Calling CA Providers With An Employee

[daycare]

UGH....... how do you guys do it?? How do you make any more money if you increase your license and then hire and employee??

After making all of my calculations, I am going to have to take on double the kids I have now and will only make $1000 more a month....I am not sure that it is worth it for me to increase all of that liability and money out of pocket for workers comp, payroll, employee tax, increase in daycare insurance fee per child and then wages.....

I am out $400.00 before I even pay the person...

any advice on what I am doing wrong?? or how I can cut some cost?????

[AmyLeigh]

I know what you mean. I did the calculations, too. What makes it really bad is when you have your own children home counting against your numbers.

[kathiemarie]

That is way I'm still a small daycare. I did just send in my request to go large but my 14 year old can be my helper and I will only increase my numbers with SA.

[Oneluckymom]

I think the way SOME providers do it is to not pay all the taxes and they hire them as independent contractors. I know for sure because my food program lady told me this.

Even though you're not supposed to legally they do it probably not aware. That or they have family that help.

I have weighed expanding in my head for several months. I'm scared I wouldn't make enough money AND always having a back up ready would cost money too. But there are some that have many kids enrolled and a waiting list to boot!! So who knows ...it's a risk like anything else.

[MCC]

I'm in the same boat, I have more than enough interest in my childcare to expand, but the extra income wouldn't be worth it once I paid an employee. I have been wondering the same thing.

There are multiple home daycares around here that have 2 assistants, but charge $100 less than me, and I have no idea how they do it, unless they are paying them under the table, or paying them $7/hour (I wont do either of these.)

My husband keeps saying he will quit his job and help b/c we would actually make more $ that way, but I'm not sure I can be with my Hubs 24/7 ::

[proudmommyofthree]

I was in the same boat. I just expanded in August and had my sister in law help. But after paying her it was not worth it. So my husband quit his job and he is now my partner it actually turned out better. He's a great cook, the kids love him, and he's an awsome cleaner . Honestly if he wasn't able to stay home, I would down size to a small daycare. It's not worth paying some else. A few streets down from there is a daycare provider (large) who has 2 full time assistants and 2 part time😲 ! I don't know how she does that!!

[mom2many]

I ran the numbers years ago & found it was really not going to be very profitable for me to enlarge my capacity to 14. The small amount of extra money I would make was definitely not worth all of the extra work it would be too!

[CrackerJacks]

You don't make any more $ that you could make watching 5-6 on your own. I did it for 3yrs. I just stopped.. I waited until most of my kids transitioned out. I let my girls know that I was prob not going to be able to give them as many hours anymore when the kids left. They had several months to find new employment. They did, and now I'm back to watching between 4-6 (which includes my own DD) by myself. Things are calmer, quieter and I feel like I have my sanity back. We can do soo much more with a smaller group. Yes, it does get lonely sometimes, but $ wise it's not worth it. I'm in the CA Bay Area and in order to find reliable, compitent good help that can be trusted you have to pay between $12-$15/hr min. On top of all workers comp etc.

[Starburst]

The FCC provider I used to sub for would have 3 regular employees (one was her daughter)- she would usually have 2 assistants at the same time. 2 of them (1 being her daughter) would work in the morning about 3 hours after she stated until lunch (her 3rd assistant would drop off the BF school age at school), her daughter would usually stay (usually unpaid unless she was doing working) and the third assistant would pick up the schoolers and stay from after nap until closing (her daughter would usually leave about 2 hours before closing). She also had junior helpers (14-17 year olds) and at least 1 sub on call. But she had also been in business 30 years and is probably also on the more expensive side of her city (she lived in the nicer/ more expensive part of town, in a good school district) she usually had over 20 kids enrolled in her program on average (not all at the same time ).