Guest post: Ensuring your kid’s healthcare: Affordable alternatives

US-PDGov

By: Billy Patterson

Like most of the things, child care expenses have also been rising steadily over the last few years, whereas income has remained the same. Under the trying economic circumstances, two incomes are at least essential to run a family. However, a majority of the parents work outside the house, making child care expenses an additional problem.

In America, full time child care costs almost $600 per month; in some big cities the costs may even rise to $1,000. For parents who are looking for quality yet inexpensive child care, this could be a pretty huge challenge. In case you’re one of those parents, don’t fret. Following are a few money saving alternatives to consider while you’re seeking affordable child care.

Requesting close friends and family to babysit – You may ask your friends and relatives to look after your kids once or twice a week. If they are well bonded with your family and love your children, they’ll surely accept your offer. You may offer to pay a small amount, or just compensate for their travel costs. Again, if the kid’s grandparents or other relatives stay far away, chances are that they’ll be willing to visit you for a short period of time to help you look after your kids.

In-home child care – Perhaps the most expensive child care alternative is to have a nanny or sitter care for your children. Nevertheless, if you want in-home care, there are several affordable child care options for you to choose from.

           • You may hire a babysitter from another state for full-time care. For this, you’ll have to provide room and board, besides a weekly payment of nearly $180 and some start-up fees. Nevertheless, it still works for about half the cost of a regular nanny.

         • In case you simply want some part-time babysitting, you may appoint a student at an affordable rate. Some good places to look are universities, local colleges and fraternities.

 • Another economical child care option is to sign on the help of aged people. A lot of retired individuals are struggling financially, and would grab the opportunity to increase their earnings while enjoying the sweet company of your kid. However, ask retirees whom you know and can bank upon, or ask relatives for suggestions and references.

Public and non-profit child care centers - Numerous local governments offer publicly financed child care plans for children between 2-5 years of age. Majority of the expenses are covered by the state, city or fed. The compensation for the parent is then generally decided on a sliding scale based on returns.

Child care rebate – It’ll be possible for you to compensate your child care expenses by offering help at your child's day care center. Besides volunteering, you can also make various useful contributions. Perhaps you can offer merchandise or other helpful services. To your great surprise, you may also come across various discount coupons for a child care institute in your locality. For this, you may either go through the local newspaper or search online for “child care coupons” together with the name of your city. Don’t feel shy to ask at the child care center if they have any discount offers, particularly if you have multiple kids or if you are a first time enrollee.

There are countless ways to find affordable child care and hopefully these above mentioned tips will work for you. Above everything, make sure that your child is in safe hands. If a certain child care arrangement does not offer you complete satisfaction, it may not be worth the prospective savings.

The article has been contributed by Billy Patterson. He has also written many articles on finance , debt management , women's debt relief, government grants for student and women, and many more. You can see an example here : http://www.ovlg.com/debt-management/