How did your life change after your childcare bill went down?

[Bulblasagnes]

Did you notice the difference or did it get swept into other projects (home improvements etc)? We will be saving a substantial amount once the last DC goes to school. I’ve been paying childcare costs for so long I stopped thinking beyond them but suddenly the end seems so close (September school start).

For us it was holidays! We couldn't go on holiday when we had 2 in nursery, as soon as youngest stared 30 free hours we put the money into a holiday fund. We still have childcare due to after school but it's nothing like it was. We have a holiday fund now instead and go abroad every year.

(We also bought a house as we could afford a mortgage more easily when childcare reduced as our rent was actually very cheap previously, that sounds a bit more grown up doesn't it lol)

Yes we will use after school club but it’s not much compared to what I’ve been paying while (especially when they were really small and didn’t get any free hours)

That’s interesting that you bought after finishing with childcare costs. Conventional wisdom is to buy before you have children if you can. We realised why when we had to include our huge childcare costs when applying for a mortgage with two children! It meant we could only buy a modest in the London area compared to our actual gross income. I don’t think we can be bothered to move house just because we can afford to without those high childcare costs! But looking forward to some nice holidays

Holidays for us. When in nursery (and outside of term) we could afford to go once every other year. Once in school it was once a year till.

The real question is what happened when we cancelled our membership to David Lloyd. Better holidays! City breaks. Romantic getaways, yoga retreats, that was before Lockdown of course.

It just got swallows up elsewhere. We still had to pay for before/after school childcare, plus holidays.

Once they started school we started to have to pay for their hobbies and interests, tuition, school uniforms, day trips (because a trip to the park won't cut it), more expensive toys etc. And frequent requests for robux!

We are out course better off financially, but not as much we we thought.

With covid and wfh, we haven't had childcare costs since March 2020. It's been lovely. Just utterly lovely.

@Bulblasagnes my husband gets subsidised housing through his work so we were paying about £200 a month in rent, we couldn't get a mortgage that cheap, so for us it was easier to buy after having children and getting through the childcare years (we had kids young so we still managed to buy in our 20s).

And yes that's why we had our first mortgage with NatWest, they didn't deduct childcare from affordability! (At the time at least)

For us it's home improvements right now whilst holidays are off the cards, but as soon as we can book a holiday we'll take our first foreign trip away.

The extra money is a god send right now. So much needs doing in the house/garden and now we can actually start working our way through it.

We’ve overpaid the mortgage by the amount we’d have spent on childcare

My kids had music lessons, they cost a lot!