|
Panfilo posted:Our school starting a pre K program+free after school program+free statewide school lunches has saved us a fortune. They even get bussed to and from school so we only have to walk to the bus stop, not drive across town. So we save gas too. What kind of other costs do school parents have to pay though? Is it just books and stationary? Is that like a couple of hundred dollars a month? a year? So food is free then? What about sports and stuff, do schools offer that for free or not? nesbit37 posted:I mean, which costs more. Daycare tuition or college tuition? fair enough! I'll be putting money into a fund when they finish daycare, for that.
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 19:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 10:51 |
|
|
Don't forget about summer care! We have to check to see what our day care costs for summer care. 5 is going to start K next fall, and we already know that our day care doesn't do pick up/drop off for our school. Fortunately our school partners with YMCA for before/after care, but it's like $5k/year (which is still cheap compared to day care).
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 20:02
|
|
|
School supplies, sure but it's probably a drop in the bucket compared to daycare. What schools offer/provide varies wildly from school to school as well. Not sure about sports but you typically pay for your kid's uniform/equipment unless they do fundraisers for it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 20:03
|
|
|
redreader posted:What kind of other costs do school parents have to pay though? Is it just books and stationary? Is that like a couple of hundred dollars a month? a year? So food is free then? What about sports and stuff, do schools offer that for free or not? Like the poster above said, it will vary wildly state to state, and school district to school district. Here in Ohio, they had free lunches during the pandemic but that was cut this year. We pay $2.50 per lunch in our district, but my friend in the next district over pays $3 per lunch for his kids. Activities will vary, too, depending on many factors. We paid $200 for my daughter to join the dance team (uniform + coach wages since it's not a school-sponsored program). Cheerleading is $600 to join (which we talked our daughter out of in favor of dance). My son's soccer club was a $50 registration fee + equipment (cleats & shin guards) we'll buy ourselves. If I remember I'll write up an effort post later about things we spend money on for our kids (7 & 4.5). Generally, it's much less than daycare was, but still more than I thought it was going to be - especially for public school. Good-Natured Filth fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Jan 9, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2023 23:14
|
|
|
Our daycare/preK program is year round so I haven’t had to deal with it yet, but arranging summer care seems like extremely dumb bullshit that we should have figured out already. Of course the school system doesn’t guarantee spots in their programs and everything has waitlists. My town’s mom group was bumping circulation of a regional summer camps spreadsheet on January 2nd and I’m not ready for this.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 00:02
|
|
|
Our summer school program was full up in December.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 00:26
|
|
|
We put all three kids in after school this year because lmfao at me solo trying to finish up my work, get dinner ready, and get the oldest to do her homework. That didn’t work last year and it was just the oldest, lost my loving mind every day. Still cheaper than paying for both twins in pre-k though!
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 00:34
|
|
|
my mother in law has been staying with us and helping out with the newborn since late november, she just left. its going to be so much harder now lol
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 00:35
|
|
|
lobster shirt posted:my mother in law has been staying with us and helping out with the newborn since late november, she just left. its going to be so much harder now lol Always a little jealous of those who have a helpful MIL. We lived with the in-laws for the first 3-4months with our twins and the extra stress and drama gave me nightly panic attacks.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 02:12
|
|
|
Kids change every month and every year. Just because he’s refusing stuff now doesn’t mean he’ll refuse it next year. My now 5 year old didn’t want to do ANY of the things we signed him up for last year, but is way more into it this year. Signing them up with a friend can also make a night and day difference in their willingness to go and their enjoyment once there. We get over a lot of hesitation with ‘but Friend X will be there!!!’ and usually get a great outcome. It’s like the magic button for overcoming kid reluctance in my house.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 03:37
|
|
|
Good-Natured Filth posted:If I remember I'll write up an effort post later about things we spend money on for our kids (7 & 4.5). Context: our kids are 7 and 4.5 (though, my son will yell at you if you mention the half. He's only 4 dammit!). I work full-time from home; my wife is a full-time mom. We live in the suburbs/exurbs of a mid-size city in Ohio. Our school district is financially strapped due to a number of idiotic reasons with how Ohio funds its schools, and how cities in our district give bullshit tax breaks to businesses. To make up for that, there are fundraisers literally all the time for various programs. At the peak of daycare (when both kids were in daycare and our son was a few months old in the most expensive age bracket), we were spending $1560 per month. We stopped daycare when our daughter went to kindergarten in 2021, and we transitioned our son to half-day preschool in our school district at the same time. These are our current monthly(ish) expenses in relation to our kids and school:
Here are some one-time payments that we've made for things related to school in 2022:
So overall, we spend about 1/3 of daycare costs on school. We're fortunate that my wife can be a SAHM, so we don't need to worry about care during the summer, so that certainly would add costs / stress that we don't have. There are things on the horizon that could add to our expenses depending what sort of sports or clubs our kids get into, but they definitely won't add up to that daycare cost. Other things will increase over time as the kids get older (groceries, gas for driving to activities, additional car maintenance, insurance increases when they can drive, potential college help, etc.), but I still don't think it will come close to the amount we were spending on daycare in those early years. Good-Natured Filth fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Jan 10, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 04:10
|
|
|
5 year old projectile vomited down an entire flight of stairs at 10:30pm. It was on the walls. It looked like the loving Shining. I cleaned the entire stairway and fixed up her bed and changed her pjs and took the hottest shower of my life
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 07:02
|
|
|
One of my kids likes eggs sunny side up. That's not what I thought a kid would like food wise. Heck I have a bit of an ambivalent stance towards it myself.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 13:26
|
|
|
redreader posted:What kind of other costs do school parents have to pay though? Is it just books and stationary? Is that like a couple of hundred dollars a month? a year? So food is free then? What about sports and stuff, do schools offer that for free or not? There really needs to be a 529 for daycare especially if college admissions rates are going to keep dropping
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 14:09
|
|
|
nachos posted:There really needs to be a 529 for daycare especially if college admissions rates are going to keep dropping 529s can be used for elementary school now, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for that to get extended lower to preschool / daycare. You could use an FSA as a tax-advantaged way to help pay for it if your employer provides one, but that has a cap. Though, an actual beneficial solution would be subsidized childcare.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 14:24
|
|
|
Eyeing the chunk of my food my kid demanded but isn't eating Can I take it back? I want it back
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 14:43
|
|
|
Tried doing that with a buttered mini bagel left untouched for 45 minutes. Learned my lesson.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 14:51
|
|
|
nachos posted:There really needs to be a 529 for daycare especially if college admissions rates are going to keep dropping I mean, there's the dependent care credit. Considering all the 529 gets you in most states is untaxed gains, of which there will be very little at that age unless you started it years before conceiving, IMO the credit is a better way to go. Of course, that's assuming we continue to live in the hellscape that is America where day care is a treated like a luxury instead of a necessity. Brawnfire posted:Eyeing the chunk of my food my kid demanded but isn't eating Do it. I dare you. Lessons learned the hard way are more likely to stick. edit: Good-Natured Filth posted:529s can be used for elementary school now, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for that to get extended lower to preschool / daycare. You could use an FSA as a tax-advantaged way to help pay for it if your employer provides one, but that has a cap. Dependent care FSA is best because it's taken out of your paycheck before FICA, so you get the maximum tax benefit. It's also $5k, whereas the dependent care credit is $3k/kid. So if you only have 1 kid, dependent care FSA is better. If you have 2+ kids, you get a max of $6k on the dependent care credit, so you can use the FSA for the first $5k and then the dependent care credit for the next $1k. Then you only have like $20k left so lmao good luck edit again: should be noted that you can't double dip the FSA and credit. Any FSA money is counted against the credit, so if you use the full $5k in the FSA, you can claim at most $1k on the credit up to the $6k max. DaveSauce fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Jan 10, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 14:51
|
|
|
It's a tithe A sacrifice
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 14:55
|
|
|
lobster shirt posted:my mother in law has been staying with us and helping out with the newborn since late november, she just left. its going to be so much harder now lol Mine is now here looking after our 1-year old a few days a week now that my wife has gone back to work, I'm very grateful. By May we hope to have a place in the local daycare (he said naively).
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 15:52
|
|
|
DaveSauce posted:Dependent care FSA is best because it's taken out of your paycheck before FICA, so you get the maximum tax benefit. It's also $5k, I assume it was some COVID emergency legislation that enabled them to up the cap temporarily in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 16:01
|
|
|
Brawnfire posted:Eyeing the chunk of my food my kid demanded but isn't eating Take it back, eat it in front of them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 16:25
|
|
|
ExcessBLarg! posted:It's insane they temporarily raised the DCFSA cap to $11k in 2021 and dropped it again. It's not like costs actually went down. Only thing that annoyed me more was that my company refused to up their limit, so I couldn't take advantage of it. I think eventually my wife's company re-opened enrollment with the higher limit and we used that to make up the rest of it? I can't remember... it was either that or we just did the higher dependent care credit. KirbyKhan posted:Take it back, eat it in front of them. Power move. Not for the faint of heart, make sure to wear adequate ear protection.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 16:59
|
|
|
My kid is already fantastically efficient at transferring every illness to me, I don't need to help that along by eating things from his plate.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 17:02
|
|
|
Shifty Pony posted:My kid is already fantastically efficient at transferring every illness to me, I don't need to help that along by eating things from his plate. I built 3 corsi-rosenthal cubes and during times when there are lots of illnesses going round (right after christmas, nye, thanksgiving) I run them on full blast when the kids are home, otherwise just at the first fan level. I also wear an n95 at home if the kids get sick. Doesn't stop them coughing in your face at 6am (how I got covid the one time) but I managed to avoid flu earlier last year, and a few colds since, including something gnarly (not covid, tested them multiple times) from the start of december that has really triggered their asthma and they're still both coughing from). I'm much more able to look after the house, cats, kids, and my own physical and mental health as a result of taking these measures. edit: about eating their old food: they get about 20-25 minutes to eat meals. When I feel it's dragging (e.g. wife and I and one kid finished 5 minutes ago, another kid is loving around and putting something in their mouth every 2 minutes but claims to be 'not done'), I will announce that they have 2 minutes left to eat up and put on a timer. After the timer goes off, sorry that's the rules! it's the timer! time to take your plate through to the kitchen. At that point, the food is fair game!
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 17:32
|
|
|
Kid is getting sent home from daycare early today for excessive mucus production. Poor snotty dude. “Is otherwise happy and feeling fine but the volume of mucus and his insistence on rubbing it on his hand and arm is making it difficult to maintain hygiene” Pretty sure he got it from some other snotty kid in class yesterday but whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 18:00
|
|
|
I think I would have exhausted my entire sick leave within two months if our daycare sent kids home for “excessive mucus.”
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 22:58
|
|
|
redreader posted:I built 3 corsi-rosenthal cubes and during times when there are lots of illnesses going round (right after christmas, nye, thanksgiving) I run them on full blast when the kids are home, otherwise just at the first fan level. I also wear an n95 at home if the kids get sick. Doesn't stop them coughing in your face at 6am (how I got covid the one time) but I managed to avoid flu earlier last year, and a few colds since, including something gnarly (not covid, tested them multiple times) from the start of december that has really triggered their asthma and they're still both coughing from). I'm much more able to look after the house, cats, kids, and my own physical and mental health as a result of taking these measures. FWIW I've had a similar experience with the IKEA FÖRNUFTIG air purifier. It's dirt cheap, and if you run it on the first setting it consumes ~1W and is nearly silent. For those who can't be arsed to build a corsi cube from scratch. It also helps that it mounts nicely onto a wall and looks discrete.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2023 23:41
|
|
|
I just had an argument with a loving six year old over how much she should care about her brother dumping sand out of the sandpit onto the grass (little to none) and whether it is necessary to scoop the sand up out of the grass and put it back in the box (it is not). Child there are enough things out in the world worth being upset about - there is no reason to make up more.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 00:47
|
|
|
Questions, Comments, Sandbox Suggestions
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 01:12
|
|
|
Doubled eggs for a bedtime snack, I guess. "What's the brown stuff you put on the outside?" "You mean... paprika?" [yelling]: "I LIKE IT!!!! I LIKE THE PAPRIKA!"
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 01:40
|
|
|
My son inexplicably couldn’t eat enough shrimp tonight after hating shrimp his entire life. We were seriously contemplating cooking up more shrimp because he kept demanding more. Now if only he’d eat vegetables.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 01:43
|
|
|
My kid used to call corn on the cob "Corn a la cod"
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 02:19
|
|
|
majestic12 posted:5 year old projectile vomited down an entire flight of stairs at 10:30pm. It was on the walls. It looked like the loving Shining. I cleaned the entire stairway and fixed up her bed and changed her pjs and took the hottest shower of my life Oof I am so sorry, that sounds like a literal nightmare. Hopefully your stairs aren’t carpeted?!
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 03:37
|
|
|
Koivunen posted:Oof I am so sorry, that sounds like a literal nightmare. Hopefully your stairs aren’t carpeted?! The house may have stairs but they definitely weren’t protected 
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 03:54
|
|
|
I love to have a very developed, bizarre conversation with my daughter, then overhear her trying to explain it to her mom later and the utter lack of comprehension on her part
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 13:16
|
|
|
3.5yo: "can I PLEASE hit you in the face with this?" I guess I'm glad he has good manners.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2023 20:31
|
|
|
My kid wants a "bloody boo-boo" as she hasn't had one in a while.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2023 01:19
|
|
|
Alterian posted:My kid used to call corn on the cob "Corn a la cod" The best
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2023 03:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 10:51 |
|
|
Picture day at daycare is tomorrow, it will be my son’s first “real” picture. Today he tripped and landed on his face, so he’s got a big fat upper lip now. Because of course.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2023 03:44
|
|