childcare costs once in primary school - how much to budget for?

[Fhlneihn1345]

DD is off to school in September which means that we won't be paying for her super expensive nursery - we are in the SE. But with all the after-school clubs, holiday clubs etc - I am having a hard time budgeting for our childcare costs.

On average, how much does everyone else budget for per month (if added up across a year?). We both work FT if that makes a difference.

Thank you

Oh & camps tend to run at Easter & Summer less so half terms & Xmas.

Childminders £12-15 an hour here (SE). Holiday clubs £35-60 per day (schoolish hours), sometimes more if something specialist. Pre-covid, school ran after school activities with external providers (drama, gymnastics etc) for about an hour or so for under a tenner. Some schools do breakfast club, some don't. If not within easy walking distance to school, can be hard to find a childminder - for some reason around here hardly any of them drive.

Do people mainly use CMs or after school clubs? Where we used to live people mainly had nannies but it's not really an option for us

Personally I find that a childminder is better for younger DC. Starting Reception is tough on kids and the ones at breakfast/ after-school club often take longer to settle. School wrap around care is also quite loud and busy, where childminder is much more chilled! My youngest will be starting yr2 next year and we are just switching to after-school club.

Childminder here is £25 per day and we pay half to 'hold their spaces' in the holidays. But could just continue sending them.

School wrap around is £5 breakfast & £10 after school. So much cheaper! Also saves money in the holidays when we don't need any child care!

Do people mainly use CMs or after school clubs?

I used CMs until reception as I like the set up. Once in reception, we do clubs. I like them to do activities & it also frees up the weekend. My school offers coding, drama, gymnastics, tennis, lego club, art, etc.

After school club is £11 per child here from 3-6pm
Breakfast club is £6 per child from 7.30-when they take them to school.

Holiday club £20 per day per child.

I’m in Scotland so not sure how much that will help you!

If I had to put the dc into after school club every day until 6 at a younger age then I would chose a CM as pp said. The activity clubs are only 1 hour long & grouped by age eg reception & yr 1.

Wow some of these prices ! DS is 17 so talking 12 years ago. Holiday club at the leisure centre was £12 /day with a packed lunch £15 without (I think a full week was £50) 08:30-5:30 ( included a swim, another sport, a crafty session and some "games"). Not amazing but DS loved it aged 5-9 or so. He also did football club again between £10-20 per day (less popular) and horse riding (£60/ week). In year 7 I think he did some school based sports clubs they were a bit more maybe £65 for 3 days. DN did a week of dance (10-3) for £65 in 2015- that was amazing and a lovely performance at tbe end. PGL is more expensive £40 / day ? But longer days. Breakfast club seems the most veriable I ended up paying £10 for less than an hour. Generally you will pay through the nose for early starts (before 8:30) and late finishes (anything after 4:30) but if you can juggle your hours it can be reasonable.

active8minds.co.uk/?s=&post_type=club&orderby=title&order=asc

Like this one

At our school people mostly use after school clubs. We found our childminder by asking the school - she's been around for years so knows all the TAs and the staff in the office. We needed the flexibility she offered.

It really varies, cost wise. We're deep South London so probably cheaper than z2 (for example), but even so we could probably do it cheaper than we are - we pay extra for the convenience of having someone give the DC dinner and not having to rush back - plus there's flexibility if the public transport is up the spout.

Holiday wise, clubs can be really variable in terms of cost - ranging from £25 a day to £300 a week per child. Depends what suits you really. In the summer we use a week or two of clubs, wfh for a bit of it, have our summer holiday for a fortnight, and pack the kids off to their grandparents on the coast for a week as well. You mix and match to make it work!

Organising holiday cover when you’re both working full time is a logistical nightmare. I pretty much plan the whole academic year out so I know when we’re each taking time off to reduce costs. We have very limited help from family so can’t rely on that. Luckily DH gets very generous holidays so this summer we’re managing to cover all but 6 days between us taking annual leave. They’ll go to CM for three of those (£4.50 an hour and I provide lunch and snacks) and we have three days we may have to call in favours from friends by having their kids in return on our days off.

It does mean that bar one week at the end of the summer holidays and one week at Christmas DH and I don’t have any days off together because we can’t afford to use them for anything other than childcare!

I assume your daughter wasn’t in full time nursery? Because £500 doesn’t seem very much in comparison. I think it’s less of a shock if you have been paying for full time nursery as it feels like it’s cheaper to pay for CM, before and after school club and holiday clubs when you’ve been paying over £1k a month for full time nursery!

Check with the school if they have breakfast and after school club. Our do breakfast club £6 per day and after school £9.50. The child could then stay 8am -6pm.

@allGingerAndTheBiscuits DD did go to nursery full time until Covid hit and since then it's been pretty much £500 per month - it was 2k per month before she turned three. It's just that everyone tells you how much cheaper it get once they go to school but for us it will be more or less the same price as before. Might ask her new school whether they can recommend any CMs in the area

Breakfast club £1 a day
After school club £10 a day

So £55 a week - 39 weeks a year

5 weeks annual leave

8 weeks holiday club at £45 a day - £225 a week

Total per year
8 x 225 = 1800
39 x 55 = 2145

3945/12 = £328.75 a month

Sometimes can arrange other childcare with friends, family, flexi-time at work but if I budget like this then I know the moneys accounted for if I need to use it all.

I’m Surrey and I pay £6 for breakfast club and £15 for after school club (but they provide them with dinner.) My holiday club is £40 a day I think but they’re not currently running extended hours and they’re only in our school 3 weeks before moving to another school. They do run at half term though. The leisure centre run a much cheaper holiday club but it was the wrong side of town for me when I was commuting versus school which is on my doorstep. I negotiated reduced hours at work for the school holidays so I only need to find holiday clubs 3 days a week. My OH has just gone to shifts from office hours so in future I’m hoping to manage with less childcare - however it’s in demand so I don’t want to give up my places just yet. I have to pay whether she goes or not. ( I had so much more money during lockdown 😭)

@Fhlneihn1345 Ah, yeah, once you’ve had funded hours the drop isn’t as big as it seems. If it’s any consolation my eldest is now in year 5 and walks herself home from school (I’m wfh) so no childcare costs. I send youngest to CM after school still four days a week so I can get some actual work done. But it doesn’t feel like such a financial burden (not that you’d know that from looking at our finances, we still seem to have nothing left each month!

Breakfast club £3
After school £7
Holiday club £10 per half day
Worth checking with your local schools to see the prices so you can budget.

After school club for 2 is about £400 per month. Previous breakfast club was about £100 per month.
We budget about £1k to £1.2k per year for 2 to attend holiday club over 3-4 weeks of summer holidays.
So at the moment we need about £500 per month overall for the two of them.

It's better than it was when we had full time nursery for one, and full wrap around care for the other... we were essentially losing £200 per month for OH to work (all household bills etc joint, just showing for comparison!)

SE, Home Counties

Bear in mind you won’t have to pay for any childcare whilst you’re on holiday, so that’s at least one month of the year where you can pay zero, when in a nursery setting you pay every month regardless.

Even with 30 ‘free’ hours a full time nursery place in London is usually still over 1k so I am curious what you are getting for £500.

SE London. Breakfast club is £2 and after school club £10 until 6 if needed, which is very reasonable. Ours run by the TAs and other staff employed by the school, rather than outsourced which makes it cheaper.

I know lots of people say a childminder is easier for young children but we found it was much better to use asc- no additional transition, familiar people etc. If you start with a new CM that's a whole new 'thing' to get used to as well as school.

We are london borough

Breakfast 7 30 to 8 45 £6.50

After school 3.30 to 6.30 - £12.50 or 3.30 to 4.30 £5.50 - if they do a club and you want them to go childcare after until 6 30 you can and pay £9.50.

School holidays they have sports / dance club that’s £96 a week but it’s school hours only.

Your local council should have a list too of both the clubs and CMs

I’m in Yorkshire. Breakfast club is £6 and after school club (3-6pm) is £10, so that would be £80 per week for the 39 weeks of the school year. Holiday club is £30/ day including food.

One thing is that children often find starting reception very tiring, even if they’re used to long days at nursery. My DD found school days plus a couple of hours at after school clubs very tiring, and I was glad she only needed to do two days there. Could you or your DH use flexible working to do drop offs and pick ups a few times a week in the first months? In the longer term, could you both do compressed hours/ flexi-time to reduce the days after-school care is needed?

As a PP has mentioned, some schools do staggered starts for reception children, so you and your DH will need to be able to take leave to cover this.

We don’t have family nearby, so holidays are covered by taking leave and using holiday club. This summer I’ve got two weeks of leave, then four weeks when I’m taking a day off each week so DD is only in holiday club for four days a week (saving a bit of money). I have a spreadsheet to keep track of it all!

It's £21 a day here for wrap around care (8am - 6pm). Holiday clubs range from free (usually run by churches) to £40 a day here. I mixed it up and always took advantage of the church camp (you didn't have to attend, we went to a different church!) as it was Monday to Friday aka free evenings for us!