Originally Posted by pollyo:
I started home daycare last fall... at the time I didn't understand the importance of charging a weekly rate, whether the child comes or not. January and February have killed me financially because of no-shows! Some have been because of illness which is to be expected but others have been dad takes day off from work, grandma is babysitting, mom's traveling so family is watching child.
I started out doing daycare by charging just for when the children were in care too. I got taken advantage of quickly! One dcp lived a block away and just started bringing her child when she felt like it. Another promised me dcg would come 5 days/week but only averaged around 3.
I did that for a couple months and then had enough. Because I was changing the terms, I gave a "discount" to the 2 families I had when I changed rates. I charged them $100 instead of $125. One family was only M-Th, so I was only getting $100/week from them anyway. (This backfired on me because they asked to bring dcg on Fridays at discounted rate bc grandma had only been taking her on Fridays to save them money.) The other family had only been paying around $75/week, so I made more by providing the discount.
I didn't charge for holidays or my vacation when I first went to a weekly rate. I recently added in that holidays were paid for if the children were in care. I still don't charge for my vacation, but they do pay even if they go on vacation.
You live and learn in this business. I only started out with paying when they were there because that is how my sis-in-law runs her daycare. She still runs hers this way. She does that because she wants to be able to take off as many days as she likes. She took off around 5-6 weeks total last year. I only take a week and maybe a day around a holiday.