Childcare Cost Forecaster
Estimate how much you'll spend on childcare over multiple years, including annual cost increases and inflation-adjusted totals in today's dollars.
Assumptions
$1,400
Snapshot
First-year monthly
$1,400
Last-year monthly
$1,638
Peak monthly cost
$1,638
Total over all years (nominal)
$90,994
Total in today’s dollars
$86,495
“Nominal” totals add up future dollars at face value. “Today's dollars” discount future costs by your inflation assumption for a more intuitive comparison.
Year-by-Year Cost
Over 5 years, you'll spend roughly $90,994 in childcare, or about $1,517/month on average across the period.
| Year | Monthly cost | Annual | Cumulative | Annual (today’s $) | Cumulative (today’s $) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1,400 | $16,800 | $16,800 | $16,800 | $16,800 |
| 2 | $1,456 | $17,472 | $34,272 | $17,046 | $33,846 |
| 3 | $1,514 | $18,171 | $52,443 | $17,295 | $51,141 |
| 4 | $1,575 | $18,898 | $71,341 | $17,548 | $68,690 |
| 5 | $1,638 | $19,654 | $90,994 | $17,805 | $86,495 |
How to interpret this
- • Monthly cost today is your current bill. The model grows this by your annual cost increase each year (for wage inflation, higher age brackets, etc.).
- • The nominal total is the raw sum of dollars you'll pay over the period.
- • The today's dollars view discounts future costs by your inflation assumption to answer: “What is this equivalent to in today's purchasing power?”
- • You can later extend this to multiple stages (daycare → preschool → after-school) by modeling each stage as its own period with different starting costs and increase rates.