> £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.

I wouldn’t complain about my own life choices if I didn’t want advice so I assumed she did want it. Never mind, it may be helpful to others as there has been good discussion.

This. OP I totally get why you and your husband want to have great careers but children need time invested in them (more than material wealth) especially in the early years and neither of you are around more than weekends and holidays, that’s barely a third of the year as is. Why do you want another child to have even less time dedicated to them? I see this a lot on MN and am genuinely baffled. Something has to give.

I really don’t get what you are asking? Can you please respond to the 10+ posters who have told you to increase pension contributions to get income down to £99k each? £200k household income and after tax you should have £120k which is a struggle with nursery fees but a sacrifice sadly.

if you are STILL ineligible because you both earn more than £200k each and thus £400k total then, you don’t have any sympathy on MN. So what are you asking?!

In a different post, I also asked if she could move further out. But having thought about it, I wouldn't want to live further out of our town that I do. I work in the town, the schools we want our DD to go to are close by. We have a small house in a fairly high cost area, which we chose deliberately for its proximity to my office and the schools. Moving further out would add to my commute time, which would mean longer hours in nursery for DD and more wraparound once she's at school. Potentially, depending on the commute, wraparound for nursery too.

Our costs aren't as extreme as London, but I can see the practicalities of why moving may not be the way OP wants to try and cut costs.

I quite agree. I object to paying so much tax at the moment when much of our national infrastructure is crap or expensive or both (looking at you, trains).

I wouldn’t mind paying more and having a country which doctors weren’t leaving in their droves, there aren’t enough primary school places, and childcare for two kids almost costs my husband’s entire salary.

But that’s a different rant!

That’s not correct. You only need one earner on 160k (was 140k until recently) and you can’t bring the salary under 100k with pension contributions.

It is also worth noting that much of the amount earnt over 100k is taxed at 62% so you aren’t anywhere near as better vs those on 99k as you might think. It certainly wouldn’t be enough additional take home pay to fund nursery for 2 children.

Thought about this a great deal last night and do employers not need some accountability here as well?

OP says she cannot PT, pause career, take break, even maternity a burden, move sideways. Why?

If I was employing her at that level I would be bending over backwards to help. Surely more employers should be doing the same.

Same for nursery owners. Is it possible, for example to say to nursery, I'm pregnant, due December 2024, so both children will be out 2025, this giving them nine months notice of a twelve month opening, then enrolling both or the younger for 2026 and saving a year of fees?

That's why a lot of higher earners combine it with working part time - that's what we did. Both dropping a day a week - which doesn't lose you as much take home as you think - and a bit more into pension gets you the 30 hours and tax free childcare and also you need less childcare because you're working fewer days.

The OP has of course ruled that out along with pretty much every suggestion made to her.

Every industry is different but for most of the higher earners that I know, their employers do really value them and because they wouldn't be easy to replace, they are willing to look at part time and other options without it hitting career progression.

Sometimes it takes someone to be a trail blazer. My DH was originally told "full time or nothing" when offered his current role, he countered with "ok then I will stay in my current role" and they said "oh ok then we can make four days work" and now they are approaching him about another promotion still on four days.

Like I say, I don't know exactly where the OP and others stating this as a problem work, maybe they are this bad, but I also do think there has been some movement. And HR departments are also familiar with this problem - both of ours when we contacted them about pension and hours changes were immediately "oh let's see how we can get you down to 99k..."

@spriots that's my experience as well. Hence my struggle to follow why this cannot take place here. But every industry is different

Sometimes I think it's that women in particular are socialised not to make demands.

I was approached for a very high profile project at work, that is usually very long hours. I was still breastfeeding my baby to sleep every night. I would not have applied for it for this reason. I said no because of this. They asked again because they really wanted me. I explained that at the moment I really needed to be home between 6 and 7 every day - I could log on afterwards but I couldn't do the usual in person evening commitments required. They said "don't care, want you"

And ever since then I have been less apologetic about my caring responsibilities and working part time because I know that quite often my employer doesn't care and wants me

That’s not always possible. I get a bonus in the last week of the tax year. It can be anything from zero to 70k. It is impossible to be able to plan to keep salary consistently at 99k level in those circumstances.

In addition to that part of it is paid in stock from RSU’s so there’s a further variable that is almost impossible to predict.

This is also a good point and I had the same issue. No part time. Couldn’t leave the office before 6, no flexible working. I think it’s changed for the better a little but not across all industries.

The government and companies need to be taken to task on this. Nobody should be paying over £4k a month the on childcare. This doesn’t happen anywhere else.

I can't answer for OP but in my case, it is largely because I work in a male dominated industry and men obviously don't take maternity leave and generally also don't take career breaks or work part time which would mean I'd have no chance competing against them for promotion. It is already harder for me as the only woman as senior as I am.

I also work in a fast moving industry (STEM related) which means that taking time out would quickly mean that you're behind and would need to play catch up.

Finally, at my level comes much flexibility which would be lost because no one at my level is part time and there's no way I would progress back to my level after a career break or even if working part time.

Some industries, especially male dominated ones are hard enough as it is for women to progress to a high level but they can also be behind the times in other ways too.

If I want to keep up with the men at my level, I have to take a shorter maternity leave and stay full time. That's just the way it is.

What are you suggesting OP does differently?

I agree - simply moving out of your area is not the easy fix MN seems to suggest it is. I always find these comments unhelpful - "move to the North a 4-bed is only £xxx up here"- as there is typically a reason why people live where they have chosen, be that work, friends, culture or nearby family connections.

For a start, people seem to overlook the huge upfront cost of buying a new place. SDLT will likely set them back anywhere from £20k+ (assuming new house purchase on city outskirts would be at least around £700K for 3bed), plus estate agent fees for house sale.

Then as you say, you still incur commute costs as your home is further away from work. And the extra 'stresses' that come with living further away which leads to more juggling and inevitably less time spent with kids as more of your non-work time is eaten up with commuting - that stuff is hard to measure in £ but really can make a difference to quality of life for everyone in the family.

@PollyG23 The only issue is the cost. Day-day-life is entirely manageable.

Much like @SouthLondonMum22 (our lives sound very similar), I have a lot of flexibility in my role as a result of my seniority.

• I WFH a couple of days a week. On those days I can drop / pick up earlier. If I'm not busy, I can pick them up at 2pm if I like.
• My partner and I alternate pick up / drop off on office days so their day isn't too long - they have dinner at home every night
• I can attend any event, take time for sickness, etc
• I get quite a lot of holiday
• I do however need the childcare to be available, in case I have a meeting or similar

My child is happy at their nursery, and has a great life. I'm around loads.

50% of families have two parents in full time work according to the ONS. So it's hardly an unusual situation,

My only issue with the situation is the extraordinary cost of childcare to allow me continue working - something which most posters seem to agree upon. We have one of the most expensive childcare set ups in the world.

I think there's a big misconception from some of then people on this thread like @PollyG23 and @Numberfish that because both parents are senior in work, they aren't around for the children.

Like @MidnightPatrol and @SouthLondonMum22 it's difficult to compress hours or go part time (other colleagues have had it refused), but there's a huge degree of flexibility and working around your workload, as long as you meet your targets and budgets. However nursery is either half days or full days, and full days are needed to ensure cover for client meetings, busy periods etc. So you need to pay the full fees.

In practice however, both me and my partner work at least two days a week at home, and we stagger pickups and drop offs. Our son is hardly ever in for the full day. We've never missed a nursery event or play or picnic or whatever - one of us will always be there for it. Because we are lucky that we can take a couple of hours out and make it up that night after he's in bed. Same for finishing early some days and making up time later - we take him to toddler classes, soft play, dog walks, or just normal things like a food shop and a treat out at the cafe. He's happy and nursery is amazing. We don't begrudge what we pay them at all- they do so many activities and he's so happy with his friends there.

I think part of the problem is that even 20% tax free childcare would help massively for these doubling up years, but it's not possible to access if you earn over a certain amount. However the taxes on these salaries are huge, as someone else said 62% for a big chunk of it, and just a little back for a 2-3 year period would really help

Yes it may be the case the op is in a similar situation

So might be high combined salary that can’t be reduced. That does mean it’s high monthly incoming though and if people want all salary range to get free hours then it will need to be paid for - like everything else people would like

Either by diverting more funds from elsewhere - where though? Or taxes etc

It looks like the op can’t use pension element so would like funds diverted to lower costs.

Our lives do sound very similar!

There does seem to be a misconception on here that FT senior roles involve never seeing your children but it often isn't true. What you describe is almost exactly the set up for DH and I too which means we both still spend plenty of time with DS and it certainly isn't only weekends and holidays.

If you are considering, then I guess you can afford. Certainly better off than most mums reading this.

What's interesting to me is that there seems to be a surprising amount of resignation about employers' lack of flexibility - if you're senior, you have bargaining power and some ability to set the culture at least for your own team.

I have done my best to make the culture in my own team more family friendly and to challenge people's assumptions about roles needing to be full time.

I don't think it has to be either/or, we can push for our workplaces to be willing to consider compressed hours, part time etc, and also think the cost of childcare is too high

I pick my battles and frankly, it can already be exhausting a lot of the time to be the only woman at the level I'm at. I've had to work incredibly hard to get to where I am and I won't risk losing what I have worked so hard for by pushing too far or having part time hours be agreed and then not progressing any further because the men I work with just aren't going to be requesting part time hours, most of them have wives who are SAHM's.

When DS was a younger baby, I was overlooked for a work trip which would've helped me potentially progress further because it was assumed I wouldn't want to leave my baby. I wasn't the only parent but I was the only woman and I absolutely raised that as an issue and it was dealt with.

But I can't change ingrained sexism within a workplace by myself or force the men at my level to go part time at an attempt to try and make it more equal.

So like I said, I pick my battles.

Yes I think 4 days can often be made to work. Even better if you can do it without dropping your salary ( unless that is of advatageous to you to do so).

Sorry, this is a long one…

I too work in a male-dominated, high earning environment. The majority of employees earn six figures and a good amount earn seven figures. The men take two weeks off when a new baby arrives and you barely know if they’ve been on paternity leave or a holiday. Having children doesn’t affect their work in any way. They sleep somewhere else, they hire night nannies and have one nanny per child at home.

The whole issue with this thread (and OP is correct to complain, because it is outrageous) is it shouldn’t cost £4-5k pcm to have two children looked after during working hours. It’s not a question of ‘wanting it all’. It’s a broken system and having children or having a great career should never be a choice for a woman to make. I am actively avoiding a promotion (and being transparent about it) because there’s no point in me going over £100k unless I go way over. Making additional pension payments is great but that wouldn’t help my cash flow for childcare. I’m happy with my current pension contributions and forecast so I don’t need that increased.

A nanny is truly a cheaper way to get childcare with two plus children in London. It also allows your babies to be (constantly) ill and at home but not impacting work. Nannies arrive at work/your home well rested, washed, fed, energetic and ready to start the day. That’s already more than Mums start the day 😂. Ours does a far better job than I would for the days we have her. That’s not me being a bad or neglectful parent, that’s me outsourcing part of my job as a parent to a professional. I don’t know any full time nannies on hourly rates. Over 30 hours a week, most are salaried taking down time when the child/ren are napping into account. Salaries roughly £35-45k gross for London. Norlands are obviously £50k++.

Speaking of Norland Nannies, they do offer student placements if you have a spare room, SW postcode and two kids close in age (under 5) or multiples. It’s worth getting in touch via their website.