To wonder what percentage of your wage goes on childcare?

[Loopylala7]

My DC attends nursery 2 days a week, and soon DC2 will be joining them. I've worked out that it will cost us a 3rd of our combined wage, and thats before mortgage, water, electric, gas, council tax etc, etc, etc. We are not entitled to any working credits. Whilst this is pretty depressing, we realise we are lucky as we have the support of 2 sets of GPs who each look after our DC a day a week.

This got me thinking, what percent of a wage do you spend on childcare? I have some friends who practically loose their entire wage having to put their DC in for 4 or 5 days! seems crazy but unavoidable.

Wondering if there is the 'fuel poverty' equivalent - 'childcare poverty' and what what percentage would class you as being within the 'childcare poverty' band?

One DC in fulltime childcare is one fifth of my tale home pay, one tenth of our combined net pay. When I go back after my second maternity leave next year that will double. We get annual bonuses on top though (not mega but enough to pay for a holiday or two each year).

50% of my wage%

About 15% although DS gets NEG and DD is home with me as only 3 months and I'm still on maternity.

When I had 2 DCs in FT nursery, it was about 60% of my wages (would have been 90% without the tax break). Now I just have 1 DC in breakfast/After school club and I pay less than 10% of my wages.

10% of my wage (5% of combined wage) for fulltime childcare (8am-5pm) for 2 kids, we live in norway though.
It has to be paid for until the kids are 10yrs old though because afterschool club costs that much too.

At our most expensive phase- ie 2 children in nursery and eldest needing before/ after school care, it was virtually my whole salary (approx 50% of our joint income)
This was back in the day before any free childcare hours though. Ours are all grown up now.
Although it's hard to see so much of one's hard earned cash disappearing, I do think one advantage of working when the children are small is that once they start school, you really feel the benefit of only needing wrap around care. And of course in the long term it's been an excellent decision.
I totally agree though with the OP that 'child care poverty' is a very real concept for many people.

25%

When i go back to work with two ft nursery, it will be two thirds of my take home pay, about a quarter of our household net income. Mortgage is much smaller!

About 10% of our combined gross income. More than 20% of actual take home pay as we pay high pension conts. At the moment we have a stockpile of childcare vouchers as we carried on saving while I was on mat leave and reduced dd's nursery to not much more than her free hours (she conveniently turned 3 just before her brother was born). So we are paying for it out of gross income which makes it feel much less painful.

We had a couple of months of 2 in nursery which was slightly painful but dd then started school.

About a ninth of our combined income for FT nursery. We're not very high earners, but we live in a country where childcare is heavily subsidised and is charged on a sliding scale - we pay 550-odd euros a month, which is top whack.

25% of our combined income for full time nursery for 1 DC.
It's more than our mortgage - ouch!

Childcare is £966, my take home pay (including childcare vouchers) is £906 DH comes out with around £1100

Just over 10% now, in termtime at least. Was over 50% until do started school this year.

Meglet, do you know that you are allowed to average your child care over the year if it varies? Sorry, not trying to be patronising, just sometimes hmrc don't explain this to people when it can help a lot.

26% of our joint household income. 100% of my wage - luckily DH earns much more than me otherwise we couldn't afford for me to work.

10% of our household income. DS was in nursery 4 hours a morning Mon-Fri.

Fulltime childcare for our two would total well over £24000 a yr, which is of course a net figure, without allowing for unplanned overtime and problems..
So we decided for me to shelve my business for two yrs and do the childcare until our youngest starts nursery, which is imminent, then I'll ramp up the business so I can work between pick up and drop off times, plus childcare costs will drop to manageable levels so I can see a profit...

10% of our gross income for 4 days childcare at nursery, term time only.

Just to add, I say gross as we pay using vouchers for the most part. they are a big help.

I work 3 days per week and childcare costs are about 70% of my take home pay. We have two DC in nursery. When DD turns 3 next Spring our childcare costs will finally start to come down... I would find it very difficult to get the same job at the same salary with the same flexibility so it's worth my while to take the financial hit at the moment as it'll be worth it in the long term.

I have a FT live in nanny who works 70 hours per week and it costs us around 35k plus additional expenses attributable to providing room and board.

The % of income is largely irrelevant. DH and I are both high earners so we can afford it

DD is in nursery 4 days a week and it is costing us almost all of dh's salary, so about 40% of our joint income. It is crippling, thank heavens she gets the 14 hours in April and will be in school soon.

When we used childcare it was a quarter of our combined wage, and more than our mortgage, even with the tax advantage of voluntary childcare vouchers. £1,300 a month at its height, for two children at a childminders for four full 9hr days a week. We had no benefits other than child benefit.

Two children , two days a week in private nursery costs approx 15% of our joint income
More than our mortgage payment

When kids were younger 0 - or 100% of my former wage if you count becoming a SAHM...

Now - they are 12 and 13 at secondary school and "latchkey" kids... so still 0, but I only work part time.