It’s been eight years since Lisa Tenetuik worked a day job, but now that her two kids are in school, she’s accepted a position as a receptionist at Brightrock Financial.

She and her husband have avoided paying for child care since their first child was born — except for a brief six-week window when she was a new mom.

“It made no financial sense. We crunched numbers. It was crazy,” she told CTV News from her desk at Brightrock.

“My husband was like, ‘You might as well stay at home. Really, what's $100 or $200? We might as well cut back and (you) stay at home.’ So that’s what we did.”

But it hasn't been easy. Tenetuik’s husband works full time and she’s always worked evenings and weekends. She currently works every other weekend and one evening a week for the City of Warman, on top of her new job with Brightrock.

The position at Brightrock was created with a working parent in mind. The shift begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m., and Tenetuik is given summers and every school holiday off.

“This is exactly what I was looking for. I can avoid having before and after school care. That’s $5 an hour for each kid,” Tenetuik said.

In the last two years, parents in Canada have had to pay eight per cent — about $46 per month — more on child care, according to a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. On average per month, child care is $850 for an infant, $710 for a toddler and $655 for a pre-school aged child in Saskatoon.

Co-author of the study David Macdonald told CTV News pre-school aged children make up two-thirds of children in child care. The highest fees are in Toronto, where it costs about $1,000 per month. Parents in Quebec cities pay the lowest at $174 per month.

While Saskatoon ranks around the middle, parents here spend the most on subsidized child care.

“What it will mean for young families is one of their significant expenses — if not their most significant expense on a monthly basis — is going to be child-care fees,” Macdonald said.

Nancy Lautner, the executive director of Tykes and Tots Early Learning Centre in Saskatoon, says finding an answer to lowering child-care costs is difficult. A good start, however, is allowing more families in Saskatchewan to qualify for subsidies, she says.

“Advocacy for better funding, better supports is what’s going to improve the system,” Lautner said.

Tykes and Tots charges $730 per month for a pre-school aged child, which Lautner says works out to about $4 per hour. More than 80 per cent of the company’s budget goes to wages, with the remainder going to food, programming and supplies.

“Our goal is always to keep fees the same (or) decrease if we can, but that’s very rarely a possibility,” Lautner said.

The average childhood educator with post-secondary education makes about $16 per hour, according to Lautner.

The federal Liberals are working on a child-care plan, which is expected to be finalized next year.