We're paying $2,100/month for full-time care for our twins (age 3). I know it could be worse but like... that's a car payment. We've looked into nanny shares but the $30/hour adds up. My salary after taxes and daycare is basically just covering my benefits at this point. Is anyone in similar situations? Starting to wonder if I should just stay home for a few years.
Real talk - at $2100/month you're actually on the lower end for PDX area for twins. Talked to a buddy with twin 3yos in Lake Oswego and he's at $2500+ each. Doesn't make it suck less but you're not getting totally price-gouged at least.
twins at the same age makes it hit different. we're paying $1900 for one kid in Seattle and I had the exact same realization - that's literally a Honda Civic payment every month just so we both don't lose our minds and jobs
Have you checked whether your employer's HR has emergency backup childcare subsidies? Some places have them but don't advertise them. Might give you occasional breaks from the regular daycare cost or at least flexibility.
This is the part of parenting nobody actually prepares you for cost-wise. Everyone talks about college savings but $2100/month for 5+ years just evaporates from your budget and you can't even write it off properly.
That's legitimately more than my rent was. Have you looked into whether your employer has any daycare subsidy programs? Some tech companies in Portland will cover a chunk of it.
Twins at that age is the absolute worst price point. By age 5 or 6 it gets cheaper when they go to school but yeah those baby years are insane. We're paying $2,300 for one kid and I die a little inside every month.
Have you calculated what staying home would cost you in lost wages vs what you're paying? I know that's a "privilege" answer but for some people the math actually works and daycare costs are what pushed them to make the switch.
The nanny share math never actually works when you do it out. Even at $30/hr with shared custody costs it becomes comparable to daycare. Have you looked into whether either of your employers offers dependent care FSA? That saved us like $5-6k/year in taxes.
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Yeah Portland daycare is brutal. We ended up doing a nanny share with two other families and it brought our cost down to like $18/hr per family. Way less than the individual rate and the kids have playmates all day. Might be worth posting in PDX parent groups to find share partners.
The nanny share thing - the per-hour rate is deceptive because you're also splitting the taxes and benefits. Our actual all-in cost ended up being like $22/hr when we did the real math, but it was still $300/month cheaper than daycare for two kids.