cm club what would you do? sorry long................

well thats nice and it must make you feel better!

i charge £2.50 per hour plus £2 per day for food, i pay for toddler groups which costs about £5 per week (i go to 3) then i charge whatever it costs to go on a trip for eg strawberry picking is £5 a basket therefore it is £5 for mindee to have their own basket and they take it home with them. occasionally i will take them to soft play and not ask for the money as i only ask for money if i write to them in advance and soft play can be spur of the moment if its miserable or the kids need to let off some steam.

Although I am a childminder, I wanted to say - in defence of parents - that unless we actually spell out exactly what we expect from them (be it money, lunches or whatever), then they may not know!

I don't think that they necessarily know that changing hours might be inconvenient, that arriving 10 minutes early is a bit of a nuisance (my particular bugbear!) or that providing juice and free-range, organic, additive-free snacks is actually costing us money. We might know that other local minders charge more per hour, charge for each outing plus petrol, but the parents might not.

Having said that, when I sign up new parents or get the guts up to review contracts with current ones I'll be making them pay full for outings - I think I'll say it'll be a max of maybe £8/£10 a week during the holidays, any excess I'll pay. I'll make it sound all optional etc, but it really does add up and somehow I'm not actually earning enough to cover it!

I think a minimum of 50% is very fair.

I don't charge a day rate, I still charge per hour (which is between 3 and 3.50, dependant on mindees length here/siblings/other factors)

I've never found parents expectting a 'sessional' rate so I personally wouldn't do it, it just seems like yet another discount on childcare which is already cheap!

During school holidays I do a big outing a week, and usually ask for £5 per child. It generally works out around £9, and my stance is parents and I pay half each. I'm making money scrimp a little more these holidays, and spending less on luxuries, and we're getting just about two good outings a week out of up to £10 a child (half my expense half the parents.)

During school term with the littlies, I just go to a drop in (which does tons of activities) and pay the cost myself.

dmo - it sounds like you are doing a brilliant job and you put me to shame, the only places I take my mindees is toddler groups and the park, sometimes they get to go on the tram but thats about it because otherwise I'd be forking out a fortune in taxis.

I think you should review you prices, if you want to carry on with the sort of stuff you do now put it up to maybe £25 a day, or keep your prices the same, ask them to provide lunch and cut out the expensive acivities you could always ask for £10 a week extra in the holidays to cover outings

Maybe you could also go over your policies and state that if they don't bring swimming money then you can't take them. How many children do you take swimming? I can only just manage with my dd in the changing rooms I couldn't imagine taking mindees

The money side and dealing with parents is definatley the worst part of the job

see this is the problem with typing everything it can be taken out of context, confusing, same with MSN but if u hooked a phoneline up so women could chat no-one would get a word in or ever be heard lol

completely agree with you btw, swings and roundabouts but there are limits on both sides.

oh lovemygirls I am sorry that I have concerned you - I am not at all offended. Think my post was too much directed at you. I think you have given dmo some great advice because she is really been taken advantage of. I am really impressed by all you CMs and how much thought/effort you put in.

Like I say it is just luck of the draw that my CM is having an easy month this time. I refuse to send DS to her just because I have paid for it. So if I fancy taking a day off and taking him to Blackpool with his sister and his cousin I will. Likewise if I decide to take a day off to clean out the kitchen cupboards I will still send him to the CM.

sorry bozza wasnt directing at you, took me ages to finish typing post, popping on and off like i do. didnt even read your post before i started typing... Think you are being very reasonable with your cm i was talking about dmo's mindee's family. phew, did that make any sense

lovemygirls. I am being very fair to my CM this week! I am paying her £26/day but sending DS to a Church holiday club 10.30-3.30 for which I am paying an extra £2.75/day and having to provide a packed lunch (she normally provides lunch). And I have only sent him 2 out of the 3 contracted days the last 2 weeks. And she doesn't have to collect him from holiday club on Thursday because he is going on a sleepover.

But the way I look at it, you win some, you loose some and she is winning this week....

my understanding of a childminder is that, we care for the child, we make sure the child is safe, we help the children to learn through play, do provide the children with a variety of activities to keep them stimulated and out of trouble.

For this service that we provide we should be paid fairly for it. They are not being fair on you and you need to tell them.

i really feel for you being taken advantage like this.

why are your charges so low?

I think make a decision. Either charge reasonable rates and carry on subsidising the trips or start making them pay the actual cost of all trips etc.

LOL at lovemygirls example. But agree with her. You need to start being firmer. Also your rates do seem to be very low. DS goes to a CM 3 set days a week. For before/after school I pay £3/hr. I pay for 3.5 hours but usually pick him up about 20 mins early. For holidays I pay £2.60/hour and again pay for 10 hours (so £26) but often pick him up 20-30 mins early. She does include the price of trips out but he doesn't go on so many trips and certainly not with gifts from gift shop etc althought she will buy things like ice-pops etc. Trips might be to the park etc and only one paying trip per week eg to soft play, farm etc.

charge what goes out of your pocket, they are ripping you off and i wouldnt stand it, you get so little as it is why support that child.

you are mad imo, for eg. you're taking them to a farm so its £6 entry then drinks and ice cream so the total will be about £8/9 at least and you're charging £4! if the parents took the child themselves they would have to pay £6 for him plus entry for both of them plus a couple of bags of food to feed the animals plus drinks and anything else they wanted like gift shop etc so would probably end up spending about £20 minimum (i know because we went yseterday and did this) i charged mindee's mum £6, i htink it was £4 entry then there was the fact i was paying for me to get in, plus petrol, plus food to feed animals. in total we spent about £20 plus petrol.

i took a packed lunch and enough drinks so i didnt have to buy them there.

childminders don't get paid enough imo so the least we can expect is for it to not cost us more than it is already. yes i would take my own children anyway but that doesnt mean i should be expected to pay for another child (luckily/ unluckily, i only have 1 mindee but can you imagine paying out an extra couple of pounds for each child - when are you going to make any money?

it would be a bit like going to work in an office and being expected to supply your own staples and paper plus buy the boss lunch everyday for £2.50 per hour!

I don't charge anything for activities we do unless child is coming specifically for that day only. I think that most minders seem to charge something for activities though.

I tend not to buy things like drinks and icecreams though, and we don't buy anything from gift shops.