okay, i believe there is a lot of parents out there in this situation. My two children go to daycare, we do not get help with daycare from the state because we barely make to much to quilify for help, i think its like 100 to much over ea month. My wife and I have two kids, we both work full time jobs and love our jobs, even though the pay isnt to great. Our daycare which is a at home daycare for both kids runs about 700.00 a month..we budget and do i mean budget, knock off hamburger helper is like gourmet in my family right now...one movie rental a week.. and city parks..and maybe every now and then a trip to mcdonalds so the kids can have indoor play during the colder months. I cant stand seeing my neighbors who have 3 kids and are on dhs co-pay, they just plain told us they where on it, i just cant see the farness in this when my neighbor has 2 new cars, they have the best type of play equipment for there kids, and there kids run around with name brand clothing, and i hate hearing them say oh we dont cook at home we just go out for dinner.....So am i missing something here, how can certain people get away with this, especially when they are not struggling???? i am not jealous because i feel proud not having the state pay for my kids daycare, i am just ticked that certain people who seems like they dont need it get it.. just venting i guess...

Maybe you should stay at home and take care of your children. $700 a month is crazy for daycare. That means at least 50% of your income is going to daycare. Why work?

well because that other 50% helps pay bills

That means you're essentially getting only 50% of the money you're making. So, if you're making $10 an hour, you get $5 an hour take home pay. I wouldn't get out of bed for that amount.

But, I do applaud you for taking care of your family and not sucking off the system.

Hi Jesseda,

I don't know your qualifications, but have you looked into any jobs you could take where you could work out of your home? I had a friend who was in a similar situation to yours. They needed the second income, but the child support was really straining their already tight budgets.

She found a sales job working from home, and they were able to get quite a bit ahead. She was also able to arrange her schedule so she could spend quality time with her son. At first I believe she took a small pay cut, but was able to make it up quickly, and the savings from not having to have her son in full-time daycare gave them a big budget boost. I think she still took her son to mother's day out about 2x a week, for a half-day each time.

It was also a big adjustment working from home, but she made it work.

it is very frustrated to see the system being abused. I am in the same boat you are, only our daycare is 980 a month!! There definately needs to be more checks and balances in our dhs system!! The school I worked at last year was a dhs facility (some people only paying like 10 bucks a month) and there children weren't cleaned, but they had their hair done and nails done and liked to have fun. Just remember that what you are doing, your children are watching. it doesn't matter the lack of "stuff" what they will remember and know is that they are loved and protected and a priority in your life, and what a great ideal to pass down!!

What line of work are you in? What kind of background do you have?

You may want look at working for an employer that offers on site child care.

I work in the office at the will rogers airport parking, i am a office administrative, i mainly take phone calls, scheduling, prepare payroll, bookkeeping, etc the basic adminstrative duties....thank you teacher girl for the kind words, and yes i do hope my kids learn from us. I just need to vent on this subject...On the site child care the only place i seen that offers that is convergys in moore, I hear that it has a waiting list when you get hired

Frittergirl mentioned working from home. I did this for a while for supplemental income and actually made really good money. Better than what you will make after paying daycare. You set your own hours and work as much or as little as you want. All you need is a home phone and the internet at home. You take calls so you don't have to call and sell anything to anyone. It's super easy.

West at Home: Become an Agent (http://www.apply.westathome.com/)

Jesseda, kudos to you for working to support your family, and not taking the easy way out by staying at home and letting the government take care of you. Even if half of your money is going to daycare, at least you're out there working.

I know it's tough sometimes, but you're not alone in your situation. Keep up the great work!

I work in the office at the will rogers airport parking, i am a office administrative, i mainly take phone calls, scheduling, prepare payroll, bookkeeping, etc the basic adminstrative duties....thank you teacher girl for the kind words, and yes i do hope my kids learn from us. I just need to vent on this subject...On the site child care the only place i seen that offers that is convergys in moore, I hear that it has a waiting list when you get hired

Convergys no longer offers "on-site" child care. In fact, it wasn't even ran by Convergys. It was space rented by an independent child care provider. Unfortunately, the last tenant abruptly closed its doors, removed its items (and in many cases, purposely damaged tables, toys, etc) without any notice. The administrator didn't even get notice from the owner that he was closing the doors. There was a story about it last year on Ch. 9 news.

As for Convergys, I have been there over a year now and work as a home agent taking calls for DirecTV. I'm only required to go "in-house" twice a month. I know that we are hiring, but I don't know if we are hiring "off the street" for at home agents or not. , but I can try to find out.

Let me say I admire you for not trying to work the system. It is hard to do the right thing when you see others working the system. If you aren't mentally villgent, you start feeling like a chump instead of an honorable person. Kudos to you.

I have to wonder if the neighbors' grandparents are ponying up some cash. DHS wouldn't count that. There will always be operators who think that if public funds are available they'd be fools to pass it up.

I'm with the ones who suggested that you investigate working at home. You could also investigate working part time with some sort of shared child caring arrangement to allow you to do that. Paying that much child care for what you are ending up with just doesn't make sense. It is hard when you are living so close to the edge, financially. I know, I have done it. I stayed home until the youngest was in school and we darn near starved but I have never regretted it for an instant. I take it back - I worked for about 6 months during that time and ran up bills (because we could suddenly afford more "stuff" with two incomes) and then spent three tough years trying to catch up after we went back to one salary.

It is a time honored tradition to be poverty-stricken when your kids are small. You might as well be well rested (as rested as you can be with kids at home). Working for peanuts doesn't seem like too great a solution. Things get better once the kids are all in school and you have more options on working. Hang in there and good luck.