Originally Posted by Cat Herder:
That is how I operated when my own children were infants and toddlers. It can be done. 
I did not want my own to be "in daycare" so I did not keep kids their ages. I flipped to younger kids when they became school agers. 
My ratio was 12 back, then, though ($35 week, 1990's). I am not sure I could make enough with 6. 
The schools here offer it until 5:30 for $5 a day, so I won't even try anymore. 
You will probably need to be able to keep them for school breaks to bring up your profit and can make some extra by offering mild ill care, too. 
Thanks, Cat herder!
Our local rates for after school care is $75 per week or $325 per month so not too bad if I am only open about 20 hours a week. I'm not sure how I'd price full days or mild sick days? Charge extra per hour for those? Hmm..
Either way I think I can make it work financially, since I'd only be offering a snack and little to no driving (gas prices are going insanely high here!). I still have a lot of my daycare stuff from before stored away so that helps, too.
I think because the school is on a main road with traffic the bus actually drops off at the end of my street which is just one house down, so I may not even need to drive around the corner on bad days.
