Realizing if we have a second kiddo, our daycare bill will be close to $40k a year. We live in a lower cost of living city and go to a nice daycare, but there are plenty that are way more expensive. We both have good jobs with what we consider to be high paying salaries for our early 30s.

How do people afford this? Absolutely insane.

The answer is the simple one. People in your financial position just suck it up and remind themselves it’s a temporary expense until elementary school starts (if you aren’t planning for private school). People who can’t afford it have one parent stay home, or have grandparent help, or work part time with nanny help.

Everybody has to make their own choices based on ranking priorities. We wanted a big family (5 kids). To make it happen, only one of us works while the other stays home and takes care of, and home schools, the kids. That meant we had to choose not to live in or even very near a large city because costs are way too high. It also means we don't drive new cars or have big new house. For us, it has been completely worth it.

You just learn to live without.

Everyone responding on this thread is a genuine psychopath.

what are these remote jobs everyone on here is talking about, or jobs with flexible schedules?

It's insane and you make a lot of sacrifices tbh. If you're WFH and able to work with your baby at home, send them to daycare PT. Ask the daycare about financial aid (you may or may not qualify). Some daycares offer sibling discounts which helps

Also that $40k a year your paying is post-tax so it'll actually cost you closer to $60k-$70k in gross salary numbers. Not piling on but that's a better estimate when considering whether lets say one parent stays home for a few years

never have kids. kids have a negative return on equity.

Idk, we decided our kid would be an only child partly because of daycare. One of us cannot stay hime and with 2 kids in daycare its impossible.

I am French, I don't have kids because I think it is selfish nowadays, but my sister who has 3 kids pays less money by having the kids in daycare, with 2 meals included, than cooking food for them.

You seem to live in a third world country to have to pay so much for a basic thing, so my advice is to either immigrate in a more developed country, or, if you live in a democracy, vote for better social infrastructures.

live closer to family, have someone stay home for a few years, space the kids out such that you aren't overlapping all-day daycare, or just pay

also, unless you live in like Massachusetts, Washington DC, or California that number is quite high, like average income in the $80k/yr for the area high

I hear Minneapolis has a lot of free daycares.

This is part of the reason we decided not to have kids. I have seen so many families struggle. I feel strongly you should not make the choice to have children if you cannot meet their needs, financially and otherwise. Its just not fair, i.e., sending kids to school without food and expecting the schools and taxpayers to provide all meals. I also don't think grandparents should have to "raise" their grandchildren. This is the parents responsibility and parents, especially single parents often take advantage of the grandparents as their sole childcare.
This is not fair to the grandparents who should only have to enjoy being grandparents and be able to enjoy retirement, whatever that may look like for a particular individual. But nothing wrong with seeing your grandchildren as often as you want/can and help out from time to time as mutually agreed upon by boundaries set by the parents and grandparents.

Simple answer: Don't have any kids!

I feel your pain. Daycare/childcare costs have gone up dramatically. it’s simply due to demand. when I was growing up, young girls would babysit and clean your house for less than a dollar an hour. I believe my friend said their phone always rang off the hook because they always cleaned vacuumed, made kitchen tidy etc for 75 cents an hour but you could get a cute sweater at the good willl for that price too. at any rate now that both parents typically work and the cost is like that of a skilled worker that has no education or credentials.
Im am RN and paid my sitter $100 cash after my shift and after taxes I received a measly $50. not only that but caring for 40 patients and no time to eat let alone play on my phone for hours. a sitter that cleans will cost you double. if they did the work I don’t mind but college kids with no supervision just sit and literally are there if the house burns down and even then doubtful they wouldn’t just save themselves. at any rate check into trading babysitting with nearby neighbors; exchanging for a date nights etc. also college kids love to eat so if you include lunch gym membership use of your pool, washer dryer or a quiet place to study weekends etc. sometimes they will come down on the cost. daycares you cannot negotiate with so I ended up working one day a week to keep my license active. some nurses I worked with did opposite shift of their partners but not every spouse will be on board with this. home daycares are cheaper and worth looking into but they fill fast. don’t get discouraged. Keep negotiations and if you have to go over your finances and check if you can make some cuts to hours days etc. good luck!!

Space them out so as one is about to go in daycare the other is about to go in PreK. Reduce the amount of overlapping daycare as much as possible.

I started a savings account as soon as I got pregnant with my first and every paycheck money automatically transferred in there. With each pregnancy, I hiked up the amount just a bit. Now on my fourth kid I have plenty of money in that account and daycare just comes out of there automatically. It feels free. Out of sight out of mind. I try not to look at it lol.

Is so obvious that things are difficult .It is better to cut your coat according to your size in all that you do meaning is good to manage life and space out the number of children you want to have to make life easy.

you don't have another child. humans are killing the earth anyway....take take take

I feel like it’s a setup. It’s intentionally expensive so people work more and think less. It could be made much easier on everyone but it’s treated as a punishment to have kids. As soon as people fought for women to work and dual income households, everything required a dual income to afford.

My wife and I got lucky and found an amazing lady doing daycare out of her home. But even she was something like $900 a month. For our city that's considered cheap. Our Child is now 7 and in first grade. But during those years If my wife hadn't been making way more then me I don't know what we would have done.

It is totally insane, I don’t know how we managed it. But you take it a day at a time. Our two kids are adults now and the amount of money we spent on daycare is officially the most expensive education any of us have had, and our second largest expenditure after our house.

We switched to a nanny with our second kid. It was a little cheaper and gave us some flexibility. Many of our friends have an au pair - definitely a cheaper option if you have space.