Retirement Planning - Lessons Learned

[California]

Re people leaving jobs for better ones: I see Google News has a sub-section on this at the moment:

Full Coverage - Google News

See the latest updates, context, and perspectives about this story.

news.google.com

Articles linked from there all ask for a subscription after the first paragraph. So here's a thread of Tweets cited, that summarizes them: [click this]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1447935812537102336

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Added - 'Read more replies' below that tweet thread has some zingers!

in Dallas, Amazon is advertising $22/hr with a $3,000 sign on bonus. He said this kind of competition is making it hard for suppliers to add new shifts, fill existing positions, & ramp up production

Maybe that's where the kids went instead of the $14/hour intermittent they were offered, and refused, in their hometown.

 

[ultrarunner]

When we started our first in day care back in 1992, it was $100 per week. They said it would go down to $90 when the kid turned 1 year old.

Kid turns 1 year old, price goes down to $90, then 10% rate increase, so back up to $99. This went on for 10 years between our 2 children.

The number that sticks in my head is two-nineteen-ten. That's how much we were paying per week for 2 kids (infant and 5 year old). $219.10.

Today, you'd be lucky to get 1 kid in daycare for that cost.

20 years ago $100 a day was going rate here...

Several docs just hired live in or in home when multiple kids needed care...

 

[MossRoad]

20 years ago $100 a day was going rate here...

Several docs just hired live in or in home when multiple kids needed care...

We know a few couples where one or the other spouse quit their job and home schooled because they had so many kids, it didn't make economic sense to pay for day care or private school.

My wife and I were fortunate, in that her company offered cafeteria-style benefits. At that time, I was allowed to cover her with my health insurance, so she could put her X benefit dollars towards dental, eye, child care, etc... so we pretty much got free child care for the first one.

Later on, the laws changed and if she had health insurance available from her employer, she could not take my health insurance, so that ate up some of that benefit money pretty quick.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Employers don't have piles of money at least when it comes to small businesses.

I can cite several examples of coffee shop owners netting less than wait staff or my friend that had an office machine business repairing printers where he netted less that his two employees who also had vacation which the owner never did...

Welcome to dairy farming. I know dairy farmers who have not had a vacation in 20 years.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

It's already 15 or higher pre pandemic in some west coast districts...

A young mother I know works cleaning offices and her child is in daycare... she was so excited when the minimum wage in the city went up until she found the daycare raised it's price citing increased payroll cost due to wage increase.

Affordable day care does not exist in the US. If going to the office means paying for day care and giving away over half her pay, why would a parent sit still for that? Better to stay home and part time for a few bucks. And they wonder why people aren't having kids. We have a child hostile society.

 

[ultrarunner]

This is the conclusion of every one of my German speaking visitors ages 18 to 24.

They would not have traded their time working or traveling here for anything but said starting a family is too hard compared to home... Austria, Germany and Switzerland...

Just so many advantages such as two years off with pay, employer had to hold your job, cash incentives for well baby and infant medical visits, Sunday in Austria and many holidays everything is closed including trucking except for perishables... fee exceptions are hospitality and essential like hospitals and transportation...

None of my coworkers worried about being taxed out of home and some in family over 500 years...

Not saying perfect... just different.

No tax returns for regular workers either... sales VAT tax very high so purchases factored that...

 

[MossRoad]

Affordable day care does not exist in the US. If going to the office means paying for day care and giving away over half her pay, why would a parent sit still for that? Better to stay home and part time for a few bucks. And they wonder why people aren't having kids. We have a child hostile society.

The reason you stay working for those 5 years while your kid is pre-K is you maintain your benefits, raises, career, future with the company, etc...

If your child is at day care from 7:30am until 5:30pm, that's 10 hours a day. 5 days a week is 50 hours. $200 per week is about $4 an hour for child care. If you're making $20 an hour, after you take out taxes, it's about 1/3 of your pay. If 2 of you are working, it's 1/6 of your pay.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

The reason you stay working for those 5 years while your kid is pre-K is you maintain your benefits, raises, career, future with the company, etc...

If your child is at day care from 7:30am until 5:30pm, that's 10 hours a day. 5 days a week is 50 hours. $200 per week is about $4 an hour for child care. If you're making $20 an hour, after you take out taxes, it's about 1/3 of your pay. If 2 of you are working, it's 1/6 of your pay.

Maybe. At $40/day, assuming $2k/month would cover facilities and insurance, that's 50 child-days just to turn on the lights. Assuming you can get a minimum wage dumb kid to help for another $2k/month (remember, comp, FICA, payroll) that's another 50 child-days, plus another 75 child-days to pay the owner, you're up to 175 child-days in a 28 day month. You have to average 6.25 kids/day to make it worth your while. Since not all the kids will show up every day, some days you will have 8+ kids, which is a lot for two adults to handle, assuming your helper shows up every day.

Preschool child care averages over $300/week. The cheapest after-school care is a sitter with a TV set, averaging about $240/week. That's if you can find care at all, which is mostly luck.

This is how much child care costs in 2025

Learn about the financial battle faced by parents due to high child care costs. Understand the sacrifices made and the importance of finding a solution.

www.care.com

 

[MoKelly]

It's already 15 or higher pre pandemic in some west coast districts...

A young mother I know works cleaning offices and her child is in daycare... she was so excited when the minimum wage in the city went up until she found the daycare raised it's price citing increased payroll cost due to wage increase.

Yes. No person is an island. Every decision causes a reaction somewhere else. Better to learn this early in life.

MoKelly

 

[goeduck]

A young mother I know works cleaning offices and her child is in daycare... she was so excited when the minimum wage in the city went up until she found the daycare raised it's price citing increased payroll cost due to wage increase.

Yep, not sure what the point was on increasing it.... many are in this situation.