> £4,000pcm nursery fees

[MidnightPatrol]

For those of you paying this, how bad is it? How do you cope?

I am hoping to have a second baby but it’s going to cost ~£4,200pcm (ignoring any future fee increases…!) in childcare for a year or two.

Slightly terrifying, particularly in context of higher interest rates / higher cost of servicing a mortgage when I come off my low interest deal next year.

How much is the daily rate????

I work out £4200 for an average of 21 days per month is £200 per day! Are you sure this is right?

I'm in the southeast and it's £64 per day and if you put your child in full time there's a discount so around £270 per week so around £1100pcm.

I can't quite believe it's £4200???

My employer offered a workplace nursery and this set up.

I paid around the same amount for 1 non-funded and 1 funded place as friends did for 1 single child.

I also had the lovely perk of work covering my nursery fees when I was on stat mat only.

I agree, My previous idea of childcare vouchers was out of date.

But this site seems to have a good summary of What might be available. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/tax-free-childcare/

I noticed it said eligible if

• "Each earn £100,000 a year or less. This means if both partners earn £100,000 you can qualify, but if one earns £30,000 and the other £100,001, you won't. However, eligibility is based on your 'adjusted net income' (your total taxable income minus certain tax reliefs, like pension contributions, or charity donations). So, if you pay any tax-deductible expenses, these might take you below the threshold."

I think @zendeveloper's idea might be worth researching. After all people borrow larger sums for new cars/ home improvements. If it enables you to keep working. It is a case of juggling and seeing what will/won't work for you individually OP.

@A1b2c3d4e5f6g7

I would be interested to know how the mortgage part of the equation is effecting people.

The cost of housing is so high - if you’ve gone 5x two full time salaries at a very low rate… remortgaging at today’s rates might almost double your repayment.

plus the nursery fees… scary.

Agreed on logistics - particularly when commuting as well.

I agree with this, with the caveat that I’d prefer to see more fathers go part-time rather than it being the mother as default.

The OP’s situation with two parents in very high-earning, full-on careers is relatively unusual. I’m not convinced we should be prioritising further childcare subsidies for people in this position to be honest. Although I appreciate it must be really annoying to pay such high fees.

What I did was plan a 3 year gap so at least some free hours kicked in. Went back part time. Maxed the tax free offer.

One person at my work took a loan! It's a poorly paid sector.

Could you and dh condense your hours into 4 days each? One of you is always off a Monday and the other one always off a Friday. 3x days childcare needed then, and you never really need to pay for the bank holiday days either.

Have you considered a childminder?

And to just add I was your age exactly

It is for your fertility. Freezing eggs is all well and good until you have twins and your childcare fees double.

Oh happy days. I used to haunt the childcare board. This all started 19 years ago.

DD1: combination of nanny and nursery and a preschool where on my WFH day she could go in the morning and come home for a nap while I worked. She was a reliable napper. Yes, I know. But it worked with her cause she slept and I have the sort of 'all hours job' which means that I could be doing something at any period of time including weekends so they got their pound of flesh. I'd stake my mortgage on people managing in this way in the post-COVID era.

I did end up with nearly a four year age gap so that helped but after DD2 I had four forms of childcare at one point: 1) every day nursery school for DD1 in the am, nursery childcare DD2 in the mornings, au pair collecting from both sites, supervised by a nanny in a share we contributed to. This is very outing. We were very lucky. Au pairs have gone by the wayside unless you can convince an Ozzie/New Zealander to come. It was complex but cheaper by a very significant margin than a full-time nanny. They were £45K+ about ten years ago full time, I'm surprised rates haven't gone up.

What is your employer’s contribution to your pension as a %? Having stopped work for 6 years (and returned) I’ve seen the impact on my pension: and really wish people would factor that in when they feel they can’t afford to work. By exiting the workplace I lost my place in the pecking order; if I stayed in my role and gone a bit into debt to pay for childcare, the salary I would be making now would cover those childcare costs in a few months. Take the long term view.

Having experimented with all sorts of childcare over the years for several years : nanny/childminder/au pair/nursery, hands down my vote would also be for a (very good, very reliable) nanny who is happy to care for children with a cough or cold when nursery would be turning them away.

Wow £975 a month for full time in my area.

I did this, am a medic though so easier ( onsite nursery) also got Tax credits back in the day (2005-2010).

Yes I was wondering this too. I live in the SE in an area which is known for being expensive and we paid £1400 for full time childcare before any subsidies etc. I know zone 1 isn’t exactly cheap but I’m still surprised the costs are that high.

Oh blimey can you imagine? Spending ten grand on egg freezing and IVF in order to stagger your nursery costs and ending up having to pay nursery costs for two one year olds. Worst gamble ever.

The egg freezing suggestion is just bizarre.

I honestly thought I was the only one thinking how batshit that idea was 😂

Meant to quote someone.

The success rate for freezing is very low, even more so when the mother/eggs are already older. It's not sound advise, and also isn't cheap.

To the OP could you possibly find another parent with a child of the same age and split the cost of a nanny. I've heard this is quite common and acceptable. Also I don't think you're expected to provide a car or lots of expensive activities

Me too. Or special needs. This thread is incredible. Poor OP.

(I paid 56euros a week, home cooked lovely nursery lunch included, in Spain) 8/6pm.

Will the 30 free hours for 9 month olds definitely come in, anyone know? It would be such a huge game changer for us as we are TTC atm.

£2600 a month at my nursery for full time. London nurseries aren’t cheap.

We have a 3.5x household income mortgage and it's gone up by £1400 a month. We both earn over £100k, and after paying mortgage and childcare we will be struggling

It's absolutely not crazy to plan having/not having children based on whether you can afford them or not. What planet are you on?

But it is a shared expense. That doesn't change that if one of us# earns 20k and the other earns 40k and childcare costs 25k, then it's costing more for nursery than one of our wages brings in so it makes sense financially short ter. For the 20ker to quit. That's just often the woman