How do childcare costs go down when kids go to school?

[Yeahthatthing]

We're doing DC1s school applications and I'm astounded at the number of people who assume we must be looking forward to it as our childcare costs will go down. They won't! When breakfast and after school club and holiday care is taken in to account the cost is the same or very slightly more than we are currently paying for nursery.

Do people's child care costs really go down? How?

I don’t think there are any children in my child’s class who go to before/after school
club every day. Most families have at least one parent working part time or self employed or with flexible working arrangements so that they can start/finish earlier/work from home for at least a few days. Many workplaces are far more flexible and parent friendly these days. My sister has just arranged 2 late starts and and 2 early finishes in exchange for a reduced lunch break and later finishes on the remaining days. Her DH has done similar so the kids are only in after school club for 2 days.

The more noticable price decrease is the 30 hours funding, especially if you need holiday clubs as well as wrap around there isnt really much difference.

We juggle a combination of flexi hours from me alongside morning club and childminder in term time and dh is a teacher so he covers all holidays.

But you don't need to pay for 50 days holiday club - if you and your partner are canny about it you probably only need to pay for 3 or 4 weeks maximum and split the 13 weeks school holidays between you. As a family we only ever had 1 week together for a holiday during the summer, the rest we looked after DD individually.

JeSuisPrest we'd likely need 10 weeks holiday club as both of our works have lots of parents needing school holidays off so the time we can take is strictly limited.

@Yeahthatthing That sucks, sorry.

@isabellerossignal Your CM is either a CF or doesn't understand. Afterschool/before school won't affect her ratios. She can still have an extra full time pre-schooler and your dc before/after school.

No, she can't. I understand that might be the case in England, but I'm in N Ireland and that's not how it works here.

Sorry, I just read that back and it sounded very sharp. I didn't mean to bite your head off.

@isabellerossignol that is really rubbish if no school clubs (none at all?!) and CMs can't Charge for after school only.

So everyone either picks up or pays for full day childcare 😳

Definitely. Before school, ds childcare cost £9000 a year. Once in school childcare cost £50 a week for 39 weeks school, plus £1500 holidays =£3450.

There are probably after school clubs in bigger towns but no, there are none where I live.

But yes, that's the deal with childminders. Unless they are feeling very charitable and choose to only charge for the hours they actually have the child. But if you're in an area where there is a shortage of childminders, as I am, then you have no choice but to pay. Otherwise if the CM gets approached by the parents of a preschooler she will just give you notice and take the preschooler instead.

I suppose the exception would be if she already has three preschoolers on her books, therefore you wouldn't be preventing her from taking more.

But I had three different childminders over the years and they all charged a full day rate for before and after school.

We only get 15 hours free funding and not 30 hours, so costs will go down when he starts school.

That reminds me. Someone tried to start an after school club a few years back in my area. But...it was a mile away from the local primary school and she didn't provide the service of collecting the children from school and taking them to the club. So the only people who could access it were people who were already at home at school pick up time to pick their child up. Apparently the lady was baffled as to why there was no demand for her services

When mine started school there was no wraparound care on site. I had to pay for a club at their old nursery who dropped off in the mornings and picked up after school. It was £30 a day, which was as much or more as the cost of nursery with funded hours.

@yeahthatthing that's rubbish if out of the 13 weeks school holidays you and DP can only get 3 of those weeks off between you
I think your quoted costs of £15.80 a day for nursery are amazingly cheap and I guess if you got 30 funded hours not 15 then yes your costs will go up
I'm sorry but you will find childcare almost impossible to get over the christmas holidays as lots of childminders close and there are not many if any holiday clubs running
you might find a child minder cheaper than breakfast club if you only need 8.30-9 also as after school club is often the same price whether it is 3-5 or 3-6 if you only need it to 4.30 or 5 a child minder per hour may be cheaper again. I think breakfast club at £5.50 is expensive when you might only need half an hour but cheap if it is 7.30-9 and they get breakfast

The cost itself isn't too much of a worry as we were coping fine when we didn't get the 30 free hours, it's just that everyone seems to assume that we'll make a saving when DC start school and we won't, just wondered how common it is.

A childminder isn't any cheaper. I might be able to condense my hours (currently on mat leave) but not sure how practical that will be as I do pick up and drop off as DH commutes by train. He's asked about condensed and can't.

Not sure what we'll do between Christmas and New year, they might have to stay with granny.

Mine will go down hugely. We already have one in school and so only pay for a childminder after school for 2 hours for her. When our youngest goes to school we will drop from paying for her 40 hours a week (my childminder doesn't offer funding) to just 10. Our typical monthly bill is around £900 to £1000 and will be cut in half if not more. Plus we can deduct tax free childcare from that so our monthly bill is going to be under £200.

We're only entitled to the basic free hours when they kick in and no tax free childcare. Our part time nursery fees are 10k a year. So for us it will go down quite dramatically.

Basically, we've found it kind of the same too. Mostly because our childminder took the old childcare vouchers but our holiday clubs don't, so we pay 20% more instantly for holiday childcare.

Wraparound care is cheap here but the holiday clubs are expensive. Plus DS is not yet 5yo, so he'll have to go to the expensive nursery run holiday club instead. Very luckily for us, breakfast club opens at 7:30am and this was the reason we chose the school. DD is now old enough to walk to/from school by herself, which I think is when it really does start to get cheaper.

We're even considering sending DC to the private school attached to the nursery as the wrap around care is included in the fees, they offer onsite holiday clubs and there'll be a 12% discount for DC2 in nursery and school, making it overall cheaper than nursery/ state school/ wrap around care combo. Seems mad to me!

We would also split holidays amongst DH and I, resulting in just one week together as a family. Grandparents also had DD for a week in the summer. I ultimately got a more family friendly job for the primary school years. Not ideal but the stress of juggling school holidays and inset days was too much without any nearby family.

Breakfast club £4
After school club until 5:30 (I only use it until about 4:45 but you have to pay for the whole thing) £15
Thats £72 a week.

In the holidays a full day is £40, but it ends at 4pm so I will then need to pay someone else to collect him as I don’t leave work until 4:30.
Without additional care in the afternoon thats £160 a week.

@Yeahthatthing we also considered private school for DD because of the wraparound childcare options and priority holiday club with long opening hours.

I went from paying £50 a day for childminder to £16 a day for breakfast and after school and £26 a day in holidays.

Other savings were that during holidays we only pay for days we use.

So we saved several thousand a year.

I very rarely need holiday care, I appreciate that is costly. It went down when my youngest started school as it made better sense all around to utilise flexi dropping kids off at school rather than breakfast club, whereas before DS1 was in before and after school club full time as DS2 was in nursery full time. I've even managed to work my hours to knock off an after school club so mine only go 4 days a week after school now, after voucher savings it's costing about £150 a month in total, much less than what we were paying for nursery, especially as the nursery charged a lot for food when the 30 "free" hours came in. It wasn't as noticeable going from the 30 free hours to starting school admittedly. To think at one point we were paying £1400 a month for only 4 days a week, it's much better than what it was!