You're welcome. I've been out of the loop for years having done home care for so long though.

I couldn't even fathom a guess as to how much cash you'd need to bring to the table for start up. Couldn't begin to tell you. I don't know if you need ECE to actually open a centre, but you'd likely want one at least as a consultant involved in the set up. You will absolutely need one to be the daycare supervisor and at least one ECE in each classroom, plus the appropriate number of assistants to uphold the ratios.

If you want to do home daycare, I would say you could probably set yourself up quite professionally for about $10, 000 or less. I'm trying to run a rough tally in my head of what my expenses have been over the years. I've just moved into a new place and revamped the whole thing and spent several thousand just 'upgrading' but had lots of items already in place. The number I threw out there is a generous one and would be plenty to afford a very professional set up, likely with cash to spare.

What is nice about home daycare is that it's a little easier to extricate yourself from if you really feel that childcare isn't for you in the end. I would feel, in your shoes, that it might be a nice place to start, to get a feel for it. Then, after giving it my best shot for a couple years, make big decisions then. Again, that's just me. I can't imagine anything worse than spending thousands and thousands of dollars, having leased or purchased a property for the venture, hired staff, having many families depending on me, then discovering that I absolutely despised the work.