New childcare tax break to be announced by the Government today - what do you think?

I'm sorry that's how it came across, curryeater. We earn more now than we did before we had DS (which was still healthy, probably 32k each). We had a typical 20-something graduate/working lifestyle, such as we were taught to expect in the late 90s when the aspiration was that 50% of people would go to university and magically become professionals. If I'm stating a list of the blinding obvious you don't have to take it as aimed at you, the thread's in site stuff which I take to mean it provides some examples for MN spokespeople if they're invited to contribute to a consultation.

We both grew up in families where money wasn't exactly flowing and so I guess we know to cut our cloth. I tend to assume (usually wrongly) that everyone drops the luxuries when another call on funds is coming. If our families had lost their jobs in the 80s, there was no safety net whatsoever. So that determines how we approach starting a family.

my point is the same as yours, with less swearing. The only barrier to more employment of parents, male or female, is childcare costs. Everything else is scalable.
Glitter, he is 3. Portion sizes in restaurants are extravagant, that's how we can choose mains and sides for two, and at home our cooking habits changed when we anticipated working long hours - batches in the freezer. I am saying nothing new here compared to the tips in 'credit crunch'. And I am well aware of how lucky we are to be able to repay the country's investment in our schooling/uni by working and earning a decent gross amount. Like everyone else I wouldn't mind keeping more of it, and on this thread that would mean untaxed childcare.

How on earth can you only give a 5 yr old tasters from your own meal if you go out and say that your DS doesn't increase the food bill on your groceries? Do you really know where your money is going? Our two easily eat an adult portion between them and they aren't quite 5. I categorise our spending and on top of school meals at £20 per week, they also have at least another £10 of food attributed to them on a weekly shop. That's getting on for £120 per month which is virtually child benefit in one go, never mind paying for after school care on top.

LexyMa, you are basically boasting that before you had children you had a medium sized house (rather than a poky flat) into which you can now fit children, and went out to expensive enough things (holidays concerts restaurants) that cutting them out makes a difference. Bully for you, well fucking done. Your income is high, you do not feel the pinch, jolly good. Of course you don't feel the pinch. you have a lot of money.
I sense a self-righteous tone in the catalogue of things you don't pay for - no jars, no babysitters, second hand kit - what the flying fuck do you think everyone else does? I think there is hovering in the back of your mind a single mother (gasp) with a new bugaboo, formula, sachets of baby food and lots of new branded baby clothes. Or something.
And what is the point of saying "oh only the childcare is non-negotiable" in that airy tone - I KNOW, and it is costing us about £18000 a year, and that is out of our net. That might not be much to you, but it is killing us, so what does it matter that we never have a ready meal - for adults or children?

LexyMa - that's what we do too. The dh now works from home (self employed, own practice) and therefore can do most drop offs and pick ups. Having said that, to extend our work day, we now use a combi of shared pick up with another family, afterschool club till 6, activity clubs after school like tennis etc so that we both can work the necessary hours. The younger child is in nursery full time.

LexyMa, yes, it is the labour costs. That wasn't so in the 1800s but none of us want to go back to that level of poverty in which the poor lived. Either one of you gives up work so you lose a whole wage or you pay chidlcare. If people are lucky to be in careers where there will be progression then keeping working often pays off longer term and protects you if one of the two careers goes wrong later. If you would always earn hardly anything and it doesn't cover childcare and you can stay sane not working then it may pay to stay home.

I am not sure it is any worse now than when we had our first children in the 80s when no one got tax credits and there were no childcare vouchers (not that I've ever had either of those anyway). It was really expensive then even without a minimum wage. We had 3 under 4 and both worked full time at which point a day nanny can be cheapest - economies of scale.

The child tax allowance which many nations give those in mid life with children as it is for all of us even if we earn a lot of money our most expensive time is now going from those over £50k - £60k. So that means people need to plan - you know the years you have children will be the most expensive so may need to save.

My grandfather did not marry I think until age 40 so as to be able to pay for a family. (He lived in a boarding house with 26 other young men in 1901 census). My parents were married for 13 years before they had children as my mother taught to support my father whilst at medical school. Today I am sure a lot of mumsnetters don't have as many children as they'd like due to cost or wait to have them until they can afford it. May be nothing has changed.

If you pay childcare to a daily nanny who is your employee then that comes out of taxed income. So roughly you multiply at 1.666% if 40% tax. So Say she is paid a gross wage of £25,000 for 40 hours a week that means 41,665 of gross income if you pay 40% tax or about £20k for each of the parents - never let women be saddled with childcare costs - men need childcare too so they can work. Then you might have to pay her tax and NI on top of the £25k. YOu have to pay employers' NI too at about 12%. Anyway it's expensive. Or my mythical £50k single mother I had her paying £14k a year for one full time nursery place.

quite agree, MLB, hence why one of my options is for both of us to drop hours a bit and work 'staggered shifts' to be able to avoid too much before/after school costs. We would rather forego that income (and not be taxed on it either) and avoid paying VAT-ed (I think, correct me?) prices for a childcarer who is also paying income tax. The government takes three slices there - follow the money.

11 years of £1k per month if you have one child. What about if you have two? People on middle incomes are being discouraged even prevented from having children if they want to stay in work.

It's simply not true that childcare costs greatly reduce once your child is in school.

Often before and after school clubs do not start early or go late enough for parents to work full time. This is the situation I and many other London parents are in.

So then you have to employ full time nanny or send child to private school that has long enough hours. Therefore you can expect to pay equivalent of full time day nursery place for 11 years.

Ok, I'll give you a new straw man here and fess up to not really feeling the pinch at the moment. Together we earn just over 100k gross, live in a two bed ex council terrace, run one car for my commute and DH takes the train. I don't think we are much worse off with one child than we were without.

Yes, we paid nearly £1k a month from 6m to 3y and since then we are paying more like 600/m. I worked out how much tax was saved from this earlier in the thread. Come Sept I am likely to be on ML again as DS starts school, but when I go back to work we will either juggle our working hours (possibly both going 80% of full time) to be there at the start / end of the school day or pay for childminder and breakfast club for him and FT care for DC2. But the expenditure we have so far foregone by being parents (i.e. the drinking money, extravagances, holidays) more than outweighs the nappies.

I doubt DS makes an appreciable increase to our heating, washing, food bills. Breastfed exclusively until I went to work, then weaned on the same food we were eating, plus morning and evening breastmilk. Have never bought a jar of baby food and could probably count on one hand the baby ricecakes I may have grabbed in an emergency. I've been tight enough sometimes to give him the mini jug of milk you get with a pot of tea in a dept store cafe.

We drink less booze (at home and out) go to fewer concerts, restaurants, clubs, etc. We go to restaurants as a family (have done since he could sit up) and he eats tasters from our meals and drinks water. Have only ever used the "children's menu" at pizza express. So rarely have babysitter costs. We think more carefully about the value for money of a holiday and mostly don't bother. We have spent little on activities like softplay because of already having paid (through council tax) for public parks, nature reserves and playgrounds, so we get the use out of those. We buy a lot second hand - toys, clothes, buggies.

We have the same size house as we would without a child. We have sunk 40k into extending it, from 1 to 2 reception, 2 to 3 bedrooms. I've no idea whether this will be reflected when we sell but it will enable us to live here very comfortably with 2 DC as long as we need to. We'll therefore move when job economics says so, not family size.

I think (as my epic post comes shuddering to an end!) that my point is for working parents the only real cost driver in having children is childcare, and it increases more than pro rata for subsequent children. Everything, absolutely everything else that I can think of, has cheaper or free choices available. Take Childcare Costs From Gross Pay, I say, but I can't see this being done other than through linked tax self assessment of both parents (no matter how much under HRT threshold the second earner makes) and therefore lose the principle of independent taxation (which we already have with the CB grab)

If those without work know that the £50k mother on h er own as the same money as they do presumably they have sympathy for her if they find their own money rather short?

No I don't think so. As you yourself keep pointing out, the fact that she has stayed in work means she hasn't suffered loss of earnings or pension and can expect her standard of living to increase. The amount she is paying in childcare will be greatly reduced once her child is at school, so her misfortune in relation to childcare costs is for a few years only. Then of course she is also investing in a property, which is a realisable asset.

Her only sacrifice is the same sacrifice we all make when we have children, in that they cost a lot of money to care for - whether you stay at home with them and lose earnings, or you choose to pay someone else to care for them.

She is, and always will be, in a vastly better position than someone on benefits of £26k, much of which she doesn't see as it goes straight to her landlord - and who, like 90% of the working population, will never earn anything like £50,000pa.

If both myself and my husband worked we would earn £30k pa before tax combined. We have two children so childcare would cost £17k full time for two per year leaving us with £13k per year to live on.

So dh works full time for £15k pa and i stay at home raising our children and earn nothing.

Dh is disabled and cant look after child but i have a BA(hons) so more qulified and more likly to get a better job but no as im a women and work in the same industry and job as my husband!

There needs to be affordable childcare to encourage women to work.

Also i feel its ok to have five year breake as im still only just 30 and have 40 years to build a successful work life.

That is why childcare should be fully deductible from gross income

There has to be some incentive for people to work their arses off for 26k net income (ie about 50k gross) rather than 26k tax free benefits. If you are on 50k and have to pay 10k childcare out of your net income no wonder you are pissed off. I am.

olga - this not really a breastfeeding thread but with the tiwns I worked for myself, mostly was at home. I was in the home office, the nanny was across the hall with the babies. When they needed a feed I went in to feed them one on each side (they were gorgeous, I love breastfeeding) and it was just I did not do the holding when they cried during the working day. That was much easier than 10 years before expressing at work with the first few who in those days the nanny gave my milk to. It is technically demand feeding whether they drink direct fro yor breast, are fed your milk on demand by a carer or your husband or are demand fed powdered milk actually.

The important point of young women to know is that many of us have exclusive fed our children breastmilk and even back in 84 when my first child came I could buy a very good book on how to work full time and breastfeed so anyone conning you into staying home and shooting your career to pieces on breastfeeding terms if you would rather work needs to be given very short shrift and shown how well many of us combine in all kinds of different ways breastfeeding and work. IF people want to breastfeed. We have the worst breastfeeding recording in Europe whether stay at home mothers or working mothers sadly in the UK. We are absolutely dreadful at it and huge numbers of women at home stop it in a week or two so it is not a hugely material issue in relation to whether women work or not.

If those without work know that the £50k mother on h er own as the same money as they do presumably they have sympathy for her if they find their own money rather short? Surely they would. If this thread has helped those who don't work and are supported in effect by the full time working single mother on £50k I expect they feel jolly glad she works so hard for the same money they get without working as otherwise they might starve.

I certainly though have never said jobs are easy to find at the moment. They aren't and we need to do something to stimulate industry, make the UK THE place to be to found your company etc.

The point some people are making is.. That those people on supposedly higher incomes (40-50k) aren't better off! At least whilst they are paying for childcare whilst working their socks off.

One thing this recession is doing very well is giving a very good kick up the bottom of some women and indeed plenty of them are now flocking back to full time work

Something else you've got completely wrong.

Unemployment down, but not for women

A survey conducted by Working Mums found that 24% of mothers have had to give up work as a result of the changes. The government itself has recognized that ?the reduction in support through the childcare element of tax credits?will particularly affect women in lone parent households? as 60% of the recipients of the childcare element of the WTC are single parents.

And how about this? Working families most hit by Autumn Statement, says think tank

Do you seriously think anyone in this kind of position gives a damn about your poor single mum on £50,000 a year?

I do agree that many people seem to forget that benefits are tax free. Thus person on £12,000 per year paying tax. Person on £26,000 benefits per year not paying any tax. How can this make sense.

olgaga - she still fed herself in the evenings and at nights. Which is pretty demanding in itself, and it's good to see her example that breastfeeding is not a barrier to work and work is not a barrier to breastfeeding.

AnAir Oh, FFS. I returned to work FT each time when my kids were around 9 months old and kept demand feeding until they were 18 months. You know what the secret was? When I wasn't around, they didn't demand milk, but were perfectly happy with the solids and water on offer while I was away. Neither of my kids ever took a bottle -they didn't like them.

Certainly demand feeding is no reason to need to stay at home until they're five.

Also am not sure how much you're "incearsing yeir learning protential" when all they learn from you is that a mother's place is in the home fulfilling all their children's demands.

Xenia, you talked about how you "demand fed" your twins while working full time on another thread. I wondered how on earth you managed to work full time with twins strapped to you.

Now I realise you weren't "demand feeding" at all. You had a nanny, who was doing all the caring - and all the bottle feeding.

Another of your mythical "superwoman" achievements exposed as dishonest, misleading twaddle.

Demand feeding is not a nanny with a bottle.

The points im making are

1. SAHP are contrubuting posativly to sociaity

2. There should be a tax brake for SAHP and those parents that use childcare

3. The poor could care less about your personal circumstance Xena because we are too busy trying to suvive on £900 or less per month. I would love £50k pa

Demand feeding is where the mother is available all the time to feed the child when the child wants to bf not when the mother choice to bf the child!

i think the research shows that the best childhood predictor of future life success is mother's education level, NOT income.

Why are we bringing bf into this argument? But if you wish...
I bf my first child till aged 2. We stopped because it got to painful; realized I was pregnant with no 2. He refused formula. Would wait for me to bf him at the start of the day, during my lunch (I rushed to nursery) and then at the end of the day. Whilst we are talking about this, I also blw him.

Baby no 2 is now over 2 years old. And she's also bf. still in fact. But eats v well, also blw.

I went back to ft work when they were both 6 months old. We couldn't afford for me not to be at work. Despite the fact that we both have postgraduate qualifications and in an ideal world would be seen to be highly qualified and professional members of society.

And good job I did have a job because dh got made redundant when baby 2 was 1. Otherwise we would have had to sell up, move to council house or something and get some handout. So frankly having a job has saved the gov some benefit claim from my family.

Let us leave breastfeeding to one side. I demand fed twins and worked and I am no superwoman and with the older children I could express often at work and the children were fed by our nanny my milk when I was not at home from a bottle - that is still demand feeding and it meant I could financially provide for them.

The best start in life for most children is a high earning working mother who breastfeeds surely and works full time? Why is that not the best start? Why would someone assume mother at home is best? Most women work.