Here's a piece from Money Central that gives seven money saving tips on child-care costs. Their suggestions with a bit of explanation/summary from me:
Get financial aid -- See if you employer offers any child-care subsidies or tax-advantaged benefits when it comes to child-care costs.
Barter, swap and share -- Contribute time, services or goods to your child's care center in exchange for reduced rates.
Keep it in the family -- Get mom or another relative to care for the kids.
Flex your schedules -- One parent works days, the other works nights. This also has the built-in benefit that you will never see each other, so you won't have to worry about another child to care for any time soon. (just kidding!) ;-)
Become an entrepreneur -- Then you can take the kids to work. This is especially great if your office is in your home.
Hire a student -- Students do everything cheaper than adults. However, they may have large boyfriends who come over and eat all your food, so you'll need to take the extra food costs into account. ;-)
Someone stays home -- Suck it up and live on one income.
We chose option #7. My wife stayed home with the kids. She loved it and so did they. We were able to do it because we had eliminated debt from our finances a few years earlier -- just another encouragement for those of you working to be debt free -- there's lots of benefits to it.
That said, I can sympathize with parents who have to juggle their lives and/or finances around the issue. It's especially hard on single parents (we have a close friend and a relative who's a single parent) -- both the time and the cost element. My wife helps out quite often (she's such a saint -- taking kids on a moment's notice) when emergencies arise for her single friend (the relative lives far away). I know her friend appreciates it and my wife is glad to help someone out who's in such need.
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