"Can't afford to go back to work"

[sphinxa]

Genuine question ...

I often see people saying they couldn't afford to go back to work because of the cost of childcare when they only have 1 child.

The minimum wage is over £7 and the average cost of a nursery is £5/hr. There's tax free child care or vouchers to reduce that cost.

So what do people mean when they say "my wage wouldn't cover childcare costs"?!

When I went back after my 2nd child, I had two under two and after childcare costs I think I came out with about £50 a month. We decided it was still worth going back to work for the benefits of maintaining my own career, pension contributions, autonomy... and eventually when the kids get their free hours we'll be laughing (hopefully).

If people want to stay at home that's great but do people use "can't afford" instead of "want to be a SAHM"?

The introduction of auto enrollment into pension schemes in the past couple of years might actually make a difference to this in future when people are weighing up the long term costs. People talk about pension contributions but until recently, huge swathes of workers didn't have access to a work based pension scheme.

But at the end of it all, if you are a fairly low earning family you just can't afford to take a loss of £100 a month or whatever even if it would be beneficial in the future. I think when people are on big salaries they don't realise that £100 is a huge amount of money to a lot of people.

Rent/mortgage and bills are things we'd be paying anyway.

In our house it is a shared cost so I guess I meant the household pot is £50 better off when I first went back to work.

I'm looking at this from a couples point of view (as most of these posts are from women in relationships with the child's father). I assumed single parents would be up against far more challenges.

And in some areas there is no such thing as 30 hours free childcare. It's only England and Wales isn't it?

You have boiled it down to wanting a career and benefits vs wanting to be a sahp. It really isn’t that simple. Putting your argument on the flip side others could say it is incredibly selfish to want to enhance your career while only coming out with £50 a month. You sound very judgmental. Do you enjoy seeing the opposite judgment passed against you??

The finances and logistics are different for each family.

But when making the decision it is worth bearing in mind that childcare enables both parents to work, not just the Mum, and paypacket isn’t everything. Pension pot, promotion opportunities, professional development, all get set back for a SAHP with long term effects.

Funny how, just coincidentally, you never hear it being said that childcare costs wipe out the father's salary so he's not going to work until they're older. Or that it's unreasonable to expect the father to go to work for £10 a day after childcare costs.

That's not basic mathematics. Don't be so disingenuous.

This wasn't a sahp vs working parent question. People have different lifestyles and if people choose to be a sahp then that's great. I was asking why people say they can't afford to go back to their previous job.

If I hadn't have gone back I would've had to pay my maternity back.

Funny how, just coincidentally, you never hear it being said that childcare costs wipe out the father's salary so he's not going to work until they're older. Or that it's unreasonable to expect the father to go to work for £10 a day after childcare costs.

But you do hear that, when the father is the lower earner. In families that I know where the mother has a better job that's exactly what they do. The dad goes part time or gives up work if the sums don't add up.

It means it's not worth it for the small amount extra.

Full time I earn £1300 per month
Full time nursery is £1200 per month
Travel is £100

What would be the point?

I have three children anyway so I'd be in negative figures by now.

I didn't post to be judgemental. As I said it was a genuine question.

I think getting "angry" about it is a bit over the top!

I don't understand why you'd have DC in the first place if you'd rather put them in the care of strangers and work for nil income.

^ that is a fairly shitty thing to say. Why be mean?

The "precious time" comments always make me smile though. No thought it given to the person or tax payers missing their precious times to finance those moments.

You’re presuming that the taxpayer is funding this. My DH is a SAHP and finances were a part of our decision. I earn enough that I don’t (and shouldn’t) qualify for benefits so no one is funding our decision.

I’m not so naive as to think that childcare is flexible and affordable for all. Round here, there are no childminders at all in a three mile radius. The local nursery takes only three year olds and up and the baby nursery attached to the private school are about £60 a day and you have to pay for all full days with zero flexibility. That rapidly becomes unaffordable for most people on normal wages.

There are 2 groups of mums, those who really want to be caring 24/7 for their kids until at least they start primary school and those who are bored senseless by being stuck at home and feel that not being at work in some ways makes them start to lose their identity. Sometimes the first group are forced to work as they cannot afford not to (and are often miserable because of this) and sometimes the second group are forced to stay at home as they cannot afford the childcare( and they are also miserable because of this)
There is no right or wrong but it would be good to acknowledge the following. Parents who stay home and care for their kids full-time until they are established and settled at primary school are not lazy and setting a poor example of not working, they are telling their children that they are the number one priority. The mums who chose not to work for a take home of £50 a month are generally the ones that want to be with their babies and therefore it is not worth it. For those who are more career focussed and want to progress quicker at work, they would be okay with working for little take home to stay on the ladder and the thought of not being at work to them is often as stressful as the stress of not being at home for another person.
I always wanted to be at home and had 3 within 3.5 years so childcare would have been astronomical. However, I was lucky enough to have a job that was happy to contract me for one day a week, in the knowledge that I would increase this as the children got to school age. My husband was able to work full hours over 4 condensed days which had the added bonus of him fully understanding the stresses of being the SAHP on the one day a week. Ironically, now, having been very much earth mother, children come first, I work long hours and DH has a home based job so does all shopping/ cooking/ school stuff but we have just worked it out between us over the years and thankfully not needed paid childcare for anything more than 1 day a week for a few months between first 2 kids.

I don't have a career. Working full time hours and missing out on a lot of my 3 children's time for £50 a month has absolutely no benefit to me other than an extra 2 takeaways a month. My job prospects aren't changing, I'm not keeping my foot on the career ladder. I'll be NMW again, just like before when I do decide to go get a job again.

Also, my DH works continental shifts that change each week. I would have to either work a job that's school hours only or have childcare for 4 hours one week and 24-48 the next. It all depends on what times I would be working and if they coincided with DH's working hours that week. I would be loathed to pay for childcare for three kids when DH is sitting at home.

So I cannot afford to go back to work. I'm not claiming benefits and I'm raising my own children myself.

Not all areas have lots of nurseries, CMs, etc, so you can't shop around for the best price and the market is driven by demand. Plus you have to provide lunches for LO or pay extra for the hot meals at nursery childcare... it doesn't always work out for some. We were okay, but I know a lot of people who weren't!

Does the taxpayer not fund the free nursery hours too??

You have to pay for more hours of childcare than the hours you are paid to work.

Eg Monday to Friday 9-5 job is 35 hours (1 hour lunch).

But nursery will charge for 8-6 Monday to Friday which is 50 hours.

I think it is very unusual to get a full time nursery place for under £220-240 pwk and is often up to £300 pwk.

The min wage is £7.83 which is £274 pwk.

But then you have to factor in travel costs which is probably going to be a car if you are doing a nursery run as well as a commute.

Just to run an old car is easily £500 per month which puts the costs above the wages.

Then there’s the hidden costs of work like clothes, bag, hair/make up in some environments, milk/gifts/ professional registration/ stationery.

For one child it is just about doable on a temporary basis but since most people have 2 they are likely thinking ahead that it would be undosble then.

In four years my nursery bill went from £500 a month to £800 a month. My wage didn't go up a penny in that time. In fact my wage hasn't gone up in 16 years. I do think some nurseries are out of touch with reality and what people can afford to pay. Tax credits hasn't helped this situation.

You are talking about nurseries, which are opened all year round.

Things get incredibly difficult and more expensive when the kids start school - wrap around care adds up quickly, emergency childcare for sickness (if you even find someone who accepts to look after a sick child) - holidays - inset days.

Some of us have family around and enough space to host an au-pair.
It's not difficult to understand that families who have neither would really struggle!

By the time I have paid childcare, car park, train ticket, I have spent a fair whack of my monthly income. It would be totally pointless if I didn't have help or a lower salary.

I don't really understand the people saying if you're on universal credit its not worth going back to work, because it really is. You will ALWAYS be better off on UC. DH was made redundant a few years back and when his redundancy money ran out, we had to claim UC as my wages wouldn't cover our outgoings. 2 years later, we are both working with a joint monthly income (after tax) of just under £3000. We still receive just under £200 UC a month. We'd have to be bringing in around 3400 to zero that out and if you added in childcare that would be more like 4000. I know UC is frought with problems and the implementation has been horrific, but once you're on it, it works. It's genuinely better than the old system, and we are much better off because of it, whereas under the old system we would have struggled.

Me: asks genuine question

Poster: you're being judgemental

I'm not sure where I am being judgmental. I'm trying to understand where these "can't afford" comments come from... and now I do. So hopefully I won't be judgemental when I read them.

Because not everyone is on amazing dual wages. Because not everyone can afford bills mortgages fuel public transport money etc if they're forking out for childcare. My friend comes out with £2 disposable income at the end of the month. I would've come out minus several hundred as I didn't have a childcare-friendly job (long long hours, long commute, shit pay).

I do think some nurseries are out of touch with reality and what people can afford to pay.

the workers there are usually paid the minimum wage, I am always astonished that people are happy to spend £10-£15 an hour for a cleaner but resent paying anything to look after their baby! Of all the things that matter, surely that should be your most important spend. (I know not everyone has a cleaner, but nurseries are an expense you shouldn't resent)

This is a strange thread. You really can't understand how someone's childcare might work out £51 more than yours per month, or that their salary might work out £51 less? You yourself must be reasonably paid, if you were on NMW you might well be losing money by working, and not everyone has that to lose.

There are also a number of things you're not factoring in. The first is commuting costs. It's not particularly uncommon for people to pay a couple of hundred a month for petrol, train tickets, whatever. That can tip the balance quite easily. The second is that pension and progression are irrelevant for some people. Take pensions, if you're on a low salary then the difference between legal minimum contributions for a couple of years and nothing for those couple of years doesn't make a great deal of difference. The legal minimum really isn't very much at all. And progression is only relevant to people with a reasonable expectation of progress.

Of course there are also families where the salary of the lower earner does still leave them in profit after working expenses, just not enough for them to deem it worthwhile. They make a different value calculation to you. You see progress and pension, neither of which are actually available to everyone, they see I'm not missing all this time with my kid for the sake of £150 a month.

I myself have always worked since having children, as has DH, but we've both been able to work around DC and come out with much more than £50 a month profit after the lower earner working. I think we might have found having a SAHP for a short period much more tempting if working wasn't significantly worth our while in the short term, even as people who both want to work.

Does the taxpayer not fund the free nursery hours?

Is this equating not having paid employment with not being a tax payer? Loads of people who work don't earn enough to pay income tax. And very very high earners can avoid paying their share of income tax. But everyone, working or not, rich or poor, still pay tax in other forms.

The only way I could return to work full-time is because my parents have my daughter 2 days a week for me, so I only need to pay for 3 days full care.

Even that is 3x the cost of my bloody mortgage! Granted it’s a small mortgage but still. Tax-free childcare doesn’t reduce the cost by that much. I’m a single parent and it fucks me off endlessly that dd’s dad pays the bare minimum whilst I fork out nearly half my wages for childcare. But that’s a whole other thread!