The cost of child care continues to rise.

News 12's Kristie Reeter has The Real Deal on the increase, the impact it's having, and her personal tricks on saving money on day care.

"Child care nationwide is up about 3.2% year over year. In the state of New York this translates to infant care to about $15,394 per year, or $1,283 per month, if you are looking at child care that is $12,358 per year, or over $1,000 per month," says Caleb Silver of Investopedia.

Shanequa Charles opened a community-based center in the Bronx during the pandemic.

"A lot of the programming we offered at Miss Abbie's Kids had to do with young people being in our presence, while their parents were not in our presence. The majority of what we offered to parents for their young ones came free of cost," Charles says.

Charles says rent and other expenses were high, and ultimately they had to close their doors.

"I think it is a responsibility of us all to continue to put pressure on elected officials that have the capacity to lighten the load on parents so that they can focus on family time," she says.

Here are some tricks from Kristie:

First, take advantage of the dependent care, flexible spending account if it is provided at your work. This money is taken out of your paycheck before it is taxed, put into an account that you can then use to pay for child care, pre-school and before or after school care.

Next, if you are flexible with the care you need, find a day care where you can go part time, so you are paying for just the hours you need.

Another trick, put the day care payments on a credit card, if you are paying the card off each month, this could result in a lot of credit card points for things like travel, headed your way.