Childcare bill problem

[Mummasaurus91]

I'm lost at what to do.

My OH received a bonus at work which meant we were knocked off any support where childcare is concerned at the start of the year. I know we are incredibly lucky that he is a high earner.

However, as each month passes it's becoming tighter and tighter to pay these fees. His bonus was taxed so heavily that it doesn't cover the shortfall of what we lost in the tax-free support and the free hours.

We have family support a couple of days a week already so can't really lean into them any more. They're also not in the best health so not entirely sure how much longer that support is going to be available anyhow. What makes it worse/triple whammy too is that none of them are eligible to receive any national insurance credits for their childcare commitments because of my OH going over the threshold. They do love their childcare days but I know they would've appreciated the credit support.

Dilemma though is do we give our notice to nursery and look for a more affordable childminder or similar.. or I give up hours at work (I don't even know if my employer would even allow me to do this to be honest) until we receive 15 free hours in Jan '28?

Also - do I really have to sacrifice progressing in my career again after maternity leave? I enjoy working. I know it was my choice to have children but for context, the fees have gone up over 35% since we joined and are set to increase by god knows how much again next month. We would also be giving up an amazing nursery :(

Any advice is welcomed. Particularly keen to hear how I could be sorting my life out in a positive way and climbing the ladder/earning better as if I was this financial pressure wouldn't be as monumental as it is right now!

Thank you if you've got this far

I’d look at the cheaper childcare options to see if any of them are suitable and appropriate.

I know you chose to have a child but childcare costs are ridiculous! When my youngest was at nursery it was over £100 per day and that was three years ago. I dread to think what it is now.

How much over the 100k are you? Would it be worth paying extra into pension for example.

Be prepared for some serious lack of sympathy as you are high earners. But its a very brutal cliff edge which makes things tricky.

Can your DH pump more into his pension to bring his take home under the cut off, and get you back the funded hours? He could have done this with the bonus at the time but perhaps didn’t know, if he’s close to £100k but not over it for this tax year you can bring it down and reapply.

The extreme cut off for support is really unhelpful, it should be staggered.

How much is his net adjusted income (after pension payments)? May be worth increasing them to get the childcare if you are near the threshold.

If the bonus was at start if year, you'd be eligible again by.now.

And with income c£8k a month, it cant just be childcare making things tight, sounds like all your outgoings are high otherwise you wouldn't be in this predicament.

Very bluntly your husband should have put this into a pension and saved you thousands.

It also raises the question as to why he isnt upping his pension this year to avoid it happening again ythis year 🧐

You need to provide more info but....critically 1.your childs age

1. his pension contributions for the past 3 years
2. His income net adjusted for 24/25
3. His forecasted income for 25/26

With one child FT childcare with no subsidies is about 2k max unless you have a private nanny.... that should be affordable on over 100k plus 2nd income from you. Where is the money going? I'm guessing you have over 8k or so???

Dont give up your job

I think you need to keep in mind that until 2023, most parents paid the cost of childcare for under 3s out of their own pocket with zero government subsidy.

I wholeheartedly agree with state support for I early childhood education and care BTW.

Put the bonus into pension, that’s what majority of folk do to enable the free hours.

That said, I have put three kids through full time nursery fees (and two of them before there was any free funding!). If your husband is over 100K, you also work, and you child is not in nursery full time, then I am struggling to understand how you can’t afford? You must be over-stretching elsewhere. Where is the rest of the money going? This doesn’t make sense.

Unfortunately it was a chunky bonus and even with maxing out pension contributions he's still about £3k over the threshold. The eligibility questionnaire asks about bonuses as well so I wouldn't be comfortable with reapplying (even though a bonus is by no means guaranteed as it's linked to the performance of the company he works for).

Re. take home, he's nowhere near £8k a month, his workplace pays a little over 5 into our account every month (again, appreciate he's well paid - far out earns me).

Not to drip feed but we are trying to slowly renovate our house that we bought a few years ago - when the world didn't cost a packet. So that definitely doesn't help as everything is so ridiculously expensive. Can't sell it as its not sellable in it's current state. But generally speaking, we don't have particularly high outgoings which is what is unsettling me. We run 1 car (bought several years ago), shop in Aldi/Lidl, don't have any hobbies that we're paying for, haven't been abroad this year, have a mortgage which is actually vastly lower than the childcare bill😅

We have 3 children, I'm still on maternity leave so things will improve when I'm getting a salary again but then I'm earning to pay for childcare.

Would we be doing my children a disservice by knocking nursery on the head is where my question lies mainly.

If he’s 3k over then get a flash bike on salary sacrifice or give the 3k to charity. Either way will make you better off.

You can also put more than 60k into your pension if you’ve not used the previous 3 years full allowance.

it’s only when you get well above 160k that it starts to become difficult to avoid.

How much are you taking home and how much is the childcare? If he’s taking home £5k and with your income included your outgoings must be higher than most for part time childcare to make things unaffordable unless it’s a nanny or something similar.

@Badger17 sadly, his employer refuses to join the cycle to work scheme otherwise we'd have enrolled any way so I could get a decent bike to avoid having to drive on the school run

Can he talk to his employer and ask for the pay rise (or at least part of it) to be revoked?

I'm feeling very sick right now though at the suggestion of giving to charity as I think that would've been the answer. We've been paying full fees since January and it would have saved us a fortune I think had we donated the difference to charity. Even if we reapplied now, it wouldn't kick in until January '26 as the deadline has passed for this so the bills keep on coming until then.

Replies so far have definitely given me a kick up the backside to take a look at our good old budget spreadsheet and update it. I think a lot of our out goings seem to be on food by the looks of it, we do spend a fortune as we try to eat decently and also feed family members/pay for activities on the childcare days (which we're more than happy to do) but does increase our spends.

@CrispieCake he did ask about that (which is so completely backwards isn't it when you think about it) but the finance dept said no as it would mean that the books wouldn't balance or something.