To wonder how people actually afford childcare

[roweeena]

So I should of thought of this before I got pregnant but I have a 3 month & 27 month old. Thinking of going back to work in Sept when they will be just shy of 1 & 3.

Contacted nursery under my work - 2 days a week for the both of them will cost £1020 per month!!! Dread to think how much full time would cost.

I was full time before and DS was in with a childminder but we have moved now and this nursery seemed so handy. Just going back 2 days a week now and going to have to also work one weekend day. Just can't afford to go back to work for more than that.

We have no family close by who can help out. Both myself & my husband are in quite reasonable jobs (in fact in my job people always assume I must be loaded - media reporting). Just wondering how other people actually afford childcare for two.

Ps I know DS1 will qualify for free 15hrs from the Jan but it doesn't seem to make that much difference as its only term time & 3 hrs a day (pretty useless for working mums)

' HappySeven Tue 14-Jan-14 21:42:14
Sorry, I disappeared for a while. I still don't get it: if you make a (small) profit working part-time you should surely still make a profit working full-time?'

The reason it works like this is because earning more in total takes you into a higher salary bracket, so you pay a higher proportion of your earnings in tax.

this thread is depressing

if a GP cant afford childcare, what chance does us mere mortals have

i live in the netherlands and we have a system here that you can claim tax back for childcare that is dependant on your income. When we had dd1 and dd2 in daycare we paid 1800 euro per month, but got about 1200 back in tax. of course the government here is cutting this back lots, but it made life possibe for us. its such a pity uk doesnt do the same.

Uk govts in recent years have unfortunately done very little to incentivise people to work. Things are changing now, but only as a reaction to the dire economic mess which the country is in. All rather depressing

Haven't read through all of the thread but I'm a professional like you OP and so is DH. On paper the gov would say we are v middle class, professionals and so we have handouts.

But at the moment, with dh setting up his own practice (having been made redundant) our income dropped by half. There was no way we could take kids completely out of nursery as he needed to work as well, set up co. Etc.

When that was going on we dropped the kids to 3x a week. At that time we were paying £1200. Then Dc1 went to school and it was a big relief in terms of £££ saved!!

Dd has now qualified for the 15h free and we are looking forwards to the £200-250 saving we will have per month. I cannot wait. It's literally a payrise!!!

We calculated that by the time dc2
Goes to school we would have spent £100000 on nursery fees alone for both kids.

£800/month (roughly) x12 months=£10000x5 years x2 kids =
£100000

Over the years the fees too have risen. From £32 to £46/day. Over 5 years. Ridiculous.

I do hope the op comes back and explains a bit more. Of course it's totally up to her how much she wishes to share but there are a few things in this situation which are hard to fathom... First and foremost why she would have left a full time job as a GP (and main earner) where she had an affordable cm, and moved to an area where childcare is a lot more expensive. Surely remaining in her previous job even if only to tide over the expensive childcare years would have been a better option. The other thing Id suggest is op going full time and her dp cutting hours to cover some childcare; a sensible option as she earns most

If you're the higher earner, then your husband needs to be staying at home and caring for his children. It's hardly rocket science.

It is so frustrating to see the waste of female talent that happens in the workplace due to costs of childcare.

I have watched so many talented women doing brilliantly, then having children then doing the maths and struggling.

Even if you are a relatively high earner, and every professional member of staff in my workplace is a high earner, the costs of childcare are eyewatering. You would have to be into your thirties to break even.

It is certainly a bit funny how when the woman's the lower earner, the assumption is nearly always that she'll be the one to stop work, but when the man is the lower earner it somehow isn't

happyseven, I understand what you mean. Perhaps the people who say they lose out going from part time to full time, receive more tax credits on a lower income of part time, and so end up better off? Or perhaps their salary is less than cost of childcare, and so the more days worked, the greater the defecit?

I've scanned the thread and can't see that anyone has made this point, but apologies if I've missed it:
I'm pretty sure it is at each nursery's discretion how they allow parents to use their 15 free hours. And it is NOT just term time, you should have the option to spread it across the whole year, making it 11 free hours per week. I'm saying this as DD1's nursery manager was extremely helpful and flexible when helping me plan for how best to use her entitlement and spelled out that I really could have the hours any which way I wanted; either 2 full-ish days or, as I have chosen to do, spread over 3 days.
Check with a few diferent nurseries and see what they say.
Good luck!

bbcessex

It is not usual for me to agree with Janey68 but hey folks listen up.

She is right and house prices were as high in relation as they are today. There may be pockets where they are higher, but that has always been the case.
Paying a mortgage at 15% is no easy thing whether both work or not. Childcare was not so easily available and just as expensive if not more, relatively speaking.
There were fewer dual working parents as it wasn't really possible as it is today.
Yes its tough, but you know it will get better.
Imagine no holiday clubs, breakfast clubs etc and imagine how you would fare then.
Honestly, I don't know how Janie did it tbh. I was lucky as chose to be a sahm, but had we gone down the childcare route I have no idea how we would have managed, it just wasn't possible for many.
Oh, 12 weeks Maternity and definitely no option for paternity or sharing a year off work with your dh. Mine had the day off and we had to cope.
A better job would have afforded him 2 weeks paid leave but no option to extend even without pay.

I am a solicitor, when I go back in september I will only be earning 400/month after childcare costs for 2 children, and I will only be earning as 'much' as that by:
-dh working weekends so he does one day of childcare while I work

• I work compressed hours so do a 4 day week in 3.5 days (partly by working in the evenings)

-3 year age gap so ds gets subsidised

It might not seem 'worth' going back, and it will break my heart all over again to do so but:

• dh is self employed and so it feels very precarious to rely on his income alone
• dh and I split briefly while I was pregnant, I don't want to be without the means to stand on my own two feet.

I work pt, and my DCs are now in school. I aimed for a gap of 2.5 - 3y between DCs so childcare costs x 2 were minimised. That being said, I was still paying childcare x2 for c. 9m and was effectively working for no take home pay.

However, I didnt underestimate the value of a pt job, and the fact that it is easier ( by a mile!) to request pt hours in an existing job than to try to find a new pt job that doesnt involve a crappy zero hours contract.

I now know MANY SAHMs with dcs in ft school who can't find a suitable job for love nor money. Certainly not a pt one. For me, taking the long view has been wise.

Oh, and until very recently, I had NO free childcare.

And whilst I understand your point OP, I imagine you are in a much better position than most with regards to having two reasonable salaries, a flexible job, and a large house.

Regarding the 15 free hours of child care -DD2 only does 2 days at nursery (10 hours per day) so we only qualify for 13 hours free. Our nursery calculates your entitlement and spreads that across the year so your bills don't change each month, but then reconciles it at the end of your nursery life to see if you have over or under claimed.

I'm lucky, when I had DS we paid gorgeous a full time nursery place, costing around £1,000 per month, that was 8 years ago.

After having DD1, we had a nanny for a year costing about £1,400 per month for a 3 day week. My mum covered one day and DH who works shifts insisted on the same day off mid week each week (family business).

When DS started school DD1 went to the nursery, but they could only give me 2 days, so mum picked up the slack.

After DD2 was born I took a very short leave as we simply could not cover our outgoings on my SMP. I am the main wage earner.

I have just received DD2's first invoice with her EYFE and perhaps now I can start to make inroads into the debt mountain that has accumulated over the last 8 years.

I once estimated my child care costs, and gave up once I reached £80,000 as it was too depressing for words. This only covered nursery fees, nanny wages and tax, after school club and holiday club.

We have done what we can to minimise costs. DH now has 2 regular days off so I cut out one day of after school club for the older two. In the holidays we ask for him to either have Friday off, or to start at 6 so I leave a little early rather than pay a day of child care.

MIL helps out if kids are sick, or I can work from home.

Actually there is another thread to come out of this

We all know that childcare is prohibitively expensive in the UK and that either you have to be a seriously high earner or you have to have more affordable means of childcare (childminders, family etc)

The thread that I think is more interesting is the idea that many traditional professions - eg medicine and the bar - are actually no longer that well paid. Perhaps when evaluating the investment into a career and the rewards it might offer, women ought to think, well, s'not worth it. And maybe look towards other careers.

janey interest rates were at 15% but MIRAS meant they were tax deductable, so effectively interest was free!

Arguments

Childcare isn't expensive though, how can it be any cheaper and who shouldn't be paid? Should some cut back on resources for the children, perhaps overheads so they can't afford to remain open.
It is something you have to pay if you wish to work after having a child or 2.

Vworp

Our mortgage interest or payments weren't tax deductible, they were constant no let up at all.

The only way we coped ( we had 3 under 5 at one time) was to work around each other which fortunately we could do with my job. So my husband worked 9-5 and I worked evening shifts or nights or weekends meaning we only paid a flexible childminder for perhaps 1-5pm or for a few hours in the morning so I could sleep after a nightshift.

I went self employed and did freelance work I can afford to pay for one day, and working just one day pays more after childcare than working full time, and working in the evenings.

Plus my local council don't pay private nurseries the 15 hours so there is no let up there, you have to use school nursery, if one can be provided within three miles of your home.

It's a huge cost, I knew it would be, no point complaining but it makes me feel a bit better.

Interesting about a nanny, I hadn't really thought about that. I think that it wouldn't be cheaper for me though as my nursery is 40 pounds a day per nipper.

Weren't you a UK taxpayer then morethan?

MIRAS Scheme which ran from 1969 -April 2000, meant tax relief on mortgage interest payments.

OP you could pick up some weekend/night work as an OOH/locum or do your surgery's evening/Saturday surgery to have some money coming in without childcare costs.