> £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.

We managed by timing the age gap between DC1 and DC2 so that DC1 was in school. We currently pay for nursery for DC2 and wraparound care for DC1.

I'm pregnant with DC3 and will take several years out of the workforce (my choice). We wouldn't be able to afford two DC in nursery at the same time, and it's not worth it on my teacher's salary. I plan to go back to supply teaching once once DC3 is school age. This is fine for me, as, after 15 years, I'm losing my love of teaching a bit. I need a break. We can also afford it now. But I really feel for women who are forced to make this decision when they don't want to.

Childcare is insanely expensive, which is wrong, but that's not going to change in the short term (wrong in that there should be some form of state intervention, not that I want childcare workers to be paid any less).

The answer is suck it up or don't have a second child. You've made lots of choices that have led you to this specific position - careers, location, timing, mortgage etc. - that, understandably, you can't or won't change so there's no magic solution out there.

I have one child for the same reasons. It's fine.

Yes but life isn't perfect and I want doesn't get. There's no guarantee that you would conceive at the perfect time anyway. You have to compromise.

And I don't believe that looking for flexible working patterns would be so detrimental to your careers, either.

Have you actually looked into it properly or are you just assuming? For example, in law, it very much depends who you work for.

Also, have you looked at childminders as they are cheaper than nurseries.

All that said, childcare should be fully tax deductible for up to two children.

We have a 6 month old and a just 2 year old in nursery 8-4 each day .

Think it is around £3,200 before the childcare tax free scheme which you can claim
up to 2000 a year. So think it’s about 3k after this.

Great news is from April 2 year olds from working parents get 15 hours which 12 when stretched over the whole year. So that’s something !

Then in September same for those over 9 months!

So basically we are counting down until April
, then September and then Jan 2025 when are son gets 30 hours alongside the babies 15!!

My Whole salary £30k doesn’t cover the current fee of £3k
and husbands salary has to top it up !

we are in a 2 bed until children go to school as the nursery fees are massive ! I can’t wait until we can use the 3k towards a mortgage!!!!!!

But I am pleased by Sept 2025 all children over 9 months will recover 30 free hours !!!!!!!!

Nursey means no car for us, no holiday and really tight budget even though we have a combined take home of £90k as more than half our take home is nursery fees.

It would be cheaper for me not to work buy longer term I don’t want to stop my carer as I have just moved into a new field .

Can you share the link? As I’m pretty sure it’s either parent.

We’re hoping for a second soon after our first as we didn’t meet until our thirties, both focusing on our careers through our late twenties and early thirties which was when we met. I recently started a thread asking whether we should or not and I think every reply pretty much said don’t delay due to fertility and particularly the uncertainty surrounding it as women get older. My gut had told me this tbh, having friends with unexplained secondary infertility. Btw, I’m only mid thirties. But having said that, having a family when older is far more common in London and many will be along with their stories of how they conceived and had a healthy pregnancy with no complications well into their forties. This just wouldn’t be my choice personally.

We’re also in London OP and nursery costs are eye watering in our area. We have no family support at all so it’ll be wraparound, the lot. It’ll be an expensive period but I’m not risking not being able to have another by waiting for our eldest to go to school. We are luckily in the position to do this. Many of course simply aren’t. This is sadly why many women feel they have to become SAHMs.

I took my oldest child out of nursery whilst I was on maternity leave with the second to save money. It was hard but had to be done and saved us 20k in fees.

At the end of my mat leave year the eldest had turned 3 and his fees were reduced and I was then only paying full fees for 1. It also helped that the eldest was a summer baby and therefore we 'missed' an additional year of paying for both in nursery. Summer babies for the win!!

Ours was a few years ago but our salaries were less than yours and the overall % of childcare costs was pretty similar.

In the end I went part time. Not just because of the cost of childcare but I decided that I wasn’t having kids just to pay for someone else to look after them for the majority of the time, I wanted to be there for school assemblies, sport days etc. I wanted some be the one who could stay home with them when they were poorly. I wanted them to be able to have friends over after school and do some activities.

This will sound very harsh written down but there is more to this than simply finding someone to look after these children that you and your DH have brought into the world.

It's either parent, not both. Which is what the part in bold says.

Also, although it's probably not that much comfort, interest rates are likely to drop a bit this year so your mortgage might not be that bad.

Both over 100k from what I read on MSE.

If it's only for 2-3 years can you use savings/bonuses towards the cost?

Great news is from April 2 year olds from working parents get 15 hours which 12 when stretched over the whole year. So that’s something

It’s my understanding that higher earners will be excluded, on account of not being within the definition of “eligible working parent”. It’s not clear but don’t pin your hopes on the extra funding.

Ok I guess so - if they both earned exactly 100k they'd be fine!

Registered to add this:

https://www.workplacenursery.co.uk/ allows your employer to pay nursery fees from your gross rather than net salary and was a lifesaver when we had 2 at nursery.
There are no strings attached and one of the few things that seems too good to be true but actually is; honestly not sure why it's not more widely known, saves a fortune

Only catch is that your employer will need to contract directly with the nursery and pay £100 per month contribution so friends at larger companies have refused to enroll.

No, you’re wrong. Please stop saying this.

The really shit times are when you have 2 children under 3 and you're no longer on maternity leave. If your eldest is eligible for the 30 free hours by the time you go back to work from maternity leave, you've only got about 9 - 12 months of really horrendous fees, before they go off to school (unless autumn/winter born?).

Don't have two under two, just wait so that your eldest is at least 2.5 by the time the new baby is born and it's just about doable. This is honestly just sensible on all fronts, trust me!

If you take home £2,400 and your DH takes home £2,400 and childcare costs are £3,200 - childcare costs are 66% of each of your salary. You and your DH are therefore not “paying to go to work” but, of course, childcare costs are a significant proportion of both of your salaries. You might decide that the cost is worth it as it is a relatively short-term expense and allows both of you to continue progressing in your jobs.
Lots of women stop work in this scenario because they think of childcare costs in relation to their own pay, not as the joint household cost it is. Assuming adequate childcare is available, IMO the only “good” reason to stop working due to childcare costs in this scenario is because you want to or because it’s what is best for you and your family, not because you would be “paying to go to work” as that just isn’t true

If the family pot can't afford to cover the loss, then the lower earner needs to scale back their hours drastically or SAH for a while.

Usually this ends up being the woman because she's already the lower earner due to the wage gap.

But in the case where the man is the lower earner, they should absolutely step up no take the hit if necessary. In the same way women have had to do for years.

We changed jobs. DH moved into a manufacturing role with flexi time so he could work 6-3 and I quit my well paid corporate job and went freelance working 3.30-11.30pm every night. It was brutal financially for the first 3 years but my business grew as my babies did and that made the workload manageable. I now have 50 staff and out earn what I would have by at least double. And our kids were always with us, until they went to school at 4, when we were able to do all drop off and pick ups as our hours were pre arranged to fit.

Yes, definitely wrong. This rule applies to us as a family.

This is largely why there's a 5.5 year gap between my children. As a national approach to childcare and working parents, it stinks, but the biggish age gap actually worked beautifully for us - first baby at 34, second one at 39. They get on beautifully and at 4 and 9 play together surprisingly well. The older child was in the first term at school when the baby arrived, so lots of time together but plenty of quiet daytime baby time too.

It's a national disgrace that childcare costs so much in this country. It should be much more heavily subsidised as it is in other countries. It's crazy you are in this position really and very unfair...mostly for women of course.

But picking up on the way you're looking at this, I think it's wrong to assess the cost using the mother's salary alone. It's both parent's salary...so look at 50% of the childcare cost as coming from your own salary...or your friend's in the example you use above. It annoys me when it's only mothers that weigh up this cost against their own salary...the child has a father too who is equally accountable. Yes, sure, you can look at the whole family cost but that adversely affects women if there is a break-up...taking one for the team in the early years (going part-time, career break or giving up work altogether) can be a massive financial disadvantage if the team breaks up.

For some careers, it makes more financial sense to plough on through these years...whatever the cost...as it's only for a relatively short time and taking any kind of career break would impact negatively for the long-term. It's all about the bigger picture isn't it? Short-term pain for long-term gain etc.

It's not both. It's either. I see you have the average UK reading comprehension age.

Can you accommodate an au pair/mothers help who can do some of the hours and so reduce your nursery bills? You need space to accommodate them, but they could do some nursery wrap around etc up to their mandated hours.

@SunnySideDownBriefly if you are in a professional job with future promotion prospects it makes sense. It does not make sense if you are not.