To not want to pay nursery registration fee?

[coffeeforone]

I have just enquired about signing DS2 (9 months) up to the same nursery DS1 (3) goes to. They said they have plenty of capacity for babies and have asked for some very brief details and £300 to register him.
I asked if there was any flexibility to waive this fee (as they offered this when we registered DS1 two years ago after we said we were trying to decide between this and another nursery). They said they can’t waive it and its the only way to secure the place for 3 months time.

They also don’t offer a sibling discount (unless both under 3) which is fair enough, so we will be paying the full time monthly fee of £1625 for DS2.
Also fees of just under £915 per month for DS1 full time (which is reduced from £1625 due to the '30 hour' funding we can claim for over 3’s).

So we’ll be paying over £2500 per month in fees. AIBU to think it would be nice of them to waive or reduce the £300 registration fee for DS2 as a goodwill gesture? I just feel a bit robbed paying it when I didn’t with DS1 and I know some of the other parents didn’t either.

How do people afford it? I've never used it and had no idea. Why do they need a book bag to go play for a few hours? A uniform, is this normal too. I've only ever heard of school children needing uniforms.
Mine just played with friends in their old clothes.

As Mn decided to zap the other thread here is my answer on that one:

Sorry forget it, wrong thread!

I've just worked out what our nanny would cost you for 5 days 8-6, it comes to £2,065 per month - this is including employer pension/NI contributions and all associated costs
This is very unlikely, unless she is spot on the minimum wage and has opted out of the workplace pension.

@silvercuckoo Not unlikely, this what she would charge (she's under 25 and charges above minimum wage for under 25, but slightly below minimum wage for 25+)

We also pay employers pension contributions, she hasn't opted out.

We choose to pay her more than she charges as I don't agree that there should be a different minimum wage for under 25s. We also added in some extras (healthcare, transport costs) as we are fortunate to be able to afford this (she's not full time with us)

However if we had gone with what she asked for when initially searching for a nanny then the
figure I quoted would be what we would pay for 8-6 5 days a week including all employer costs.

That's well under £10 gross an hour though isn't it? Which is very low for a nanny.

I think you'd be very lucky to find a nanny prepared to accept at/below minimum wage.

@PurpleGoose
Ah, in this case maybe - I tend to look more at 50+ nannies, so totally forgot that there's a different age specific min wage threshold. It works out to be around £8.5 per hour gross - I think it is quite unusual to find a nanny happy to work for that rate, everyone I interviewed wanted at least £10 net (and those were nannies with almost no English), and more commonly £12 net.

It’s supply and demand
Is it Reg fee -
It means only those who probably want the place pay it or you get too many people dumping them and then it’s suddenly not full and not viable
Re discounts - ALL stopped round here when 30 hours free came in
My kids are at a very financially stable nursery and she said the impact of 30 hours almost sunk several in the area..

@silvercuckoo @abbyhammond It must be my area then as most nannies here charge just above minimum wage - I'm guessing it must be an area where nannies aren't really in demand.

Thinking about it I'm the only person I know that has a nanny - I often get reactions like "oh very posh" when people find out we have a nanny. Also for only 1 child it's much cheaper to go to nursery here, it's only since having my second that we've 'reaped the financial rewards' of having a nanny Vs nursery. A nursery didn't work for our circumstances/work hours though, so nanny was our only option really.

With two DC we had a nanny. We pay £11ph net and contribute to pension and she’s insured on a car of ours. It worked out better value for us than a nursery and allowed more flexibility for other activities etc. It’s not cheap but the upside was she’d look after them when they are poorly and was more flexible with hours than a nursery.

Our nursery registration fee was £250. Same for DS1 and DS2. Settling sessions were pretty much unlimited though and not chargeable as extra. Annoyingly they've stopped the sibling discount at our nursery. DS1 starts school in September and we're changing to a childminder.

They waved it the first time so you would bring your ds to their nursery and not the other one you were looking at. They don't need to do it this time because they will be presuming you will want the kids to be in the same place and you won't go to the hassle and expense of moving both of them.