Lower Your Home Daycare Operating Costs: 4 Free and Easy Ways

If you don't feel comfortable raising your home daycare rates or you're not sure that you will be able to, it is still possible to give yourself a raise. If you run a home daycare and need to earn more money, one of best ways to do this is by lowering your operating costs. There are four free things you can do to lower the amount of money it takes to run your home daycare.

1. Sign-up for the CACFP food program.

The Child and Adult Care Food Program or CACFP for short, can help you save up to $800 per child per year. The money for this program is available for those that care for children or adults in programs like your home daycare. With the rising cost of food, you may be finding that these expenses are eating away at your profits. If so, make it a point to find the local agency that administers this program in your area. The best place to start is your county job and family services department. In the state of Ohio alone, there are 18 agencies that administer the CACFP program. If you are currently caring for five children, you can reduce your annual cost of food by up to $4000.

2. Use free online curriculum.

If you offer a preschool curriculum as a part of your daycare program you may be paying anywhere from $20-$50 per child per month for the curriculum. You can save yourself hundreds of dollars per month by taking advantage of free online resources for preschool curriculum. Yes, it will take extra time for you to print and download your own coloring sheets and charts, however the small amount of added extra time will be well worth the savings.

3. Bundle daycare and homeowners insurance.

If you don't have daycare insurance already, then you should. If you do, contact your renters or homeowners insurance company and ask them if they have a comparable home daycare policy. If they do, ask them if they offer a discount for getting both policies from them. They may be willing to offer a generous discount of anywhere from 10% to 30%.

4. Take advantage of tax write offs.

Did you know that you can write off the cost of food that your own child eats during daycare hours? If you didn't know that, then there are probably others tax savings that you're not taking advantage of. You can write off the cost of food, cleaning supplies, craft materials, the space in your home that you use for daycare, and much more. Hopefully, you have been keeping very good records and saving receipts. If not, now is the time to get organized. If you don't have time to file receipts every day, don't worry. Simply take one large manila envelope and write "daycare receipts" on the front of it. Then, every time you come from the grocery store with receipts related to your childcare business, stuff in the envelope so it's handy at tax time.