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How to hack expensive childcare

Living
 Checking your budget and communicating it with your partner can help you to come up with a solution (Shutterstock)

It's not all the time that we have the privilege of taking care of our children ourselves.

In many cases, you'll realize that you may need to make external arrangements so that you are able to do other things.

Apart from feeling guilty about leaving your child and missing them during the day, a downside of this arrangement is that childcare is quite expensive.

How do you navigate through the high cost of such an essential service?

Get day-only help instead of live-in

A childcare arrangement where you host the person caring for your child is often expensive.

Not only will you be paying the person their dues, you'll also be incurring costs on their meals, sharing a living space full-time and learning the ropes of having them around as a family member.

Since few chores are done in the night (unless you work during night shifts), it will be easier, and cheaper, if you choose to only have someone coming in the morning and leaving in the evening.

Pay-per-hour babysitters on demand

If you work part time and spend a good amount of time in your household, you actually get to have time to personally take care of your children.

To reduce your childcare costs, get a caregiver on demand basis, only when you need one. This way, you'll only pay for the hours you've engaged them and not incur any extras.

The bright side of this is that you end up saving more as you don’t end up paying someone whose roles are duplicated when you are around.

 Get a caregiver on demand basis, only when you need one (Shutterstock)

Seek your family member's help

It takes a village to bring up a baby. One of the best options for caregivers is opting for your family members.

First, they are not strangers to you and they tend to offer love to your children unquestionably. It's a great bonding session for them, and is cheap.

Engage your parents or siblings who would be willing to spend time with your little ones. It's always such a joy to have family around.

Use the office child nursery if provided

If you are working full time and have to report to the office, you may be lucky to be in a company that has a mummy and baby room.

These nurseries are set up by organizations so that they offer mothers who are employees an easy time as they can check on their children during work hours.

This is cheap since it's a service extension by the company. The beauty of this is that it is a win-win situation. You are physically close to your child as well as present at work.

Checking your budget and communicating it with your partner can help you to come up with a solution for how to go about childcare.

As a tip, a mother's gut feeling is the true compass. Follow it to help you choose which childcare option is best to entrust your children too. 

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