Phew, we finally figured out the after-school situation for our soon-to-be kindergartner (she starts tomorrow! eek!).
Initially we decided that AS would pick her up and take her to daycare on days that she could, and we enrolled AA in the school's after-school program the other two days (Tues. and Thurs.) of the week. For the first week, when AS wouldn't be available Wed. or Fri. to pick her up, we were arranging friends to step in.
When I told the daycare lady about this, she said she'd be able to pick AA up Mon-Wed-Fri. That was a surprise because previously we'd only talked about that happening if AA could get bussed slightly closer to daycare (e.g. to the daycare lady's sister's house). So then we thought to ask if she could pick her up all FIVE days.
So today we worked it out. For $155 more per month, the daycare lady or her husband will pick AA up every day after school.
Whew! Is it the absolute cheapest option? No, but it's the best-feeling one. Our daycare provider and her family are like OUR family. And frankly, her tuition is so cheap that an extra $155 doesn't feel like a big deal at all. With the 2 days a week at the school's after-school program, we would have been paying about $105 more per month anyway, so this is only a bit more expensive than our other option, and AS doesn't lose productivity on her freelancing in the afternoons getting AA from school to daycare.
As for the net effect to our budget, it's $155 more than we originally planned, but still $35 cheaper than full-time daycare for both kids.
We realized another expense we need to work into the budget is school lunches. It's not much; AA will probably only eat school lunch 1 or 2 days per week when there's a vegetarian option (besides grain-veggie salads, which are available every day but I don't think AA would go for). So it'll be maybe $20 per month. Our food budget may need to go up a bit to accommodate making lunches when usually we just relied on the daycare to feed AA, but we'll see. We might be able to just work it into the existing budget.
Even so, with AS's healthcare dropping from $170 last month to just $70 from now on, our overall budget is looking really good.
So, I'm really really happy!
Resolution!
August 25th, 2015 at 04:12 pm
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Win-win all the way around: more money for daycare provider, less stress for you and AA and the schedule! Good news!
August 26th, 2015 at 12:57 am 1440547070
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