Daycare cost per hour

[ThunderAeroI]

What are you charged per child at your daycare? Ours is increasing their price and I am curious if it is applicable to what others are seeing.

I have heard they are around 2.25 - 8.00 / hour.

So whats yours?

 

[Candlelight]

I think we pay NZ$5 per hour, although we're (thankfully) getting a discount as we have twins.

 

[ed629]

Don't have kids, but around here I know people pay around $200-300 per week for a 5 day week while they're at work.

 

[Holdfast]

Don't take this the wrong way, but I hear a lot of complaints about childcare being really expensive, at least on these shores. To a non-parent looking at this thread, these figures sound amazingly low. I mean, they're taking care of your kid, at presumably a very young and vulnerable age, so I kind of figured they'd charge a fortune. I tend to mentally tune out when friends or colleagues start talking about childcare and other kids stuff so never really paid attention.

How many kids tend to be in these groups, and with how many people watching them? With that kind of rate, I'm assuming the ratio of staff:kids can't be particularly high?

Mind you, I just crunched some numbers using school fees here and the approximate hourly rate isn't anywhere near as high as I thought it would be. Still a lot higher than those childcare fees though.

 

[Candlelight]

Our daycare there is a teacher:child ratio of 1:5, with a class of ~30. Cost is cheap, although it depends on how many kids you have; we pay NZ$5 per hour, for 8 hr days, five days a week, which is NZ$200 (although we're dropping it down to three days). I have three kids at daycare (minus a discount for two of them being twins). However there is a government scheme (and hopefully the right wing bastards currently in power don't scrap this) that states once a child turns three they are entitled to 20 hours free care, so my daughter will drop to half fees. Which occurs next Wednesday.

Our daycare is awesome. The teachers are really great, well trained. If you give two weeks awarning then you get half fees, otherwise, and this includes being sick, you have to pay full price.

 

[Kestra]

Yeah, the figures seem low to me as well. I can't quote prices since I'm on my iPod, but I looked into it not that long ago and it's ridiculous in the city. Enough to put me off the idea of having kids, at least a little bit!

 

[Alpha Romeo]

We pay 110 per week. Ratio is about three to one.

 

[DBR]

No kids here, but I pay 35$/day each for my two dogs when I have to leave them at doggy daycare.

It adds up real fast when I have to go out of town and my mom or brother can't watch them. At least they love it. Ratio is about 20:1.

 

[bigdaddy]

The neighbors day care I think is $50 per kid per day and 3 times that for holidays like Memorial day and such.

 

[bluedana]

It also varies by age. Infants cost more than toddlers, who cost less than preschoolers. It has to do with how labor intensive it is. I've paid anywhere from US$260 a month for "home" day care to US$1400 a month for a child care center, infant rate.