Random musings about the cost of childcare

I ama also a childminder in Greater Manchester, I am NVQ Level 3 (Nursery manager) qualified and because I am in competition with lots of other cms, 3 day nurseries and after school clubs in my area am having to keep my prices down at £3.50 per hour or £25 per day (snacks + drinks included).

My friend has just had one of her OFSTED inspections and the inspector told her she should charge £4 per hour as she has a Nursery Nurse (NNEB) qualification. Do they live in the real world? We have trouble getting the parents to pay their fees now!

If I went back to work I would choose a cm over a nursery simply because I have worked in the one near me and did not agree with some of their working practices. This is why I went back to cming.

Nurseries are the cheaper option here too, they do look after a lot of children so can keep the hourly rate down whereas a childminder is self employed and has less children and set their own prices.

I'm lucky that I have family to help and when DS starts school in September there is a very cheap before and after school club so I will use that.

If i didnt have family, i probably would have gone for the nursery option as it was the cheapest when i looked as we dont qualify for any help with costs. I also like that they group children together by age and dont have to travel in cars, go out to do pickups etc and visitors are far more restricted. Plus there is cover for staff holidays and sickness.

Its all about personal preference, cost does factor in it though as it has to be worthwhile going to work financially for most people.

CM and nursery costs are the pretty much the same where I live. I pay £29.00 per day for DD aged 13months, including all meals. There is an outside pay area, they go on walks in the local area, children have birthday parties at the nursery from time to time. It is possible to get a slightly cheaper CM, but the ones i considered using, reputation wise, would be the same, a little more than the nursery.

The flexibility is pretty much the same, when I compared the two ptions. CM and nursery both charge for days when DD is off, due to illness etc, both have options for bringing in a bit earlier if work needs it. Nursery also has short days, and drop-in sessions which I have found extremely useful. This is something I found more useful than a CM as I often need it with short notice. the CMs I looked at were, unsurprisingly very subscribed, and the days I used them for, were often only the days I could have their service, as the other days usually were full so unable to take DD for a couple of hours as a drop in.

I was initially surprised that the costs were similar, but on reflection not. As it has been said already, nurseries and CM offer the same standards of childcare, as long as you have the right ones, but the type of childcare is different, and I think for many people the costs are not factors in the decision, but rather the needs of the child/family being met best by one or other.

i suppose it depend on if your child needs childcare 5 days a week 7.30 until 6pm.
if this is so then i suppose cm and nurserys work out the same price
i have a little boy who comes to me now who used to attend nursery his hours are 7.15am until 1pm, i charge per hour but nursery used to charge per session (7.30 - 12.30 and 1pm -6pm) so the parents are paying less to me than they did to nursery.
also it depends on what parents want for their child as to what setting they choose

There isn't much difference around here between the two - parent will choose what they think is better for their child.

I am a CM and charge the same as the local nursery........I am ALWAYS full (with a waiting list) and I know the the nursery has spaces at the moment

When i was looking at childcare for my dd 10 years ago there wasn't much difference in price between nurseries and childminders even then - so it's not a new thing.

Well with DS's CM I get to take 4 weeks hols at 1/2 fees and she takes 4 weeks hols at 1/2 fees when I have to ferret around for childcare. At DD's nursery I get 3 weeks hols at 1/2 fees and they are closed at Christmas for a week and I am not charged. So, as I always book Christmas as one of DS's weeks, it works out very similar.

I work Tues-Thurs so bank hols are not an issue.

I have always used CM and never used a nursery for a variety of reasons.

I have paid daily rates, set fees per week and at moment pay an hourly rate for DS CM. DD's CM I pay set weekly fees as her hours are constant.

Range has included £22 per day.

£68 for two of them for two days

£4 per hour

£8 for before school to include breakfast and £12 for after school to include a snack.

A local CM to my house charges £6 per hour

Sorry for typos - I'm off to bed!

I think parents are recognising the quality of care from an experienced childminder can be very high. Higher, possible than can be provided by nurseries with a higher adult: child ratio. Childminders are regulated by ofsted, and have to doing a reasonable amount of paper work and ongoing training. I believe childminders feel they are worth at least £3.50 ph.

My CM charges £5.50 for a drop off - worth every penny and more, they are fabulous.

One factor may be that now that maternity leave has been extended to one year, nurseries are having a harder time filling places, so have to lower their prices, or not increase them as much.

Are you sure that CMs really have become more expensive than nurseries - daily rate may be higher, but many offer a deal whereby you don't pay for their holidays and their days off sick...whereas at a nursery you pay for the place and pay whether you're they're or no, or if you use bank holiday days, they're open or not. I realise there are variations on this with CMs, but I've never heard of a nursery which doesn't charge year round.

Christina, Im going on what the parents that come to me tell me. They are telling me that they want the type of care a CM can offer, which IS different than a nursery can offer.

Whre I live (in London) nurseries are more expensive than CMs (about 10-20 quid a day difference). I chose the CM route for lots of reasons and price wasn't one of them. It works for us

DD's nursery costs £31.50/day. I pay £28/day for DS in the hols. But I don't know if my CM has a flat rate for children of all ages.

Shoshable - I used a nursery for my two not because I don't want them to go to the farm, playcentre or whatever. What an assumption to make. I think you're seeing some kind of divide between CM and nursery users when in fact it's not there.

our cm is much cheaper than nursery.cm is £10 for 4 hours

Well I use a childminder for DS (no after school club or holiday club option) and a nursery for DD. The other day the childminder was off to attend her DD's graduation. Fair enough. Was not a big effort to arrange for DS to go to a friend's for tea. Would probably have had to take the day off if DD was there too.

Here we are about on par with nurseries on price, but nurseries then charge for lunches which we don't, and how many nurseries do you know that go swimming, to soft play, walks, farm visits etc. Different kind of care altogether, people that come to CM's don't want the same sort of care as nurseries, which I think is why they come to us, price hasn't really got much to do with it. Incidentally, I charge 29.75 for a nine hour day all inclusive (apart from nappies and baby milk0 compared to 32.00 at the local nursery, they also charge for lunch.)

in the area I live there is a high demand for childcare that does school pick up from the village school, the Nursery charges £21 for before school (8am -8.40am) and after school (3pm-6pm with light snack)and the only childminder is £10 for the same with full meal, but both have massive waiting lists ( hence me in process to register as CM!)
However am sure if another nursery opened in village, prices would drop as demand would drop if you get what am saying

I had DD in a nursery for half days and short days, around DS's school hours. I think what I meant was that a CM could possibly do the after-school pick-up and have the child for just a couple of hours. So it would be more flexible and cheaper than any other arrangement. Or perhaps drop a child off at nursery and pick up 2.5 hours later. I don't know if there are that many that actually do it or if you'd need to pay them for those 2.5 hours too, I have no idea, just saw some children at DS's school being cared for in this way (but never asked about payment arrangements).

Compared with 7 years ago when we started looking at nurseries for DS there are many more around now for DD. At the same time, I now have a car so I can look further, all these options may have been available then as well, I just didn't know about them. So the increase I see may not be real. The prices haven't gone up as much as I'd expected.

I'm going back to work in 6 weeks after maternity leave and was grateful to have a valid reason to "sack" my childminder. She was so much more expensive than a nursery and afterschool club will be and she's up to (in fact ofsted have approved it and she's over) her quota of children. So my lo's will actually have less children to compete with for attention.