daycare-vs-stay-home

Daycare vs Stay-Home Skill

"Daycare eats my whole salary" is usually computed wrong twice: it compares childcare against gross pay (marginal taxes were eating part of that anyway), and it prices exactly one year of a decision whose costs live in the following decade — the raises not compounded, the re-entry discount, the retirement match not collected. This skill runs both sides honestly: what working nets this year, and what stepping out costs over the horizon. Then it hands the decision back, because the spreadsheet gets a vote, not a veto.

What This Skill Produces

• This year's ledger — second income minus marginal tax, childcare, and work costs, plus the match: the real net, from the script
• The horizon view — earnings forgone over the years out, and the re-entry salary vs. the never-left trajectory
• The middle options — part-time, one-parent-flex, cheaper-care mixes — sketched against the same ledger
• The decision sheet — money on both sides plus the non-financials, with their explicit permission to win

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The second earner's income — and which parent's leaving is actually on the table (the framing "second income" is doing work; make it explicit)
• Childcare cost — per child per month, the real local quote; number of kids and their ages (the cost cliff at school age is the model's built-in expiry date)
• The marginal tax rate — marginal, not average; flag it as verify-yours, and note childcare tax credits/subsidies are jurisdiction-specific and often large
• Career shape — expected raises, how re-entry works in their field (the default penalty is a placeholder; fields differ wildly), and the years-out being considered

Programmatic Helper

python3 scripts/daycare_vs_stay_home.py --income 62000 --daycare 1600
python3 scripts/daycare_vs_stay_home.py --income 62000 --daycare 1600 --kids 2 --marginal-tax 28 --years-out 4 --json

Deterministic. The re-entry penalty default (10%) is a labeled placeholder — research varies widely; set it to the field's reality or treat it as a sensitivity axis.

Framework: The Honest-Ledger Rules

• Marginal, not average, not gross — the second income is taxed at the household's marginal rate, so childcare compares against take-home-at-the-margin; both directions of error are common and both flip decisions
• Childcare is temporary; trajectory is compounding — the brutal net-$1,200-a-month year ends at kindergarten, but the missed raises and match keep compounding; horizons are the honest unit, and the artifact must show both timescales
• Work costs count, both ways — commuting, wardrobe, convenience meals are real subtractions; so is what a staying parent's unpaid labor replaces (nanny-share, aftercare, summer camps in the alternative) — the ledger cuts both directions
• The middle is underrated — part-time, staggered schedules, and family care mixes often dominate both pure options on the ledger; sketch at least one
• The spreadsheet votes, the family decides — wanting to be home, or wanting to work, is a legitimate deciding input; the skill's job is making sure it decides with the numbers visible, not instead of them

Output Format

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Daycare vs Stay-Home: [household]

This Year's Ledger

[Script output: gross → net after tax/care/costs+match, effective hourly]

The Horizon View

[Script output: forgone earnings, re-entry vs never-left salary, the compounding gap — read against when childcare costs end]

The Middle Options

[1–2 sketched: part-time at X hours → the same ledger recomputed roughly]

Decision Sheet

Money says: [one honest sentence, both timescales] · Not modeled and often decisive: childcare credits/subsidies (check yours — often large), job-tied benefits, and what each parent actually wants — which is allowed to win.

Educational model, not financial or career advice — tax treatment and re-entry realities vary; verify the load-bearing numbers.

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Quality Checks

• [ ] The comparison uses marginal tax and net income — never gross vs. daycare
• [ ] Both timescales appear: the temporary childcare years and the compounding trajectory
• [ ] The re-entry penalty is labeled a placeholder and treated as a sensitivity, not a fact
• [ ] Childcare tax credits/subsidies are flagged as jurisdiction-specific and often large
• [ ] At least one middle option is sketched
• [ ] The non-financials get explicit permission to decide

Anti-Patterns

• [ ] Do not run gross-salary-vs-daycare — it's the error this skill exists to correct
• [ ] Do not price only year one — the decision's cost curve is a decade long and mostly later
• [ ] Do not gender the framing — "the second earner" is whoever the household says it is
• [ ] Do not let the model moralize either choice — working and staying home both survive honest math
• [ ] Do not present the re-entry penalty as settled science — it's a field-dependent range wearing a default