How does anyone afford childcare!!

That “help” towards childcare doesn’t cover the cost for either the parent or the childcare setting. Therefore, childcare settings have had to raise nursery fees to cover the shortfall from government hours. So a day at nursery will cost between £70-100, if not funded hours. As a result of this underfunding and childcare settings having to prop up their fees with under 3s, not every setting will be able to offer the additional funding for every under 3. The tax free childcare is £500 per quarter and so for a family using more than 3 days of nursery a week, not all their bill is tax free.

The cost of childcare is one reason we are likely to stop at one DC. If we have another, we’ll have to wait until DC is at school and then as I’m the lower earner, I’ll need to drop to school hours only so we don’t have wraparound care, just holiday cover.

We have just moved out of London after having our second, as 2 x 4 days in nursery would be over £4400. We weren’t able to make It work financially despite both having well-paid jobs, and we knew this. Went ahead with small age gap given my age and chose to compromise on where to live (jobs not amenable to WFH or compressed hours). I don’t think it’s possible to “have it all” unless you’re truly loaded or have lots of family help.

Child care is definitely expensive. I think in your situation (where child care costs effectively cancel out an entire wage) id consider some options. Can you condense hours, one of you do Monday to Thursday and the other Tuesday to Friday ( assuming your mon- fri workers). That’s two days a week less childcare. Would it be feasible for one of you to stay at home for a couple of years? Or is a temporary job change possible for one of you, working evenings and weekends instead?

Have you looked to see if childminders are cheaper I'm in west London and a childminder is around £960 for 40 hours.

Mine is 1.4k a month for dd2 full time, so that will be dropping a little in April with the new subsidies (nursery have started the ball rolling on that). We did a 3 year gap so our oldest is now in reception, and me and dp both flexi work to get our jobs done evenings and after school, so no wrap around for the oldest. We knew he wouldn't cope with it well.

We're not in our 'forever home' but we did buy a large 3 bed flat so everyone has their own space, and we're very slowly and cheaply fixing it up still! We don't holiday either, but we live 2 minutes from the beach, and we do day trips.

It's hard, but it's short lived.

Yes but it’s only very short term. I had toddler then twins so was forced to work very part time as it didn’t make sense financially for dh to cut hours and he was commuting etc. after mat leave, dd3 had a year of funded care and we juggled a babysitter (while I worked upstairs) and dh took leave for set days I had to work but otherwise I worked when dh was home (midnight working at home very regularly). Then dtds got funded places at nursery and dd1 was at school so I upped my hours and got a permanent job. Dtds started school and I went back to full time.

Life is about sacrifices and you cannot have it all. It’s a bit unrealistic to expect to be able to, but it’s a very short term couple of years in the scheme of things.

Honestly the childcare conversation never ends. It's really really hard for working parents. Our DS nursery fees was just under £1K per month. Thank goodness he started reception September last year. We try our best to work around each other for wrap around childcare and luckily for us, our jobs are quite flexible. We're thinking about having a second baby but I just don't know if we want to have such a big expense again for another 3+ years.

• £900 after TFCC and funded hours are used. DD will get some funding in September I think.

I think this is true. I gave up a career in law after two as if made no sense financially as he was higher earner. I got divorced. I now earn 30k working a nice , flexible, for the LA and get top up UC. If I’d kept my original job I wouldn’t be entitled to any benefits.

Decent quality affordable childcare would help keep women in better paid jobs imo

I have a 3yo and a 1yo. I work 3 days a week and they’re with a childminder 8-5 on those days. Childminder - who is excellent - is £7.50 an hour, 3yo now gets 30 funded hours (we pay a top up on these hours though) and we use tax free childcare on top as well. Total monthly bill for both is around £900 depending on the month.

With great difficulty if you have more than one child and aren't earning megabucks. Or you have your kids far enough apart that they won't need ft care at the same time.

Fulltime childcare for 2 would have been 150% of my salary, and that was 12 years ago - 'luckily' I was made redundant at the end of my second mat leave (NB it was legitimate, not targeting me due to having a baby) and I think they were surprised how well I took the news my role was at risk as I'd done the maths and honestly getting a redundancy payout was the best thing for me as I still had a few months until my oldest started school. I guess if I'd kept my job I'd just have taken a loss for a while - my SIL did this for years, as her kids were just under two years apart.

You both do a 9 day fortnight (compressed hours may be an option too) so one day each week you alternate looking after the DC.

Yes absolutely I agree it is so hard doing the longer days, it all depends on whether it’s worth it for the OP to save on the childcare costs and really needed. Also depends if they get to WFH etc which is easier to juggle.

OP, as others have said have a look at any extras you are entitled too but also play around with a salary calculator, your hours and your husbands and the number of days you can reduce at nursery and after school club / holiday childcare. Eg if you both drop down to x30 ish hours a week rather than condense full time into 4 days (which is exhausting / might not be possible) would that save enough on the childcare to make up for the lack of salary..

Grandparent does one day, I do one day, DC are in nursery 3 days which works out at £1400 per month for both of them.
We both earn well though. It would probably be pretty much unachievable on an average salary.

£2k is pretty good though unless you're in a very expensive area most people I know have less than that.

I work 3 shorter days, I do 33 hours per week - it doesn't help for nurseries as you would still need a full day but it means we only need 2 days of after school club.

Going part time doesn't necessarily need to mean full days off, depending on your job.

I've just ran the figures on Entitled To (your salaries and childcare costs). I made some assumptions - you both earn half that salary each, both work 37 hrs each, both pay 200pcm pension and have council tax band a.

UC entitlement, £148 per week (12 monthly acts of £641. Plus CB on top (172.90)

I've not used tax free childcare so not sure how that bit works, but the above alone would cover over 800 of the 1800

Could you look at both doing condensed hours so five days condensed into four ?

I hope they do stick to help for all parents. It's very shortsighted to not give support to higher earners because if they stay home with DC they'll just get less tax.

OP, please go on entitled to and put your incomes and the childcare bill in (as if you dc are already in it).

My dh and I earn 58k combined (pre deductions) and had a scare recently - I checked entitled to, just in case, and would qualify for about £550pcm against a possible £900 childcare bill (our elder two no longer need childcare).

Its possible there may be some UC for you.

Yes true but childcare costs have risen a lot in recent years ( along with everything else ). When mine were young there was a bit of help through child tax credits if income was low enough to get them. Now there is up to 85% help through UC as well as all the free hours coming in soon.

I have 2 under 2 and will return to work 4 days a week after maternity leave.

4 day nursery place is around £1500 a month, £1350 with tax free. So two places are £2700.

My husband and I are around 1k short each month when we pool all our income and outgoings, but are fortunate enough to have savings to cover this shortfall for a couple of years.

I am not complaining as we knew this when we had our second so closely in age to our first, and are very privileged we are able to afford to do this, as for many this wouldn't be a possibility.

If it wasn't for savings, we would have waited and had a longer age gap until our eldest gets subsidised hours, but then unfortunately our biological clocks wouldn't have been on our sides!

My niece did 4 long days so got one day at home each week with her baby. She's knackered though with the long hours and not much sleep.

Some people work around each others hours for a few years so no or very little childcare costs. May need a change of job for a few years obviously.

We don’t know yet, they e hinted that they will change it and means test so only the lower earners get it.