I have a question for all you out there with large families or families on a tight budget. What do you do for childcare? Do you pay a regular sitter? Do you have a friend you rely on? Do you trade off childcare with another family?
This has been an ongoing issue for our family. By the time you pay for childcare and then the cost of going out on a date you can easily spend $100 for one night out.
How often do you have a date night with your spouse? What do you do for childcare?
We're not a large family (yet), but we're on a tight budget for sure! It'll get trickier once we have several children and can't do an even "trade" as easily :) Our options:
ReplyDelete1) my parents
2) our good friends T&M who don't have children yet
3) our basement apartment renter who is a good friend
4) swap with my brother-in-laws family or my sister-in-law's family.
4) if we are completely out of options:
A) We don't go out.
B) We pay someone, but don't spend money on our date.
"B" rarely happens, though.
We could use more date nights. I wish we had the budget to have more freedom to pay a sitter regularly and go out regularly. We can only hit up the free sitters every so often! :)
The few times we've had to pay someone, we ask college students we know to babysit...we feel a little better about spending $ to pay them, knowing that they probably really need it :)