(no subject)
I've been thinking about getting out of school as soon as possible (i.e., quit after I get my master's, instead of going the doctoral route), so that I can start doing things the way I want. I'm tired of my daily schedule being dictated by what I'm supposed to do to meet other people's expectations of me. But at this point in my journey into being a grown up (emotionally), I am having trouble differentiating between gaining control of my life and being a baby about having to do things I don't want to do.
I've been considering the possibility of opening a family day care. Nothing that would wow my school psychology advisor or gain the approval of my dad, but it'd be something that I think I would be happy doing. I would enjoy creating the program plan, managing my small business, talking to parents about their children's development, and playing with the tiny little preschoolers. I get excited just thinking about it! As long as I could hire a helper to take care of the minutiae, like cleaning off kids' smelly accidents, preparing their lunch and snacks, and helping me get them dressed to go out in the snow to play, I would enjoy my work immensely!
So I started crunching numbers yesterday night. I was just doing some basic gestimating, but numbers don't look good! >:C Whaaah... In the neighborhood paper, I found that people charge between $105-$125 per week per child. Since I'd be a newby in day care but not altogether incompetent, I'd probably charge about $105 to begin with. That's $21 per kid per day. Now I wanted to hire help to take care of all the boring stuff, so say I pay them $9 per hour (I have no idea how much they're actually paid). Now I'm not going to get up at 7am to greet parents (this is going to take place at my residence by the way), so I'd have to ask the help to come in at 7am to do that for me. I'd probably come out of my room around 9am, so the help is gonna have to prepare breakfast for the kids and serve and watch over them until I come out. Parents pick up kids anytime between 3-6, so it'd be a good idea to ask the help to stay until around 4pm, when the crowd starts dying down. That means I'd be paying him/her to work 9 hours a day, $81 a day. Food would probably run about $6 per child per day (total of $42-$60 for 7-10 children). The most kids I can have for a family day care is 10, which I'm fine with, because any more kids than that, they'd be losing out by not getting enough attention from the adults. That would bring in between $147-210 (assuming there are 7-10 children) per day before any expenses. After paying my help and paying for food, $24-69 would remain. After paying for rent, renter's insurance, liability insurance, toys, office supplies, various bills, and whatever else I haven't thought of yet, I'd be dipping into my savings, or getting a second job, working for someone else to make ends meet!!!
I'm kinda disappointed. I thought opening a family day care would be the answer I needed, to do what I wanted on a daily basis, without financially relying on anyone else. Unless I take care of the kids without hired help and rely on a partner or my parents to pay for the house and bills, I won't be able to afford this business. No wonder only housewives do this kind of thing--they're the only ones who can afford to!
Now I'm back to square one, trying to find a way to live the way I want to live, without relying on anyone else. If anyone has ideas or information that I could use, I invite you to share! Or if you think I'm just being irresponsible and unrealistic, let me know too (gently).
I've been considering the possibility of opening a family day care. Nothing that would wow my school psychology advisor or gain the approval of my dad, but it'd be something that I think I would be happy doing. I would enjoy creating the program plan, managing my small business, talking to parents about their children's development, and playing with the tiny little preschoolers. I get excited just thinking about it! As long as I could hire a helper to take care of the minutiae, like cleaning off kids' smelly accidents, preparing their lunch and snacks, and helping me get them dressed to go out in the snow to play, I would enjoy my work immensely!
So I started crunching numbers yesterday night. I was just doing some basic gestimating, but numbers don't look good! >:C Whaaah... In the neighborhood paper, I found that people charge between $105-$125 per week per child. Since I'd be a newby in day care but not altogether incompetent, I'd probably charge about $105 to begin with. That's $21 per kid per day. Now I wanted to hire help to take care of all the boring stuff, so say I pay them $9 per hour (I have no idea how much they're actually paid). Now I'm not going to get up at 7am to greet parents (this is going to take place at my residence by the way), so I'd have to ask the help to come in at 7am to do that for me. I'd probably come out of my room around 9am, so the help is gonna have to prepare breakfast for the kids and serve and watch over them until I come out. Parents pick up kids anytime between 3-6, so it'd be a good idea to ask the help to stay until around 4pm, when the crowd starts dying down. That means I'd be paying him/her to work 9 hours a day, $81 a day. Food would probably run about $6 per child per day (total of $42-$60 for 7-10 children). The most kids I can have for a family day care is 10, which I'm fine with, because any more kids than that, they'd be losing out by not getting enough attention from the adults. That would bring in between $147-210 (assuming there are 7-10 children) per day before any expenses. After paying my help and paying for food, $24-69 would remain. After paying for rent, renter's insurance, liability insurance, toys, office supplies, various bills, and whatever else I haven't thought of yet, I'd be dipping into my savings, or getting a second job, working for someone else to make ends meet!!!
I'm kinda disappointed. I thought opening a family day care would be the answer I needed, to do what I wanted on a daily basis, without financially relying on anyone else. Unless I take care of the kids without hired help and rely on a partner or my parents to pay for the house and bills, I won't be able to afford this business. No wonder only housewives do this kind of thing--they're the only ones who can afford to!
Now I'm back to square one, trying to find a way to live the way I want to live, without relying on anyone else. If anyone has ideas or information that I could use, I invite you to share! Or if you think I'm just being irresponsible and unrealistic, let me know too (gently).