Well, starting at the end of June I will be doing childcare for a friend from church that is having a baby in March. She gets 3 months for maternity leave and then needs a full-time sitter M-F. I'll be getting $20-$25 a day. It's not a lot, and I'll have to make sure to set enough aside for taxes, but it's something. I think we can make it stretch until then. Hopefully David will get another raise sometime in the late winter/early spring. It won't be a huge one, but it will make somewhat of a difference. I'm wondering how a bit of extra income would effect taxes. I know for sure it would put us in the next tax bracket. Hopefully it wouldn't be taking too much out of David's check once I start working. As it stands now, pretty much nothing gets taken out. We have a deduction for making under 50,000 (the EIC, which we still would even with my income, I think) and a deduction for David being the only one working. At any rate, I still think it would help us out, especially if I do part-time care for one more child at the same time. I would only want 3 so I could give adequate attention to all of the kiddos. I may do some minimal evening or weekend babysitting when David is out of town and I'm here alone anyway or when he can watch Dorothy for the evening. I want to get as much debt paid off as we can before we consider having another baby, at which time I would obviously have to stop working. Then we would most likely sell my car and perhaps trade the other one for one that is a bit bigger for going camping with the family. Something like a Forrester or a smaller SUV. Just dreaming....
An idea that has been in my mind a lot is adopting a baby before we try to have another one. Either way I would like to adopt at some point. My physical limit for pregnancies (at least in my mind for now) is two. I would like to have 3 or 4 kids altogether. I wonder if there is any financial aid to adopt, such as adoption grants or loans. We're not rich, but in my mind you don't have to be to give a child a loving, stable home. Anyone out there with adoption experience or stories that would be willing to share?
12 comments:
Email me with any questions...I worked in Adoption before having Camille!
Hi, I guess I'm kind of de-lurking. I've commmented before, but I think it was just after Dorothy was born, to say congratulations. So yep, I read!
$20-$25 a day is quite a deal for child care! I don't think it would be unreasonable for you to ask for $30 a day. In WA the max w/ infant care is a 1 to 3 ratio. I don't know what it is in OR.
In Oregon $25 a day is pretty resonable for in home care for a baby, actually. Generally it is 1 adult to 3 babies in Oregon also. If you do childcare it would be a good idea to get your cpr certification also unless you already have it. I did childcare when my kids were little it is a good way to make money when you want to stay at home. Just remember you can't do a lot of going out when you have other peoples kids. This was my only issue as I didn't like to be stuck at home sometimes. I think it would be a good idea for you but wait until you get used to Dorothy and another baby all day before jumping into more. 3 babies is a lot of work, I would probably go with a toddler 2 or older for 2 babysitting kid rather then having 3 babies. Just an idea from my own experience. Good luck though. I was happy to do it though just because it kept me home longer.
I sure hope this extra money helps you out some Becci.. I really don't know anything about adoption but I always got the impression you had to have alot of money to adopt.. I sure hope that is not the case!
Shoot, I have an 8 mo old, and we're currently paying $30/day for an in-home daycare. She's limited to two under-2's, and I think up to 4 more older ones. If you're on the PDX west side, I'd switch in a heartbeat!
In WA, and I'm not sure about OR, you can only have two non-walkers per person, but can have 3 or more (I forget how many) if they can walk. The logic is that if there's a fire and you need to carry them out, you can't have more that need to be carried than you have hands. :)
There are free classes you can take to help you qualify and get your daycare license. In WA you have to have a license if you're providing childcare for someone besides a friend you had a relationship with outside of and before the daycare job, and also if you're caring for kids from more than one family.
Becci...I would definately push for the $25 a day and don't bend if not ask for more. She won't get a better deal than that and she won't get the care you can give her baby from a regular daycare. I know Sally paid her neighbor $25 a day to watch Lilly. But she even told me there was NO WAY she would get away with paying that much at an actual day care. She pays me $35 a day and she told me that was pretty standard for her age for day care.
echoing what others have said... don't go for less than $25 a day. If they are gone for 8 hours, that's only a little over $3 an hour. Babysitters charge at least that these days. Also, in order to keep cash in your pocket and out of taxes, consider using it as a business... which would mean that you could write off expenses on your year-end taxes. I don't know what would be applicable in a day-care situation for write off's (though I'm sure you could ask someone who's done it before), but you could use the write-off's to keep your income from going over into the next tax bracket.
As for adoption, we want to adopt sometime too! ...I know that there are places that offer scholarships and grants. And I think that domestic adoption has gotten cheaper lately (at least I have been seeing bilboards here in MPLS that say it has). Some friends of ours adopted from Ethiopia, (that's currently a reasonable adoption rate) and I think they got twins for like 5k. (Because in some places there, twins are bad luck and are killed after birth--they specifically requested twins from that region and the process aparently went very well.)
email me at stina(dot)tei(at)gmail.com if you want me to help you get more info on the adoption and business stuff.
(P.S. do you like photography?)
Good luck chica!
~Christina T in MPLS
Wow - I feel pretty lucky regarding the daycare expense. I pay $1.75/hour for in-home care for my 3 year old (that's what she charges regardless of age) and I've been going to her for over 6 years now and trust her so. I know I'm getting a steal and I agree that $25/day is not bad for in-home daycare. Congratulations on landing the new job and good luck!!
Nancy in eastern Iowa
My husband and I are looking into adoption and about the cheapest, reliable, and almost risk free we have found is through a company called American Adoptions. They have an agency assisted program that uses grants to help fund the adoption of african american children or bi-racial children. We are starting the paperwork now. The minimum cost is still $14,000 total, but there is a $10,000 tax credit that hepls. It is domestic adoption of healthy newborn infants. You should check out their website www.americanadoptions.org and look it over. We do not have a large income at all. In fact we qualify for WIC but they said they look at debt, credit ratings, and assets as well, which helps us. The international adoptions are held to much stricter guidelines because every country has their "own" rules and their country "fees" (nice way to say donation). Anyway sorry for the book. Good Luck!
$25 a day? In metro Boston, my daughter's daycare center cost almost $1,000 per month. Don't be afraid to ask for more and I'd advise looking into becoming certified. It's an upfront business expense but it will also make you eligible for insurance which you REALLY should have if you're bringing other people's children into your home for anything longer than a playdate.
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