Childcare costs- someone talk me through the outrage

[Suzietwo]

Is it just me or does it seem a bit grabby of mothers to be getting cross about the change to child care rules?

I thought the rules were being changed to try and encourage people to work. Ie to give them more choice and be option generating aka A. Good. Thing.

But the stay at home mums voice in the media just sounds a bit self important.

Don't misunderstand me, I am entirely on favour of people and families making decisions which suit them. This isn't about that. It's about people being a bit....indulged? Make a choice, stick with it. The more choices which are available the better so if the gvnt can help (a different argument about whether they should) by offering money to assist people go to work, then fab. But don't demand it for making the choice to stay at home.

More than- sounds like mumsnet Neds to grow up

Janey- my view precisely. People need to take responsibility, accept people are in different circumstances and have different things available to them, and make mature decisions based on an assessment of the pros and cons. Not look to blame someone.

Spend £6000 on childcare out of your own pocket and get a reduction of £1200. The fact that this offer has only been extended to to working parents seems to have caused a big drama. I think the government should extend this "generous" offer to anyone wanting to purchase £6000 on childcare to make it fairer.

The bottom line is: we all have pressure points, they just aren't all the same as each others.

The SAHM wanting to get back to work might think 'shit! How do i solve the problem of childcare to go on interview?'
For me as a WOHM one of the problems was 'shit! I want a second child. How do we carry on paying the nursery while I'm not on my salary?'

Different pressures but equally real to the individual.

Mine,as a self employed primary earner is 'how the hell am I going to maintain an income if I have anoth child?' No maternity pay for me....

Supposely this system is supposed to help single mothers. But how many single mothers pay 6K of tax to be able to buy the vouchers? (not many single mothers earn 35K) Since people have to find 80% of the cost of these vouchers the amount of help is derisitory. I have no idea where you can get a childcare place for an under 3 for 6000K. In our area you are looking at least double that.

Prehaps there would be a lot to be said for totally scrapping the vouchers and concentrating on finding ways to reduce childcare for all. Rather than having vouchers I would like more general measures to reduce the cost of childcare. I believe that making it easier for schools to set up their own nurseries will help bring down costs.

More help for pre schools and nurseries with charitable status would help expand cheap places. Nurseries with charitable status could be exempt from business rates, coorporation tax and prehaps childcare could be VAT free. Making childcare VAT free would be far cheaper than having this voucher scheme.

janey.

I totally agree about the pressure points. As a sahm and with my personal circumstances, I don't need childcare. However, i can see how another sahm with different circumstances would need it. The same for wohm's
Maybe it could be done on a needs basis then everyone would be happy.

SuzieTwo

I see the main problem as being that some posters are only able to see their own situation or presume that a certain type of parent are all the same, lump them together and say "Well it's like this"for them all. This seems to me to be the point where buns start to fly [busad]

12k for a childcare place?

Sounds right. I pay 2k PCM for my two

Yup. Think we pay around £10000 a year.
I don't begrudge paying it because the nursery is great and I don't want cheap childcare but it is difficult to pay and a bigger expense than our mortgage.

Even the very best here is considerably less then that.

"Sounds right. I pay 2k PCM for my two "

A nursery nurse typically earns around 15 to 18 K. Someone is making an obsene profit.

The new voucher system is going to cost a lot to set up and maintain. Are there more cost effective ways of helping families like SuzieTwo? If childcare places which cost less than say 8K a year were alllowed to be VAT free would it help SuziTwo more than having vouchers?

How can we cut the overheads for nurseries without compromising quality? How do we stop greedy nursery managers making an obsene profit?

Not sure VAT free would help as not everyone us required to be VAT registered, child minders certainly wouldn't.
Tax deductible allowance would help more people but would still require payment in full up front. I would assume that anyone not paying sufficient tax would get help through tax credits but that could be totally erroneous.

Thejoyfullpuddlejumper how do you apply for and go to jobs if you haven't anyone to look after you child or children? Not everyone lives near relations who can mind for free.

I'm not on JSA but have a son who is 11 who is obviously too young imho to leave all day in school holidays and child minders are too expensive if you get no help with childcare so I end up doing a term-time dinner lady job because I had to give up childminding due to nurseries offering free childcare places which I was not able to offer.

I would love to be able to work full-time but finances just do not allow, do we get any help from this govt? No of course not, my cb is being taken away at the worst time (high school uniform likely to cost a fortune) and he is only main earner paying 40% of his earnings to tax. This country has gone to pot!!

Surely personal responsibility is the major factor. DF and I researched childcare costs (amongst other costs) when we starting considering children. The size of our family is very much dependant on those associated costs. We would never have gone ahead had we not been able to afford it without the support from benefits. We felt including benefit income from the Gov in our calculations would be amounting to giving ourselves pay rises that were never and could never be guaranteed.

how do we stop greedy nursery managers making an obsene profit?

I thinks thats unfair. Private nurseries are businesses like any other private business (hair dressers, exports/inport business etc.). I am sure the owners will have worked hard and sacrificed a lot to set their businesses up. They will also be paying corporate taxes ect. which benefits our economy.

Mum2luke- your DH is a high earner. To be losing your CB completely he must be on 50k. Thats how you afford childcare while you go on interview. Same as everyone else - including many others who have no relatives nearby and less household income than you.

Kazoo are you serious 50k to 60k single income is a struggle???? A struggle to do what exactly keep shopping at Waitrose?

Also I've just noticed that your son is 11 mum2luke

Lucky you- only before/after school and holiday care to pay for, rather than all day every day nursery.

Even if you just get a NMW job, over a whole year you will make a profit after paying childcare. You definitely will. And in a few years when he doesn't need childcare at all you'll be making even more profit. That's the view I took when nursery for two kids sapped all my income. Short term pain, long term gain

Mum2Luke, your husband doesn't pay 40% of his earnings in tax. It's only the proportion of his wages that are over the threshhold that he is paying 40% on. And as janey says now that your son is at school, if you were working full-time you would have more coming in than going out, even allowing for childcare costs. It's nursery/childminder fees for pre-schoolers that are crippling. Sure, the costs are higher during the holidays but with two parents with two sets of annual leave you will not need to shell out for full-time childcare for the entire 13 weeks. So if you want to work full-time then do it!

I'm not paying a nursery. I'm paying a child minder and a nanny and pre school to do different things on different days. Because it suits us.

Nurseries don't make obscene profits, though chains of nurseries might. Whilst a full time place might be £12k pa,many children aren't full time, There are locum costs, utilities, rent and rates, food, training, furnishings, toys etc etv.

I think whats coming out of this thread, which is a useful thing, is that there are solutions, it's just they involve some compromise. When our children are on school summer holiday, I don't like having to take my annual leave separately from DH. In an ideal world we'd take our time off together. But we compromise because it keeps the childcare cost down.
I get the feeling that there are a small number of posters who expect to get everything on their own terms. Welcome to the world of being a grown up - whether WOHP or SAHP it's about accepting that life ain't perfect and you'll be a lot happier adopting a positive attitude rather than moaning about your life

Mum2Luke Can't you look for jobs during term time. I am sure that your eleven year old can survive on his own for a couple of hours while you attend a job interview. I doult that many childminders would take on an eleven year old.

There are childcare options for eleven year olds in most towns. Its not called childcare as most eleven years get extremely stroppy at the suggestion of being in childcare. My eleven year old has been to county music courses, or the sports centre have holiday courses or drama courses.

Many eleven year olds go to school by bus and are easily capable of getting themselves to a holiday club. I agree that you could not leave an eleven year old at home all day, but they are not such a liablity as my three year old!

I've said this before on other threads, but our children are at the age now where they loathe any idea that they are in childcare! They are too old for a childminder , have outgrown a lot of holiday clubs, but aren't old enough to be left alone for entire days

This summer we are going to employ a local student to do a 'halfway house' arrangement- someone who is on hand should the children need an adult, but who can let them do their own thing most of the time. The plan is they will look after the children in our house, but will probably be able to get on with uni work until the children surface, and generally 'be around'. Dd is old enough to go to friends houses and occupy herself but I feel still needs a level of supervision.

The key with childcare is to regularly re evaluate. What suits a child at age 6 isn't going to suit them at age 12. It also needs flexibility and creativity. Our holiday clubs run from 9- 4: useless when you need to be in work at 8am. Up til now we've used a childminder to drop off at holiday club- not the cheapest way but needs must. But as I say, now the children are older we've had a re think.

Of course it will involve some work. Dh and I will soon advertise and start looking for a suitable person to do the summer holiday care. Of course i could sit back and moan about the cost of advertising (it's about £100 in our local paper) or I could complain that it's all so terribly hard and why don't the govt sort our childcare and pay for it for me- but you know what, I dont think that's going to help in the long term .

I pay £30 extra a year for all trips and for that they go theme parks, bowling,cinema, mcdonalds, farm etc in the holidays. They are out of the setting and doing something daily. Its from 7.30-6pm.

My children will be doing this until they are age 13/14.