To be angry about the new "free" nursery hours

Well said! I sympathise, OP.

Nursery fees are a joint expense, why are they coming out of your salary alone?

The free nursery places are an incentive for people on low incomes to get back into work and not rely on the state benefit system

As a single mum, when I had my daughter 10 years ago, I was only earning £26k and paying £900 a month on nursery fees. 😭Basically all of my salary- I wasn’t entitled to any nursery fee as back then there was no subsidy for children under three years old and I managed , I did get some working Tax credit but boy was it a struggle
you and your husbands salary combined is nearing what the prime minister earns , you don’t need free nursery hours - you just need to manage your expenses better
i have known People salaries like this but who are usually living somewhere very expensive, and of course you are right to live according to your salary , but when children come along you lose a lot of your money to child care fees, and things they need , so I would suggest maybe moving somewhere cheaper if you are just renting, switching to a community day nurseries rather than a private one , cutting back on non essentials such as holidays , and shopping for clothes and toiletries in discount stores - home bargains is amazing
100 K should be more than enough for you both to live on with two children. I managed on £26,000.
I took my daughter to a community day nursery it was near a housing estate but it was wonderful, at 2-3 yrs old she was writing her name and reciting the alphabet . They also potty trained her.

Threads like this make a sole parent, childcare provider, feel so valued.

Well the prolific posting would say you are bothered and don’t actually understand the issues at hand.

How did you draw that conclusion? I’ve said nothing to that effect at all. Again it just fits your narrative. I don’t even have children in nursery anymore.

I think the cut off should be based on household income if there has to be one, same with child benefit. Ultimately more often than not it’s women’s careers and finances who suffer in this situation and having it based on household income would even this out. Yes OP is lucky she can afford to give up work if she wants, many struggle to afford to work even with the funded hours, and I can see why there has to be a cut off somewhere. But it’s flawed that a couple
can earn 198k a year and get funded hours when others earning 100k a year cannot.

My DH earns over £100k and I heard about £35k working part time. I actually worked out we're financially better off both working four days than either of us working five once I'm back at work after maternity leave. It makes no sense and his employer is unlikely to agree to it unfortunately.

Could your DH maybe look into dropping a day to take his salary under 100k?

And for those saying £4k for two children in London is extreme… it’s really not. £1900/2k FT per child is the going rate in our neighbourhood (zone 2). And believe me, we looked everywhere. DC is starting in September

I agree the Tory tax burden is too high.
But after nursery years people are better off at all salary levels.

People are not paying tax just through nursery years, they pay every month, every year more and more. You can’t keep taxing the hell out of everyone and expect people to strive to get promoted or strive to grow their business. People won’t work hard for no reward.

@Mouswife 100% this. My husband self funded a masters and worked so hard to it get whilst working full time. Really pushed himself to get ahead in his field, because he loves it and is passionate about it. But you look around and think- is it worth it? The extra stress and being in a job that full on when he could step back and earn less, get more benefits and be in a similar financial situation.

How am I being obtuse? She doesn’t qualify for 30 hours free childcare as she earns over £100k. Her fees have recently increased. She believes this increase is due to funding free childcare for others.

i understood the point of a forum was to opine on others posts? Did I misunderstand?

To be clear, no I don’t think anyone earning over £100k should be entitled to the 30 hours free childcare. Yes I do think that if the government is offering free childcare that they should fund it and not expect those that don’t qualify to subsidise it.

I take it you don’t care who pays for the childcare as long as you receive the subsidy?

Yes. Also not eligible and have seen fees increase. And I have twins so, you know, two little people in nursery concurrently. I love our nursery but it is galling.

It's funded not free ..never free. On someone on less money working NHS I took home £5 after a 7 hour job on free hours. I gave up my NHS job.

It quite literally is though, there are recent statistics available that show the average nursery fee is not 2k in London.

I currently have 2 children under 3 in nursery on the border of zone 2/3 so I last looked at nursery pricing incredibly recently actually.

If you both earned 75k would you be able to afford to give up work and be a SAHM though, living on 75k between you and keeping your current lifestyle?

I had the same. My salary was £200 less than nursery fees a month. I hated my job so it was an easier decision to leave but now that I’m not working I fear that I will never be able to go back to the level I was. It is very frustrating that as a family you are paying very high taxes to support initiatives you cannot access! No problem with paying high taxes for quality services but seems we are paying tonnes to get nothing back.

Well quite. And the same applies to its affect on her taxes.

Well OP does work and presumably pays her taxes and NI. If all her earnings are taken up with nursery fees and she quits work then she will no longer contribute. That said, they won’t be paying nursery fees for ever.

I agree it makes no sense. DP and I are actually both just under the threshold and qualify but cumulatively make much more than our friends, who don’t (the wife has a much higher salary than the husband who is in the public sector). It doesn’t feel fair and also massively disadvantages single parents.

Yes it’s crap. Our nursery has just increased fees by another 12% after a 10% increase 6 months ago. We are struggling but we aren’t allowed to have financial frustrations or issues according to Mumsnet because we earn SO MUCH MONEY.

The decent child care round us has an 18 month waiting list. There was one childminder I found who is term time only and affordable, but no spaces. By the time I’ve factored in commuting costs (I don’t drive), then yes, I’m working at a loss.

I agree that the term time only childminder would have been financially viable. Unfortunately >£150/day isn’t. Possibly our fault for not getting DD down for a (cheap) nursery space when I was less than 3 months pregnant.

Being a SAHM is a real privilege, I don’t deny that. But for us it was also a financial decision.

They aren’t though, are they? And nursery years are short. After that they are massively better off. It’s all nonsense.

It should be done on household income, whatever that is. But the big problem being the benfut system and tax system is separate. They can't tell who is linked to who and it would currently be very complicated. The same goes for child benefit, which they are actually planning on bringing in. It's just going to take time and money.

Also the government labels this as 'free' childcare hours when in reality it isn't and nurseries do net get enough funding to pay for the hours that are offered. We have seen local nurseries close as they can't afford to run due to these free hours. Either that or they just can't offer them, that is why fees have gone up and so have ratios. I imagine is worse in London as they will have even higher building and wage costs then those outside London. I have no idea if the government are offering London nurseries extra but I wouldn't imagine so and if other nurseries are struggling then it will be more expensive for London nurseries.