Holiday childcare on a low / average income

[Ohmygawdflippingheck]

I'm just curious how other people on low / average wages without any family help manage the school holidays, particularly the summer? I have an interview next week for a Monday to Friday job which means we would probably have to use holiday clubs for the first time. DC are 6 and 9. I've just looked at the cheapest one in our area and for 2x kids for 3x weeks it would come to £700! How do you manage? We're on a modest income, not mumsnet mega money, so no nanny, there are no childminders around here and we don't have any family to help 😫

You do a combination of annual leave and childcare swaps with other parents in the same position.

What is your income? Your modest might be very comfortable to others tbh

You put money aside every month so it’s not a big one off cost and use an Ofsted registered club so you can use the government tax free childcare account which reduces the cost by up to 20%

This. You save all year.

I guess it’s about crunching the numbers and working out whether you can take the hit on paying for childcare for the holiday period for the boost it will bring to your income over the rest of the year. Remember you and your dp can take the odd day’s leave and maybe call in the odd favour to bring the cost down.

We do two weeks annual leave (we take ours at the same time but if you don't and each take 2 weeks separately that covers 4 weeks) then holiday camp, we do both also condense our hours so 5 in 4 days so I'm off Mondays and DH is off Fridays this helps for school actually and means in the holidays you're only covering 3 days a week childcare not 5. We also put a set amount aside every month for childcare and pay it into DS' tax free childcare account, that's then used for after school club and holiday camp or means it's a consistent amount each month not some high cost months

How much leave do you both get? If it’s 5 weeks each then that’s 10!weeks of school holidays covered so that £700 could be split over the year, around £60 a month.

Also your calculations can't be right £700 total for three weeks for two children would be £23.33 per child per day there are no holiday camps that cheap around here

We’re the same;
I help friends and use my childminder and take some annual leave, but I know it’s coming every year so I stash a bit of extra away.
we use the tax free childcare scheme so I put the money away and the government top up with extra
I put £80 in and then it’s topped up with £20 so that helps and I work out why I need for the next year or so and then try to put it away over 12 months so I don’t end up with a huge bill over the summer.
it is a massive expense tho. My teen boy now doesn’t go but I wouldn’t leave him to have the younger siblings until they’re old enough to not go but he has done sports clubs etc…
The tax free childcare scheme can be used for anything offstead registered it’s worth looking at or if you claim UC you can claim a percentage back too.

Depends where OP lives surely? I can think of 2 round here that would be this cost using tax free childcare, and one that would be cheaper if booking a whole week.

Where we are, it’s more like £60-70/day. It cost £2000/month for two DC almost ten years ago. That said, there are schemes for free/very low cost childcare run by the local council, museums, university etc. It’s just one of the costs you factor in, OP.

You’re in a tricky situation this year if it will be the first time. But ordinarily, budget for it across the whole year so you’ve money put aside for childcare costs.
Try to use some of the council clubs or sports clubs as they are often cheaper but you need to be really quick of the mark when booking opens. They’re probably already booked for this summer.

You and their Dad take 2 weeks annual leave each but only overlap for 1 week for family holiday. Offer to take friends kids in your week off if they have yours a later week.
Ask your boss if you can occasionally work your hours more flexibly over summer to accommodate kids going to activities which are cheaper but don’t cover the whole day.

Its a juggle for a few years but its not forever

Thank you for the replies, I've checked and they do accept the childcare vouchers so that helps.
For the person who asked - dh is on around £40k and I would be on about £20k if I got the job, so his salary is pretty average and mine is low (hence the title) We live near-ish to London (expensive) and our 1% mortgage comes to an end soon so there's that to consider too. I currently work shifts so have been able to muddle around it until now

The holiday camp is £30 per day per child but they offer a discount for early booking. It is very basic, mostly colouring in, football outside etc. There are some sports ones around but they really are very expensive and one DC hates sport.

Were your children never in nursery? Our holiday club is £45 per child per day, but nursery was £89 so we don’t feel it in the same way. Just budget for it.

If £20k presumably it would be PT? So you wouldn't have to. book whole weeks.

We're not MN rich but think of it as a year round cost. If you are £20k up on the deal then you can afford the £700 across the whole year. Even if you were operating at a loss for those 3 weeks it's still worth it, to be in profit for the other 49 weeks of the year.

Are you sure you’d only be on £20k? Minimum wage for full time is now around £25k and more if a 40 hour week.

It's actually closer to £21k, it's basically school hours which is obviously not a problem during term time. It's also more hours than I currently do and on paper looks like a decent pay increase but some of that will be lost in childcare and there are some other perks in my current job which I will loose. It's a really good opportunity though so it's worth it, at least next year we will be able to plan for it. It just a lot of money to us, its more than we spend on our holiday!

How do you get a holiday for under £700?!

If you're only working school hours, are there any shorter hour camps you can use?

But otherwise as others have said -

Booking early/using sibling discount gets quite a lot off

Tax free childcare if you're eligible (we aren't any more)

Both taking some annual leave separately

Putting some money aside year round for it

But TBH for us it's not much more expensive than wraparound (£25 a day) and less expensive than nursery (£70 a day)

It's a tricky tie of year to start it, coming up to summer hols without having had much chance to build up AL beforehand. I would try to negotiate as early or late start as you can to either dodge the summer hols or build up leave in terms time.

If you can manage with 9-3 cover that should give you some alternative camps too - not that it will be necessarily be much cheaper as £5ph per child per hour is not bad, but it might give more choice. For example after school activities like dance & football quite often quietly run hol camps, and don't have to advertise much. My DS's cricket club runs cricket camp with volunteers giving up their annual leave to do it, which I think is amazing.

Say you work 6 hour days. £30 per child is £10 per hour for the two which is less than NMW.

Also if your partner has a job that can flex around kids at all they can probably do some pick up and drop offs. It's all too easy when one partner has been SAH or working entirely round the kids that the other never had to ask for or push for flexibility at work, when people doing the exact same job with a working partner will take their turn with late starts & early finishes and the world keeps turning. If your partner can do the odd day from home, of if either of you have flexibility in your hours, you can make shorter hol clubs work by jugging pick ups. Of course not everyone has flexibility in their hours, but with you working longer hours the balance may need to shift so it's not always you on the hook.

I knew someone would ask that 😂 we only go for 5 nights and some campsites / caravan sites are very cheap if you shop around! I've always taken shifts that fit around the kids so we've never had to use nursery or wrap around and then we used the gov funding for preschool. We can usually cover a whole week of the holidays using just 2 or 3 days annual leave at the moment.