Brian Snyder / Reuters file

According to a survey, 52 percent of dads say they are the primary supermarket shoppers in the household.

There’s a good chance dad might be shopping for his own Father’s Day breakfast in bed this Sunday. No, he’s not in the doghouse, but apparently dads are doing more of the grocery shopping these days.

According to a survey released this week by brand marketing firm Cone Communications, 52 percent of dads say they are the primary supermarket shoppers in the household, and 35 percent of moms admitted fathers have more influence when it comes to grocery purchases. 

“This research goes against all stereotypes of the ‘Father Knows Best’ dad who doesn’t concern himself with domestic responsibilities,” says Bill Fleishman, president of Cone Communications, about the online survey that polled 1,000 parents with children under 17.

The company’s research also found dad shoppers aren’t just winging their supermarket hunting. Dad’s polled said they:

• Create a detailed shopping list – 63% (vs. 65% of moms)
• Collect coupons or read circulars – 56% (vs. 62% of moms)
• Plan meals for the week ahead of time – 52% (vs. 46% of moms)
• Perform background research on grocery products – 24% (vs. 11% of moms)

And moms are more likely to spend more time in the grocery store than dads. While Cone’s study found fathers were doing more of the grocery shopping, Today Money Facebook fans we informally polled Friday largely said the opposite it true.

“If my husband went to the store we would be having frozen pizza and macaroni and cheese for dinner every night,” said Mariska Colbert of her husband Zac.

And Melissa Klement added, “Wish my hubby would do it.”

But Roberta Harwood Speller, who works in a grocery store said: “There are several men that shop each week there for their families. They do very well. Even have their kids with them.”

For those of us who just can’t accept father foragers in the supermarket, it may be time set aside your bias in the aisle.

“We’re finding that dads are not acting so differently from moms in their approach to grocery shopping,” maintained Cone’s Fleishman.

(Full disclosure: My husband does most of the supermarket shopping these days, but I have to write up the list.)

More from msnbc.com business:

• That bundle of joy will now cost you $234,900
• The search is on for America's ugliest car
• Family, work balancing act? Dads have to do it too
• Another summer and broke families plan staycations
• NBC Nightly News video: Finding the hidden bank fees

Follow msnbc.com business on Twitter and Facebook

UrbanSitter.com's study on average hourly rate by city and number of children watched

Parents in New York City are dishing out the highest hourly rate for babysitters in the country, at $15.50 an hour. But even in lower-cost cities such as St. Louis, date night can cost nearly $10 an hour just for someone to watch the kids.

UrbanSitter.com, a site that provides babysitting services to parents in cities around the country, reviewed its database of several thousand sitter bookings and found the average hourly rate for sitters in the Big Apple to be more than $20 for three kids, with Los Angeles and San Francisco not far behind. 

The average hourly rate per child nationally, the site reported, was $12.75; and the average total booking for jobs was $67.

While babysitting costs can add up, the hourly rate hasn’t changed much in recent years, partly because there are so many more babysitters trying to get into the market, said Lynn Perkins, co-founder of UrbanSitters.

“There are a lot of college students and graduates looking to babysit because the cost of college is going up and parents are looking for kids to help support themselves,” she explained.

Nannies and college graduates with early childhood education experience still command higher fees of $16 to $22 an hour, but college sitters with little experience are willing to work for less, she said.

The steep price tag makes date night a rare treat for many parents.

Susan Fox, founder of Park Slope Parents, an online community of 4,600 families in Brooklyn, N.Y., did her own survey this year and found that 53 percent of neighborhood parents said they didn’t go out more because of the sitter expense. 

“We found the average cost of date night and sitter combined is $158,” she said.

Fox has two young children and goes out about once every three weeks. She pays her sitter from $15 to $18 an hour.

No matter the cost, some parents are more than willing to pay.

Nina Balan of Chelmsford, Mass., doesn’t care if a night out with her husband, David, ends up costing more than $200 including sitter expenses.

Courtesy Nina Balan

Nina Balan with her daughters, Sofia and Ava

At about $12 to $14 an hour, she typically ends up paying about $75 for for the sitter plus a tip of $5 or $10 tip if the couple is late getting home.

“We need Mommy and Daddy time,” said Balan, who runs mommy lifestyle blog MamaSaysWhat. 

While nothing’s going to derail date night, she does wish she had family nearby to take on some of the babysitting so they didn’t have to dish out so much money.

But Balan said she’s willing to pay a hit higher than the going rate because she requires more from the sitters who watch her daughters, Sofia, 8, and Ava, 5.

“I ask all my babysitters to have CPR and first aid training,” she said. “And if they don’t have it I offer to pay for it. I know it’s a bit nuts but that’s what I do.”

By Jessica Mintz,
msnbc.com contributor

More parents are saving for their kids’ college educations before the youngsters even hit kindergarten. But between the pressures of a stalling economy and the ever-rising cost of higher education, those savings will cover just a fraction of the cost of a four-year degree, according to a new Fidelity Investments study.

This year, 67 percent of parents surveyed have started tucking away money for tuition. That’s more than the 58 percent Fidelity found in 2007, the first year it conducted the study.

More than half of parents with children aged 5 or younger are still paying off their own student loans, and nearly half are paying an average of $576 per month for junior’s preschool or day care. Yet 40 percent are juggling those financial obligations with a dedicated college fund for junior, too, up from 27 percent five years ago.

Even as parents grow savvier about saving, those college funds are projected to cover a shrinking portion of the cost of a degree, according to Fidelity’s calculations. Today, Fidelity expects the typical American family will be able to pay for 16 percent of college costs, based on current and expected savings. That’s down from 24 percent in 2007; over those five years, college costs have jumped 26 percent, Fidelity says.

(As a plug for the value of financial advisors, Fidelity Investments also notes that parents who work with an advisor are on track to cover 31 percent of college costs.)

Parents are far less optimistic than they were a few years ago about the amount of college costs they’ll be able to cover with loans. And more of them – a full 75 percent – say they don’t want their kids to graduate with a mountain of debt anyway.

Instead, a growing number of parents are asking their kids to work part-time to help pay for college. They’re encouraging junior to live at home and commute to school, to pick public schools over private universities and to graduate in fewer semesters.

The percentage of parents who believe they are responsible for footing the bill for college was higher this year than in 2007, and they are increasingly going back to work or getting a second job.