Organizing childcare is a challenge whether you’re returning to work or it’s school break. It’s one of the most important support systems if you’re a working parent but also one of the most difficult to get!

Do you know how much childcare costs your family each year? I think we’d all be surprised when we look at the numbers. There are many configurations and certainly one size does not fit all!

• Nanny
• Group Child Care
• Home-Based Child Care
• Flexible Child Care (Patched together because your work schedule is part time, flexible or you have family who help out)

Monthly care for full-time working parents ranges between $1,000 and $3,000 per child by the time you consider fees or wages (including deductions, benefits, vacation and pre-school).

Add a layer of complexity when your children go to school to manage before and after school, Pro-D days, school breaks, summer and strikes. How do you do it and what it the cost? I always forget that winter, spring and summer breaks mean weeks of extra child care in the form of camps or other activities and at a few hundred a week, per child, it adds up quickly. A reasonable monthly budget number is $500 per child which may not seem too much except when you multiply it by the number of children you have and add it in to everything else to keep life ticking along.