'I spend $5,000 a month on child care': American parents now spend over a quarter of their income on child minding — 5 ways to keep your kids in care without breaking the bank

Paige notes that she won’t be a mother of young kids forever. While she and her husband pay an “astronomical” amount in daycare costs, they won’t have to fork over the funds once all their children start school. She adds that it doesn’t make sense for either her or her husband to quit their jobs to care for the kids over the long run.

“I’m not just planning for the next four years, I’m planning for the next 20-30 years of my life and my kids’ [lives].”

Here’s how much child care fees have been increasing by — and what steps families can take to afford services.

America is contending with a ‘child care crisis’

U.S. families are now spending on average 27% of their household income on child care, according to a recent report from Care.com, an online venue that connects care-seekers with caregivers.

However, the Department of Health and Human Services considers child care affordable when it only takes up as much as 7% of one’s household income.

“America’s child care crisis is just that: a crisis for the entire country and it impacts us all, whether you have children or not,” said Tim Allen, CEO of Care.com, said in the press release.

“Child care is claiming a disproportionate amount of household incomes, and a decade of rising child care costs should be a wake-up call that the system as we know it completely fails the vast majority of families.”

Nearly 3-in-5 respondents in the survey also said they planned to spend more than $18,000 per child on child care this year.

Here’s the national average breakdown for the different types of services — and how much they’ve increased over the last 10 years:

• Weekly nanny cost: $736 (up 56% from $472 in 2013).
• Weekly daycare cost: $284 (up 53% from $186 in 2013).
• Weekly family care center cost: $229 (up 80% from $127 in 2013).
• Weekly babysitter cost: $179 (up 92% from $93 in 2013)

While there’s not much you can do about these rising prices, there are a few things you can do to offset them.

1. Look into tax credits

When tax season comes around next year, make sure to apply for any credits or breaks you may qualify for.

For example, there’s a child and dependent care tax credit to help parents cover care for children under 13 while they work (or look for work). The amount of money you’re eligible for depends on how many dependents you have as well as your adjusted gross income. For the 2022 tax year, the maximum amount you could receive was $1,050 for one dependent or $2,100 for two or more dependents.