Amount Per Child Questions

I'm looking to start a daycare on what for me will be a larger scale. My wife and I are both tenured teachers and want to expand our classroom ideas into the business world. The space devoted to the daycare would be about 3400 sq feet. Based on those numbers I'm looking at a max of about 83 students. I've gone over the state requirements and maximum allowances but still have a few unanswered questions.

1. With these numbers, what should I be looking to spend on school items per month? Paper supplies, arts and crafts, glitter...that sort of stuff.
2. What should I expect to pay per child for food? I thought I read somewhere about 5 dollars per child per day. Can someone confirm this?
3. Average premium for insurance? I guess I can google that one but I'd like to see what you guys have to offer.

Thanks in advance for the help. As you can see by my post count....I'm a first timer

[Michael]

Welcome to the Daycare.com Forum!

There are some TAGs ant the bottom left of this page that will also have threads related to your questions. Here are some:

Supplies Cost: https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.php?tag=cost+of+supplies
https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.p...=start+up+cost

Food Costs: https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.php?tag=food+costs
https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.p...=food+expenses

Insurance: https://www.daycare.com/forum/tags.php?tag=insurance

[Cat Herder]

Personally, in your shoes, I'd call the most similar daycare to what you are planning a few counties away.

Call them to ask if they would have time to discuss the business with you as you are planning to open one soon and LOVED their place.

As long as you are not in their zipcode I think you will find them more than willing to help.

[Abigail]

1. With these numbers, what should I be looking to spend on school items per month? Paper supplies, arts and crafts, glitter...that sort of stuff.
You can plan this based on how much you plan to use. Do price checks on bulk items at the store or the companies you order from and create a scenario if you would use this much paper on projects then it would cost this much per month, etc.

2. What should I expect to pay per child for food? I thought I read somewhere about 5 dollars per child per day. Can someone confirm this?
With knowing you're a larger facility, the cost of food should be lower than $5 a day. It depends on what you serve, how much you serve, and how much the food costs. The cost of living is low here so I could average less than $3-$4 a day if I wanted too. I also couldn't buy as much in bulk since I'll only have a handful of children.

3. Average premium for insurance? I guess I can google that one but I'd like to see what you guys have to offer.
This you could find out by calling your local insurance companies and finding out what they offer. An easier way to find the best companies is to call other daycare centers that are about your size or higher and ask them if they have any recommendations or know anyone who insures large daycares.

[kendallina]

Originally Posted by Ganginwood

I'm looking to start a daycare on what for me will be a larger scale. My wife and I are both tenured teachers and want to expand our classroom ideas into the business world. The space devoted to the daycare would be about 3400 sq feet. Based on those numbers I'm looking at a max of about 83 students. I've gone over the state requirements and maximum allowances but still have a few unanswered questions.

1. With these numbers, what should I be looking to spend on school items per month? Paper supplies, arts and crafts, glitter...that sort of stuff.
2. What should I expect to pay per child for food? I thought I read somewhere about 5 dollars per child per day. Can someone confirm this?
3. Average premium for insurance? I guess I can google that one but I'd like to see what you guys have to offer.

Thanks in advance for the help. As you can see by my post count....I'm a first timer

When I had a preschool that served 45 breakfasts, 45 lunches and 96 snacks a day I spent about $500/week on groceries. We had a cook who made most of our meals from scratch.

For supplies we had a budget of around $600/month (this is a VERY healthy budget for 45 kids) and included all preschool supplies plus sometimes extras, like if we needed new towels or wanted some picture frames, but did not include necessary items like paper towels and such, those were in a different budget.

I can't recall what our insurance was and we were part of a large organization, so we probably got a discount.

Hope that helps!