3 questions for your at-home learning budget

Full-time remote or hybrid learning is taking place in your child’s school and you work full-time.

Consider hiring a teacher or tutor to oversee the schooling. It varies depending on your region, but expect to pay $1,500 to $3,000 a week at around $100 an hour, according to Care.com, for an experienced certified teacher working a six-hour day. A tutor could cost as much as $900 a week, noted Care.com. Other costs to factor into your planning include employment tax implications, if you will provide health insurance to a certified teacher, and if you’d use a payroll service for payments.

Hybrid learning is taking place in your child’s school and you work full-time but hiring your own full-time teacher is out of reach financially.

Form a learning “pod” with a group of families, where similar-aged children are placed together and are overseen by a hired teacher or tutor. The pod meets at the same home or switches homes each week. If hiring a pod supervisor is out of the budget, you may also be able to share “teaching” duties with the other working parents on a rotating basis.

Splitting these costs with another family significantly reduces the burden, resulting in a $500 to $1,000 a week outlay, based on a three-family pod. In multi-family pods, each family may be considered a separate employer and be required to pay the relevant taxes and payroll service fees—so check the regulations in your state. For a budget-friendly option, pods can rely on parents who rotate shifts to help children, but that may require a reduction or shift in work hours for one or more of the parents.

Your children need some supervision, but don’t require additional instruction to supplement remote lessons.

Hire a traditional babysitter, who may not need to be present for a full school day. Babysitters generally cost $16 an hour, according to Care.com. So, you’re looking at $320 to $500 a week. Or consider negotiating a flat rate for a set amount of hours.

You can afford to hire a sitter or tutor for school hours, but that’s it, and you need more coverage to complete your work day.

Take advantage of low-cost or free child care at community centers or places of worship for the before- or after-school hours. Another option: consider making arrangements with family or neighbors to help with supervision for free or at reduced hourly rates.

In order to facilitate remote learning, one parent may consider scaling back at work via reduced hours or quitting their job altogether, resulting in less income for the family and potentially having a negative impact on their longer-term career path.

First ask if your employer is willing to accommodate a shift to more flexible hours, rather than leaving your job completely. Also, make sure you look into any assistance programs your employer may be offering to help offset the burden. If you resign or scale back, living expenses may suddenly feel like they’ve doubled as you adjust to living on a single income. Your long-term earning potential and retirement savings could also take a hit. If you shift hours, you run the risk of burnout between overseeing the children and your own work.

No matter who oversees the children, they need a dedicated place to do schoolwork, especially if your school district shifts overnight to a full-time remote model.

Reconfigure a room or certain area of your home into a school room complete with desks, computers and other school supplies. A child’s desk setup can cost $100 to $200 and, if your school district doesn’t provide technology, computers can run $600 to $1,000 and tablets between $300 and $500 each, according to online retail websites. Consider that you’ll likely need other supplies like a printer (around $100), paper, pencils, white boards and markers.

Everyone is video conferencing from home at the same time, and you need faster internet.

Internet-only service ranges, but you can take advantage of first-time customer promotions from various providers or look into low cost or income-based internet assistance programs. Plans range from $25 to $80 a month, depending on the service providers in your area. A one-time investment in a more powerful router or range extender could improve WiFi connectivity for an additional cost. Electricity use is bound to increase, too—a cost you may have already absorbed if you’ve been working from home.

Everyone is home—and they’re eating multiple times a day.

Find out beforehand whether you will be expected to feed snacks or meals to tutors and other pod children if remote learning or babysitting is at your house—and budget accordingly. Consider easing the food burden by buying groceries in bulk. Grocery bills have already expanded by $182 a month, according to Creditcards.com, and it takes $50 to $60 a year to join a warehouse club.