True Costs
Our babysitter gave a two week notice... about two weeks ago.
We've obviously gone through the babysitter/daycare process once already, and had our moments of (apparently mild) sticker shock. This new round though, highlights the simple absurdities that fully explain the true costs of child-rearing. After calling seven different daycares and doing tours of three other in-home sitters, we have a single option with an open slot. And it costs $375/week.
Let me say that again: $375 a week. That is $1625 A MONTH. Or you know, just under $20k a year.
Don't get me wrong, this daycare is pretty fucking fancy. I mean, for $20,000 a year it has to be. But even if it only acts a bridge solution until we can find a different options, we are still looking at $315/week (near Jess's work) to $260/week (YMCA) at best. Our current/previous babysitter charged $120/week, by contrast.
We did look at nannies, as if we were some bourgeois couple with refined tastes. The average charge was between $15-$18/hour. Math that out even on the low end and it ends up being $600/week. Our current babysitter floated the idea of a nanny-share, e.g. pooling our kids together and splitting the cost of one nanny, but the lady came back with $18/hour. Even if it was an even 50/50 split, $9/hour > $8.33/hour that the fancy daycare charges the equivalent of.
We're not going to go bankrupt. As of today I do not have word on whether I can leverage myself a 15% raise or not, but we still won't go into a permanent red spiral without the bump. It will be close, however. And it underscores the ridiculousness of the entire reproduction scenario. How could we possibly even imagine a second kid? Even with just one, this fancy daycare will cost $100,000 by the time AO hits kindergarten. Where did all THAT money come from and/or went before all this?
The extra thumbscrew in this is our tax situation. There is technically a tax break to the tune of $3000/year for child care expenses. Except you can't claim it as Married Filing Separately. Which we have to do, because Jess is on an Income-Based Repayment plan for her student loans. We did that math and if we filed Jointly, her payments would literally shoot up $600/month. She has four more years before the student loan forgiveness kicks in, so we will be missing most of the good years of that (plus any additional kid in that time frame).
So, yeah. This year is going to be a bit of a disaster to wade through. During Open Enrollment season this Fall, we'll be able to funnel the maximum amount into an FSA ($5000 apiece, I think) to have a stronger position to pay child care, but the simple fact that we'll have to be funneling $10k+ is, well, still blowing our minds.
All the "you'll pay $250k to raise a kid" articles from years ago originally brought to mind parents buying their kids iPhones and sports cars. In reality, it's just from fucking daycare and otherwise what it costs to be both a parent and gainfully employed. I don't know how other people do it.