How Much To Spend on Teacher Gifts and Day Care Providers?

Holiday question: How much to spend on Teacher Gifts and Gifts for Daycare Providers – a Giving Survey to the rescue!

I’m smack in the middle of my holiday gift buying dash – I kind of always picture myself as if I’m on SuperMarket Sweep as I make my way through the aisles, with my mind on my mission and my mission on my mind. My list is made, I’m checking it twice – and trying to make sure my current preggo baby-brain hasn’t left anyone off! The list isn’t just family and friends – its also the people in my world that I want to share a thank you with, like my kids teachers and daycare providers.

These people are priceless, yet I’m stuck battling with the question of how to put a price on all the amazing things they do each year and sum it up with an appropriate gift. Since our money tree hasn’t been spliced together in a genetics lab and planted in our backyard, it’s our holiday family budget that dictates the range of generosity that we can share for all gift giving. But what is the magic number?

Gift giving is a personal decision, but my geeky science mind likes graphs and data – so here you go 😉 We had about 80 responses to the survey. This graph shows all data for all salary ranges, the y-axis is the percentage of respondents.

Teacher Gift Giving Data for all Salary Ranges

How Much to Spend? Teacher & Daycare Gift Giving Survey to help figure out who gets what and how much to tip!

• Pre-K 1-2 days a week had a gift giving mode of $21-$30.
• Pre-K 3-5 days a week had a gift giving mode of $11-$20.
• K-6 had a gift giving mode of $21-$30.
• Daycare Full-time had a gift giving mode of $21-$30.
• Daycare Part-time had a gift giving mode of $11-$20.

Respondents had annual salaries ranging from $0  to more than $200K, however the largest number of respondents had an annual household salary of $100,000 – $124,999 (22%) with an annual household salary of $75,000 – $99,999 being the second largest number of respondents (18%). Interestingly, I found that there was not a large correlation with average household income and the amount of money parents reported they planned to spend for households making over $75,000 per year.

I’d love to thank all the amazing men and women who dedicate their days to caring for and educating our children. We wish you all a very happy holiday!