30 hours free childcare help

[Porterface84]

Hello

Just after a bit of advice with the 30 hours free childcare per week as my LO is entitled to this from January. However, doesn’t seem to look as good as we first thought and wondered what’s people’s experiences of this are?

Currently LO attends nursery approx x3 days per week 8-5 so approx 27hrs (can vary with my shifts but this is worst case)

Nursery are flexible so I only pay for when she attends. There’s around 9 weeks annual leave that we take which nursery don’t bill us for and the monthly bill on a full time month/no annual leave averages between £300-£350 after the government top up tax free scheme. Rarely it’s a bit more.

So the question is whether to take up the 30 hours or not as nursery have said they charge £45 per week for costs and then £6.80 per additional hour. We would likely spread the 38 weeks over the year so it would likely be around 22 hours free + per additional hours + their costs per week.

Just not sure if it’s even worth it as on months where I have annual leave or my shifts are weekends we can pay as low as £200 per month and if we take this up we will be at £180 with just costs before anything else.

Have I got this right? Seems to be pointless. Any advice/thoughts would be great thank you.

[FTMF30]

I have no idea but just bumping for you. I'd also be interested as DS will soon qualify for 30 hours free too.

[Snozzlemaid]

What on earth are they charging £45 a week for?
They can charge for consumables but I'd be asking exactly what their costs are.

[SMaCM]

You're very lucky to have a nursery that can offer this much flexibility. The government don't pay the full cost of the 30 hours, but it should save you some money. Work out your costs over the year.

[Ilovesugar]

Our little one is in 30 free hours and we stretch it over the 51 weeks (1 week nursery is closed at Christmas) which like you said is 21/22 hours.
We have top up payments for food which is £5 a day I think. Definitely works out cheaper but not as much as you think

[RonaRossi]

We have 17.5 hours a week left of the 30 hours to use on day nursery (12.5 hours goes on school Nursery hours) .

Ds3 goes to day nursery 3 days from 11.30 - 6 (and includes school collection). The cost of this is £96 a week and the nursery get £78.75 paid (17.5 X £4.50 per hour). That leaves us with a bill of just under 20 quid a week so it's saving us a fortune.

Not specific to your op sorry but I know when I was trying to get my head round it some real examples were useful.