You knew your childcare bill was only going to be £200 a month?
When we began TTC we factored in that childcare would be about a grand a month.
However… the 30 government funded hours are being applied for 9 month olds from September 2025. Our baby is due in November.
We have enquired with two providers, both childminders, in time for my return to work next year. Their day rate is £45 for a 10 hour day, and we will require 3 days a week due to compressed hours. In term time the funding the childminders receive covers their day rates. Both have confirmed this to me. There is an optional £5 a day consumables, but you can avoid this if you send your own food. Obviously the funding is term time only: our preferred childminder then spreads the cost of the holidays across the whole year, meaning that our bill will be only around £200 a month if we opt to pay the consumable charge. On top of that we will get tax free childcare so another 20% off.
I was under the impression we’d be paying £1000 plus a month for the next 5 years, but £200 feels like nothing.
Mainly because of childcare costs, I initially factored in that I could only have 9/10 months off. I am now wondering why don’t I take the full year, as borrowing 3k on a 0% credit card would be paid off in several months after returning to work. Given we thought that money and some would be going to childcare, what’s the harm in using it to buy more time off? Everyone says you never get that time back.
(We haven’t saved to cover the extra time off as we didn’t think we would need to).
Tell me if it’s silly!