Tax free childcare for 3 primary school kids

[Arrowfanatic]

Ok, still trying to see if financially it works for me to return to work or continue being a sahm.

So I have 3 primary school kids and I'm applying for a job which means I'll not need any wrap around care but will need holiday cover.

Husband works shifts so if I got the job it wouldn't be every day.

Anyway doing the calculator thingy and estimating on childcare costs for the summer holidays monthly for example (roughly £400 per child per week) it says we would get £2880 of help a year towards childcare costs of £14,400.

That doesn't sound like very much to me, but could I pay into the account each month say £400 and save it ready for the big holiday childcare costs. Does anybody else do this?

£14k!! That is eye-watering.

£400 per child per week?! Holiday clubs round here (London) are half that. What childcare are you going to use?

£400 per week per child? Its about £130 per week a child here at a Childminder or Kids Camp.

It's £28 per day in Yorkshire for 1-6pm holiday club (including meals)

Sorry no - 7am to 6pm I meant

Are you sure about 400/child/week??

£400 per child per week? Even here in SE it's not that much once school age.

Holiday cover here is close to £70 a day per child maybe because it's not run by the school itself but by an external agency. Obviously I'd get sibling discount but I was being overly generous in a "worst case scenario" kind of way as I've never used paid for childcare before.

I would look again at options - can you ask other parents at your school as the all day sessions here in central London for school age are much more reasonable than that

I'm absolutely certain that you can get good quality childcare at a much lower cost than that. And don't forget that you won't need it for the full 13 weeks of school holidays - you and your DH can take annual leave to cover quite a bit of it.
Does your DH's employer and/or your prospective employer offer childcare vouchers? These are another good way of reducing your costs.

Childcare vouchers are finished now hence me querying the tax free option

Anyway, my question is can I use this account to "save up" each month to use in bulk for holiday care.

Would you not consider a nanny to cover it? Much cheaper than your quoted holiday clubs. Are you completely sure of the cost? I live in South West London and the most expensive one around here is £40 a day per child (also externally run).

I use tax free childcare account but have never tried this. I would ring them and ask - they are quite helpful on the phone.