So you are interested in starting your own day care center? Great! This can be a great opportunity, but you have to make sure you are doing it for the right reasons.
Ever seen the movie "Daddy Day Care" with Eddie Murphy? He lost his job and decided to open a daycare because he had a kid. Sometimes it all worked out and there was a happy ending, but he did go through a really hard time!
If you are considering opening a day care center, then I can not promise you will have the same results as Mr. Murphy. But if you try hard and really have a desire to work with children, then I'm sure fate will be on your side.
There definitely are some perks to running your own day care center rather than just sending your kids to a different daycare. First of all it means that obviously you will get to spend more time with your children. It also means that you are the boss! Being your own boss means you can work out your own schedule, and depending on where your day care is, you may even get to work from home.
There are many small day care centers that make a good annual profit, so hopefully you will get some nice spending money. And being able to spend time with children is really the best experience you can hope for. So this is a good opportunity both financially and personally.
Perhaps the most important thing to consider when opening a daycare center is that you need to be certified. You must qualify for any city, state, and country permits. So check to see what permits you need before you are allowed to take in children.
As for taking in children, you will want to charge money of course. But how much? You can check the other local daycare centers and see how much they charge, and then base your prices off of those. You will also need to figure out a way to keep track of all the money that comes in. Either you need to hire a very organized person who can keep track of everything, or start figuring out how you can record all of the financial data on your own.
Then there are the typical things like setting up schedules for the children, deciding what to eat and what to play, and all that other fun stuff. And if you are new you may also want to do some advertising for your new business.