Mom breaks down $5,000 she's spending monthly for her four kids' childcare—it's the harsh reality for many parents

As of late, parents have been struggling more with the whopping daycare costs for their kids. Wanting a quality place and trustworthy people to look after the child, parents can’t negotiate and have to resort to paying extremely high rates. A mom named Paige Turner (@sheispaigeturner on TikTok) took the liberty of breaking down the daycare costs of her children. She revealed that it costs $5,000 a month in daycare for four of her kids. Turner explained why the cost was so unbelievably off the roof, and many parents related to this unaffordable requirement that has become a financial struggle. 

The mom explains that she has four kids, per PEOPLE. While the other two are older and in school, the third is four and a half and the fourth is three years old. The latter two are in full-time daycare and have approximately the same rates despite being in different rooms during the day. Coming to the numbers, Turner notes that the cost comes to $78 a day for each of her children, amounting to over $20,000 per child in a year. She added that they receive a sibling discount that allows them to save $170 a month on their daycare, making the monthly amount a little over $3,000 for both kids. Turner explained that the rates are given based on the age of the child. 

She mentions that though moving from infant years to preschool and older years should get cheaper, she barely has to pay $100 less each year. The mom notes that though the amounts seem to be decreasing, there is a hike in the yearly rates for daycare in general. Coming to her older kids, though they are in school for the most part, she needs to put them in after-school daycare as she and her husband are working. “We pay $45 a day per kid, so it's around $1,000 a month for the two of them from about 3:15 to 5:45 pm,” the mom noted. However, that’s not all. There are days that kids have half days, vacations or even summer holidays and these alarming charges don’t cover any of these extra time. 

All of the other costs have to be additionally calculated. Turner crunched the numbers and mentioned that in addition to this $4,000 monthly cost, there’s summer camp, from 9 am to 3 pm and after-care post-summer camp that need to be calculated too. “I think the lowest-price one we've been able to find so far is $360 a week. The most expensive one that we looked into was like $600 a week, which we did not do,” she noted. Adding these costs one after another, the amount runs up to $5,000 a month easily. It’s bizarre to imagine how much the yearly costs might be, but for many parents, this is a reality. A study reveals that it costs over $15,000 per year for one child in a daycare in many states, per SmartAsset.

People in the comment section of Turner's video resonated with her situation. @loganandtheladies said, “This is why I’m a stay-at-home mama. My whole paycheck would have gone into daycare.” @gigishouse_7 added, “This is why millennials are having such few kids. Who can afford this?” @reesethebunny revealed, “I have a toddler and an infant. The infant room is $500 a week and the toddler room is $475 a week. I spend $4,225 per month in daycare.” @jewels.fulton remarked, “Daycare prices are insane.”

You can follow Paige Turner (@sheispaigeturner) on TikTok for content on parenting and daycare.