I do pay out more now for their expenses than the $6K I did for day care.  It also isn't going to end all at once with two kids.  So if you want to try and save it I would have it taken out automatically before it ends. With two kids it ends mostly for one but doesn't for the other.  Then the one in Kindy still needs before or after care as well as days for school days off or summers like other said.  So it never goes to nothing IME.  I know a few people who still paid half for before/after care and days off etc.   It felt good to have the extra monty for about a month and then somehow it all seems to have been sucked up again.  Just like boiling a frog.

And I second the posts about school stuff.  Between school supplies, field trips and just assorted stuff they keep asking for I know we spend a couple thousand a year for each kid at for school stuff.  Everytime the HS ends something now it is always at least $100 and often closer to $300.

I will say that now with one getting ready for college, and a fifth grader who is doing trumpet lessons, I would so like to have their daycare bills back instead.

[giramomma]

Mar 11, 2014 8:07:30 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

We paid about $8K in 2013 for dcp. + whatever we paid MIL.  I expect that once DS starts K4 in Sept, we'll spend about 1K a year for both kids.  As for activities, we haven't really started on that yet.  DS is getting soccer once he starts K4.  DD wants dance and swim - both of which will be done though our county rec. dept. so maybe $25 per 8 week session. 

I have found that our rec department is good for swimming, but for dance, it's more like herding cats than actual dancing. When DD took lessons at a studio, she actually learned some dance. 

 DS (10) got into sports late. As it turns out he likes basketball a lot. We've exhausted the rec department's offerings, one 6 week class this spring. That's not going to be enough to get him to be able to compete with his friends that have been playing since they were 5. The ONLY other option, to get him ready for basketball at school is to pay for more expensive classes. (But, I did save almost 40% off classes by taking advantage of some specials.)

You also may not get a kid that is interested in rec dept activities.  DS likes sports like archery and bowling. Not offered at the rec department. You also can't go through the rec department for instruments other than guitar and activities like scouting.

We found we can have very cheap babies and young kids. Now that our third can wear #2's clothing, aside from food and daycare, she costs us an extra $20/month, and that may not be for too much longer. Honestly, I'd rather be paying more in daycare and experience some relief in costs once they go to school than have our experience of having young kids for next to nothing, and then boom, have expenses escalate. When we considered #3, I totally discounted how much more expensive older kids get, because we go cheap when they are young.

[Deleted]

I must be in the sweet spot with my 6th grader because his costs are pretty minimal even though he is involved in a lot of things.  He's in Boy Scouts, but sells enough during the fundraisers to cover all his costs, and they're doing things ALL THE TIME, it's a huge time suck, but not money.  He plays trombone in school and is in jazz band, but besides the $200 I spent on the instrument a couple years ago, that is free.  He is in archery and math club, which are basically free (I think $10/year dues), and takes swimming lessons at $55 every other month.  His summer camps were about $800 last summer, but this year he's old enough to be a junior counselor in a couple of them, so that cuts the cost.  Plus he's only going to do 2 or 3 and spend more time traveling and hanging with extended family. 

[Gardening Grandma]

Mar 11, 2014 8:30:03 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

I must be in the sweet spot with my 6th grader because his costs are pretty minimal even though he is involved in a lot of things.  He's in Boy Scouts, but sells enough during the fundraisers to cover all his costs, and they're doing things ALL THE TIME, it's a huge time suck, but not money.  He plays trombone in school and is in jazz band, but besides the $200 I spent on the instrument a couple years ago, that is free.  He is in archery and math club, which are basically free (I think $10/year dues), and takes swimming lessons at $55 every other month.  His summer camps were about $800 last summer, but this year he's old enough to be a junior counselor in a couple of them, so that cuts the cost.  Plus he's only going to do 2 or 3 and spend more time traveling and hanging with extended family. 

You are raising a fine future YMer!

[Wisconsin Beth]

Mar 11, 2014 8:29:20 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Mar 11, 2014 8:07:30 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

We paid about $8K in 2013 for dcp. + whatever we paid MIL.  I expect that once DS starts K4 in Sept, we'll spend about 1K a year for both kids.  As for activities, we haven't really started on that yet.  DS is getting soccer once he starts K4.  DD wants dance and swim - both of which will be done though our county rec. dept. so maybe $25 per 8 week session. 

I have found that our rec department is good for swimming, but for dance, it's more like herding cats than actual dancing. When DD took lessons at a studio, she actually learned some dance. 

She just wants to wear a tutu and move to the music.    She doesn't want "real" dance.  I've talked to her a couple of times to make sure I get her into the right class. 

I think the Milwaukee rec program does offer archery.  The book we get in the mail is a good 60+ pages so there's all sorts of stuff offered. 

[gooddecisions]

My 2 year old will start school in September 2017 when she's almost 6 and my almost born will start school in September 2019 when she's 5.5 (assuming all goes well). I rarely drop-off before 9, so I don't think before care will be an issue given the grade schools start at 7:40. The grade school actually offers a summer program for free, so that's something to consider. However, I've been warned that seats are limited and the stay at home moms line up with their coffees, chairs and blankets at 3:00 AM the day of registration to make sure their kids get a spot.

The daycare tuition doesn't actually include all the add-ons for twice a year supply fees, activities fees (soccer, tennis, basketball, gymnastics, dance, etc), field trips, etc. So, they are prepping me for grade school. We had a much more affordable daycare before we moved, but everything in this zip code 15 minutes away is expensive. I could have kept her at her old daycare but I really wanted her to begin building friendships in the community. The daycare is a 1/2 mile from my house and a 1/4 mile from the grade school. It is what is and I know an in-home route would save a ton of money, but I really prefer the classroom/preschool environment. I estimate daycare tuition will cost at least $150K for the full-time years. Gulp.

[Bob Ross]

$34k a year!   You could buy a Ferrari for that.

Just leave the kids in the Ferrari with the windows cracked.  They'll be fine.  Trust.

[Deleted]

DS (10) got into sports late. As it turns out he likes basketball a lot. We've exhausted the rec department's offerings, one 6 week class this spring. That's not going to be enough to get him to be able to compete with his friends that have been playing since they were 5. The ONLY other option, to get him ready for basketball at school is to pay for more expensive classes. (But, I did save almost 40% off classes by taking advantage of some specials.)

We're getting there with DS. We found an organization in our area that offers things for kids 4-8 and DS has been doing something each season through them.

He's 7, so he's going to be aging-out of their programs soon. Thankfully they have a link on their site to the Town's the Rec Dept offerings. 

[Bob Ross]

Man, you people with kids try too hard. 

If I had a kid, I'd be like "here's a stick and a wooden hoop, and there's a hill.  Knock yourself out."

And they'd grow up to be President, and you know why?  Because it'd be a paddlin' if they didn't.

[Deleted]

"IF" you had a kid?  I thought you'd have knocked-up the little woman by now...

[Deleted]

Mar 11, 2014 9:29:40 GMT -5 @beerwench said:

"IF" you had a kid?  I thought you'd have knocked-up the little woman by now...

I picture him with a large mountain woman. 

[Bob Ross]

Mar 11, 2014 9:30:59 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Mar 11, 2014 9:29:40 GMT -5 @beerwench said:

"IF" you had a kid?  I thought you'd have knocked-up the little woman by now...

I picture him with a large mountain woman. 

You're a large mountain woman.

[Sam_2.0]

Shoot, we are looking at putting DD in private school, especially if we can't move by then. Our bill will go from $600/month for full-time daycare to $1000/month for elementary, and then higher in high school. Then adding in before/after care on top. So glad we were able to work out the daycare arrangements we have, though. $1400/month would have killed us!

[sheilaincali]

It goes in cycles. 

First it's more expensive daycare rates, diapers and formula. Then the get a bit cheaper when they are out of diapers. A year or two later and preschool starts up. Then kindergarten is free (public school) but you have after school care for the next couple of years. Then they age out of that and the more expensive activities start up (in my DS' case).

DS is a sophomore currently:

$400 for driver's ed

$5800 for braces

$750 for Youth In Government (activity fee, clothes and food at convention)

$2500 for German partnership program (we had a German student for a month and DS goes to live with him and his family in Germany for a month)

$180 knowledge Bowl

$100 Robotics

$300- Chemistry Club, History Club, Year Book, Misc. t-shirts (YIG, KB, History Club, etc) 

$45 per AP test

He'll go on our car insurance soon so those rates will go up (not 16 yet). His braces will be paid off this August so that expense will be done.

Junior year will be cheaper- German program is every other year, braces paid off, etc. But by Senior year we'll be paying for College applications, college visits, Senior Pictures, Graduation party,etc.

Your expenses depend on whether you do public or private school and what activities your kid does. Mine doesn't participate in any athletics but he does several other clubs and activities.

[Pants]

God I hope costs drop once DD hits 1st grade. We currently pay $15k/year, will probably be $14k by the time she is in kindergarten. And we maybe want another one. Goodbye, $30k/year!

[Deleted]

We pay around $20K/year for nanny/preschool right now and the nanny only works 3 days per week (in-laws other 2 days).  Next year my oldest son will be in kindergarten and doing a before/afterschool program and my twins will be in 3-year old preschool (all day).   No summer/spring break issues since my wife is a teacher.

Once I have them all in public school, expenses will reduce dramatically.