I need to have a rant about the cost of my childcare

[MGFM]

£2200 a freaking month!

This isn't a stealth boast about having enough money to pay out this much in childcare and I also want to say I feel lucky that I used to have plenty of disposable income and I feel lucky to have two wonderful children and I don't think the state should help me pay for their care (although I most certainly have signed up to the tax free child care) but oh my fucking god , I want to cry every time I think about it!

We will have enough left over for food and fuel and clothes when desperately needed and the odd treat but it is going to be freaking miserable.

I was in an outlet store yesterday and tried on a beautiful pair of skinny grey jeans. They were soft and luxurious. I thought they were only £29 but then I saw they were £50. Hung them back up and left the shop. I have just lost all my baby weight ( I put on 3 stone - it is now all gone and I am back to my not al size so I am desperate to buy some new clothes and now can't afford any) I need a tiny violin to play for me somewhere as I feel so pathetic.

I just need to rant about this really and I have moaned to real life friends but they might get sick of me droaning on about how broke we are

30 hours free

Not free, it's funded. Yes your nursery fees are expensive but if makes you feel any better, nurseries are closing daily due to the idiotic Government offering these funded hours and labelling them as free, so parents think they are getting a good deal.

Under my LA my last nursery was £21 per child (over 3) per day short because of these 30 hours.

So yes it's a pisser to see how.mich childcare costs but don't believe the Government are helping. By more private nurseries being forced to close, it means 2 year olds plus will be in school nurseries from a younger age.

Google Champagne Nurseries Lemonade Funding.

Blimey. How the other half live.

the money the elderly paid in has been spent on the previous generation of elderly. they are now getting paid from money those currently working are paying, whoe will get their pension from the children who are currently getting childcare. possibly. if the whole thing has not collapsed.

Holdme

This is essentially what I believe. I also out earn my husband at the moment and have no intention of putting my career on hold. My career has naturally suffered due to the children but I think that is just the nature of my current job. I am confident I can still have a good career once I am out of the military in a few years. Taking time out to look after the children may save us some money in the short term but does my cv no good. Plus they won't remember! My mum once commented about leaving them at nursery and not raising them myself - I asked her what she thought they taught them at nursery? Drug taking 101 along with how to steal a car in 60 seconds coupled with anti social behaviour sessions. She laughed . I said it fosters independence and confidence and sharing and caring and social skills etc. She hasn't mentioned it since.

£600 here for a 3 day week. Luckily MIL has DS the other two days but when my baby is born she is not willing to look after them both, so I would imagine I will be coming in around the 2k mark which means I would purely be working so someone else can look after my children. I'm not going to bother going back to work after my mat leave ends

I'll also add the unlike you, my husband is the money maker and I don't mind being at home, I'm actually looking forward to it. DS will be getting his 15 hours next year.

OP, that is a lot of money and it does sound very tight financially for your family. It is criminal how much childcare costs in the UK. It is short sighted for the government not to subsidise it more.

You are making the right decision to continue working even if it is barely worth it financially. You also have plans to have a career outside the military which presumably has upside.

I wholeheartedly agree with the posters who say you should aim to earn more rather than lower your costs. I went part time after children and then changed career. It took me 5 years to get back to my previous salary. My last jobs, I took a 20% and then a 40% pay rise and negotiated the money hard. I figure that every hour I am out of the house is time I could have spent with dcs and therefore I owe it to them to maximise the remuneration for that time out of the house.

Your respite is coming soon when you older one hits 3. Mine will continue with little chance of respite to past university. Some people find private school cheaper than fulltime nursery and are so used to the financial pain that they continue paying for education.

I feel for you. I'm looking at going back to work soon as my DH has taken a large pay cut. We still don't qualify for any tax credits and are down about £400 a month but if I go back to work 90% of my wages will go on childcare! I will be working 9-5 but DH works odd shift patterns and we have no family to help with childcare so we will have one in school (with morning and after school clubs), and one who's 2 yrs old at preschool and childminder after school. It's ridiculous how much it costs. Just think, it won't be forever. You are lucky you are in work, long gaps between work make it hard to get back in iyswim. I will go back to work and take that hit for a while. It is horrid though.

You think you have it bad: childcare for my 2 under 3 will be over 3000/month, then breakfast and afterschool clubs for the eldest on top

I was going to say don't have a third!!!

Thankfully we live in the US and use a mix of the head start program which is government run/subsidized and a sitter. Mine are 6, 4 and 18 months. Average each month during sept-June is $2800. July and August are $5600 each month. This is for care from 7-6.

Yes we are 'lucky' to earn enough to pay for this but it is a challenge. It also really irritates me when people see a higher salary and not the long hours worked or evening functions that you must attend. It's not always a bed of roses and yes if you make £60k a year you will probably be lucky to breakeven if you have more than one child. It should not be this way.

Oh and I whole heartedly agree with advice to focus on the top line. I've made it my mission to get my pay up. In 5 years I've doubled it. I've told my new employer we need to double it in the next five years. Even if it goes up 20% it's a huge accomplishment at a time when everyone is fighting to keep pay level.

That's a few hundred pounds more than we have coming in per month for a family of 4. You said you have plenty of disposable income.

Not really sure why you are moaning, tbh!

Do you moan about the cost of your manicures? Your other luxuries? Probably not. Don't moan about the cost of good child care, your children are your most precious possessions, you surely want them well taken care of while you are out earning this disposable income and childcare money!

Much sympathy op.

Mine is just been afterschool care and £800 a month and it's kept me skint too. Vast improvement from the years of paying £14k a year.

We really need affordable accessible childcare in uk.

That makes childcare in Australia sound much more reasonable. The government pays about half the costs, so for me that works out as about £25 per day per child. If I had both of mine in full time that would be around £1100 per month, so approx half the OPs costs. There is a maximum annual amount the govt will pay for each child, but it is pretty high and I think it's going to be raised soon.

Downbutnotyetout your costs seem much more than mine. Any idea why?

mamma That's the point. It's insane to spending more than what the average income is on childcare and for there to be no help to subsidize that cost. Also the OP is struggling financially. Money is tight.

My colleagues in my previous job were all single. They couldn't understand why I always brought my own lunch in and didn't go for drinks unless they were expensed. With only 2DC I made at most $1000 a month after childcare. I then had to pay for transportation and other costs of working like clothes, shoes, hair, make up. I was lucky if I had $500 left.

The balls up of the introduction of tax credits has completely fucked up the cost of childcare.

The childcare element was a great idea. A temporary assistance for a set period of time when someone went back to work to get through that first period where everything needs to shake out.

Instead of a controlled assistance it was delivered in such a way that so many more people than expected were elibible.

Then of course childcare providers - mostly big company nurseries - thought "hey, these people are getting loads of help, we can charge more" so the cost of childcare rocketed.

Then there was the stupid computer system. Not specific to tax credits but a cobbled together heap of junk that meant very quickly it was very, very easy to rip the piss out of it either by error, exaggeration or outright fraud.

A great great idea, implemented badly has cost so much and will have a long, long lasting impact.

Mamma - we HAD disposable income. We don't anymore. Every situation is relative.

When I worked in private nursery, some of the parents DD's were higher than my monthly wage. I couldn't afford to return to work as my wage didn't cover childcare.

It's amazing how little nurseries actually make from those high bills. My owner was lucky to make £400 profit a year as she had high standards for food etc.

Well done on your weight loss. I have to say Primark Jeans have been my life saver for buying new ones.

What an incredibly ignorant post Mama and fucking typical of MN these days.

What an incredibly ignorant post Mama and fucking typical of MN these days.

Yep. Depressing. It's a good job some people do bother to study (running up debts in the process) and build their careers so we can pay fuck loads of tax and national insurance into the pot. I hate the competitive "you've got no right to complain, my family of 17 lives off £2 a year" posts

Short term pain. Childcare is extortionate, but in 2 years time you'll have 1 child at school and presumably the other one getting the govt "free" hours, so things will be easier.

Grin and bear it and make yourself a countdown chart! this is pretty mujch what I'm doing with my student-induced poverty while I train (2 years to go til I earn again!)

The angry ladies who post 'I chose to stay home with my precious babies' sound both bitter and holier-than-thou. Life is full of choices but society should encourage the right kind of choices. Women taking higher education (accruing the same amount of debt as men for same degrees) and paying taxes whilst also having children is a good thing for society, not just the individual. Women not taking higher education or leaving work after higher education due to cost of childcare or unfriendly working hours is very bad for society.

Proof of this beginning to be recognized (if only just) is the shambolic attempt at addressing it through the "free" 30 hours.

Appropriate solutions won't be found, however, until the issues that lie at heart is addresssed from a societal rather than an individual perspective. And never if it continues to be debated as a women's issue!

If you're the higher earner then why can't your dh stay at home and look after the kids which is what thousands of women do.

Lethal - aside from the fact that he doesn't want to (neither do I) he has been in the military for 18 years. He is pensionable in 4 years. Would be financially disastrous for him to leave his job now. When he does leave in 4 years he would have no problem with working reduced hours so he can do his share