daycare-vs-stay-home
Run the real math on a parent leaving work versus paying for childcare — the second income net of daycare, marginal taxes, and work costs, AND the career-trajectory cost of years out, over horizons instead of one brutal year. Use when asked does it make sense for me to keep working, daycare costs my whole salary, stay-home vs daycare math, or what does leaving work for 5 years really cost. Produces both sides of the ledger from the script, the horizon comparison, and the decision sheet that lets the non-financials vote.
npx skills add mohitagw15856/pm-claude-skills --skill daycare-vs-stay-home --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Daycare vs Stay-Home Skill "Daycare eats my whole salary" is usually computed wrong twice: it compares childcare against *gross* pay (marginal taxes were eating part of that anyway), and it prices exactly one year of a decision whose costs live in the following decade — the raises not compounded, the re-entry discount, the retirement match not collected. This skill runs both sides honestly: what working *nets* this year, and what stepping out costs over the horizon. Then it hands the decision back, because the spreadsheet gets a vote, not a veto. ## What This Skill Produces - **This year's ledger** — second income minus marginal tax, childcare, and work costs, plus the match: the real net, from the script - **The horizon view** — earnings forgone over the years out, and the re-entry salary vs. the never-left trajectory - **The middle options** — part-time, one-parent-flex, cheaper-care mixes — sketched against the same ledger - **The decision sheet** — money on both sides plus the non-financials, with their explicit permission to win ## Required Inputs Ask for these if not provided: - **The second earner's income** — and which parent's leaving is actually on the table (the framin
- What This Skill Produces
- Required Inputs
- Programmatic Helper
- Framework: The Honest-Ledger Rules
- Output Format
- This Year's Ledger
- The Horizon View
- The Middle Options
- Decision Sheet
- Quality Checks
- Anti-Patterns
python3 scripts/daycare_vs_stay_home.py --income 62000 --daycare 1600 python3 scripts/daycare_vs_stay_home.py --income 62000 --daycare 1600 --kids 2 --marginal-tax 28 --years-out 4 --json
What does the daycare-vs-stay-home skill do?
Run the real math on a parent leaving work versus paying for childcare — the second income net of daycare, marginal taxes, and work costs, AND the career-trajectory cost of years out, over horizons instead of one brutal year. Use when asked does it make sense for me to keep working, daycare costs my whole salary, stay-home vs daycare math, or what does leaving work for 5 years really cost. Produces both sides of the ledger from the script, the horizon comparison, and the decision sheet that lets the non-financials vote.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add mohitagw15856/pm-claude-skills --skill daycare-vs-stay-home --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From mohitagw15856/pm-claude-skills, a repository with 1,255 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.