Childcare Budget Planner

The calculator sums your five monthly cost inputs (daycare, after-school, babysitting, activities, supplies) and then multiplies that combined total by numberOfChildren, so each input is treated as a representative per-child monthly amount. This keeps data entry simple when children have similar costs, but if your children actually have very different daycare or activity costs, you'll get a more accurate total by running the calculator once per child and adding the results, rather than averaging into one set of inputs.

The calculator hard-codes school age at 5 (const schoolAge = 5), so in the yearsData projection, daycareForYear is only added while age is under 5 and becomes 0 from age 5 onward, while after-school, activities, babysitting, and supplies continue unchanged through age 18. This models the common pattern of daycare being the largest pre-school expense that disappears once a child enters kindergarten, but it doesn't automatically add elementary after-school costs beyond what you've already entered.

totalUntilSchoolAge multiplies your monthly daycare cost by the number of children and by the years remaining until age 5, then by 12 — it captures daycare spending only, not after-school care, activities, babysitting, or supplies over that same window. If you want the full childcare cost through school age rather than just the daycare piece, add the other category totals from the monthly breakdown multiplied by the same yearsRemaining figure.

percentOfIncome divides your total monthly childcare cost (already multiplied across all children) by your gross monthly income and expresses it as a percentage. Many affordability guidelines treat childcare above roughly 10% of household income as a significant financial strain, so this figure is meant as a quick benchmark for how much of your earnings childcare is consuming relative to that common threshold.