Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

£100,000 free hours limit - means extra £40,000 gross income?

204 replies

FrightHorizons · 02/03/2025 14:15

I’ll be going back to work after mat leave in September.

I have two children, one will be 3 in September and the other 9 months in August.

The only childcare scheme I can claim is 15 free hours for the 3 year old.

For the 3 year old, the 15 hours I can’t claim is £300pcm. This is £5,600 inc TFC.

For the 9 month old, the 30 hours I can’t claim is £700pcm. This is £10,400 inc TFC.

This means I need to make about £16,000 net to pay those childcare costs.

This means earning an extra £40,000 gross to pay that £16,000 difference. Is that right?

I’d love to know how many other parents are finding themselves in this situation - nursery fees are now £2,250 a month for the littlest one too (they were £1,900 when the first started at the same age!).

I am wondering if I have got my sums wrong!

OP posts:
Original poster
FrightHorizons · 02/03/2025 14:26

@Mia85 @Araminta1003 I think the only way of getting around it with pension contributions would be reducing my hours.

I had not been planning on going part-time but that could be the best option (looking at the overall financial picture).

OP posts:
Laralou999 · 02/03/2025 14:23

We’re paying £2300 a month for 2. Thinking of baby 3 and moving to Spain for this reason. After mortgage fixed rate running out and everything else going up, it doesn’t feel financially stable to stay in this country despite us having 2 corporate jobs

Araminta1003 · 02/03/2025 14:18

I thought there was a loophole and you can just put all the extra in your pension? Unless you are such a high earner you have those pension limits too. But you certainly need to carefully plan for it.
There were previous threads about this. Once you are a higher earner you just have to tax and financially plan.

Mia85 · 02/03/2025 14:17

Can you either cut your hours (less childcare needed plus lower income so funded childcare available again) or pay more into a pension to go below £100k? That's what most people in this situation try to do I think.