those of you who use tax free childcare...

[bloominconfused]

please help me understand how it works!

Been trying to get my head round it for bloomin' ages.

My understanding is that the most they will contribute is £2000 a year.

My fees are paid monthly but the amount varies as to whether it's a 4 or 5 week month.

So, 4 week month it's £1000 a month and 5 week month it's £1250. How does this then work with the tax free childcare? How do I work out what my fees will be monthly with tax free applied? How do I know how much to pay into the account every month?

Not sure if I'm being stupid or not!

They updated it all recently and have sped payments up massively. I pay via bank transfer now using the bank details and ref number they gave me when I logged in and the payment went in very quickly. I have attached a screenshot of the email, I hope this helps (and i hope it attaches....)!

@mindutopia and @HoneyBee03 that's not been my experience of it unfortunately, but maybe I've been unlucky. And if our nursery don't have your money in their account by the 1st of the month, they automatically collect it by direct debit from your current account. It hasn't ever been an issue for us as we keep a month's worth of fees in the tax free childcare account as a buffer, but I can see that it could potentially be an issue some months for people paying out of their salary with only a couple of days to make all the transactions.

Oh no, that's rubbish @wintertime6. They don't make it easy. I pay a childminder and I don't know how long it takes payment to reach her account. I assumed it was fairly instant! I'm lucky that she's very laid back about payment date but totally understand nurseries would be picky. The tax free childcare is a saviour but it can also be so stressful.

I got the job!! Thanks all for the help advising about the tax free child care, it's been very helpful.

Well done! Definitely worth a chat with nursery and explaining the situation and they may well be ok with the payment not clearing for a few days. Mine clears pretty quickly though I think. It’s so hard sorting everything out when you first go back, but it does fall into place. I love having time to be me instead of just Mum, and find I enjoy time with DD much more now.

Me again if anyone is still around!

Slightly different predicament...

I emailed the nursery to get DC booked in FT from beginning of January, they responded quite quickly saying all fine, I then sent a follow up email enquiring about how I get the tax free childcare set up with them and they haven't replied! This was last week now. They replied same day when I asked about booking DC in FT but then when I mentioned the tax free, they just havent responded and now I feel awkward, do i phone them, broach the subject in person, send another email? Should i just go ahead and set up a tax free account and then email the nursery to let them know I've done this?

Just look them up on the tax free account. They get paid with a ref which has your child's name in it.

You need to set up your gov gateway childcare account. You can select your childcare provider from their list. You really need to start just doing some of this stuff yourself and stop expecting everyone else to do it for you (us, your nursery). Just bloody set up an account and figure it out!

@TartanMarbled Right. I came here originally, simply to enquire how the tax free childcare works in reality as the gov site wasn't clear. It said £500 every three months but I wasn't clear on how that would actually work on a month to month basis. Very helpful, got the answers I needed to be able to calculate my finances and work out whether it would be beneficial to return to work or not...blah, blah, blah. I emailed the nursery asking about the tax free childcare because I currently pay them by direct debit every month and again, I was unsure whether I needed to speak to them prior to setting up a child care account or whether I was fine to go ahead and set it up. I didn't want to fuck it up and thought it best to clarify first. Clearly, they didn't bother to reply to my email because they, too, assumed I was a useless idiot, but thanks for your help, now I know that I needn't have bothered checking with them first and I am indeed fine to just go ahead and set up an account.