Nursery have increased fees by 10% and we can't afford it.

[Notveryxmasy]

With full time hours that's £100 a month more and we can't afford it. We don't have that money each month. We live rurally, I work from home and DH is a contractor so no one set place of work so DD has to go to a local childcare setting and there just aren't many to choose from at all. Her current nursery by sheer dumb luck is less than a mile down the road; I'd have to drive 6 miles to get to another one by which time the fuel using 24 miles every day would eat up any savings we could possibly make moving her. She's also settled and loves it there, I don't want to disrupt her. No chance of a pay rise as I'm public sector and DH is SE and already doing everything he can to earn what he does.

She currently goes 8-6 as I work 8:30-5. I pick her up by quatre past 5 but the nursery don't do half hours so we have to pay for the full 10 hours. I have sent an email to ask if they will please consider allowing us to drop an hour a day and let her do 8:15 to 5:15 but I haven't heard anything back and I'm not holding out hope. All our bills have increased so much these past few months and we're expecting another baby, we don't have this extra money. What can we do if the nursery refuse to let her drop an hour?

We don't have sky, we don't eat out, we don't have luxuries, I don't even have a smart phone these days as I couldn't afford to replace it when it broke. There's nothing we can cut out to magically find that £100 every month.

@SENstuff glad it’s not just us. We don’t even have a driveway! Never mind an east wing or west wing

I don't understand why you have to pay for 5 days when you only work 4. Must be the charging structure of nursery. The free hours will help soon. And you'll be on mat leave so can take her out for a bit then. So it's just a case of doing what you can with flexible working requests for the both of you I think.

It sounds like you have two cars even though you work from home and your DD’s nursery is only a mile away. Sell the second car and walk to nursery. That will more than cover the shortfall.

As others have said why are you paying for 5 days so 50 hrs instead of 4 days and 40 hrs if you only work & days @Notveryxmasy

I do think you need to think longer term not just surviving next few months. Life with 2 in nursery will be hard even without your loan. School isn’t all it’s cracked up to be - have you priced wrap around and holiday childcare it can be expensive particularly post covid with limited options. Eg on the hours you work it would be £30 a day childcare in hols and I’m up north.

Ffs *4

@Blondeshavemorefun

As others have said why are you paying for 5 days so 50 hrs instead of 4 days and 40 hrs if you only work & days *@Notveryxmasy*

She said she's paying 40 hrs which is fulltime isn't it. Four days at 10 hrs. I think if just dropping a day at nursery was possible she wouldn't be worrying.

16.30 post she says paying 40 hours so works 4 days and child in childcare 4 days 8-6.

@Autumn42 Forgetting for a moment that as a women I might have actually studied and worked hard for my career so shouldn't have to just give that up for the sake of a child, practically speaking it would be impossible for us to manage a mortgage and bills on a single salary. I've always known that I would have to work and pay for childcare. And I don't maintain the same standard of living as I had before becoming a parent - thanks for the assumption - I have made many sacrifices along the way. This is the only way I can afford £70 a day nursery fees.

Comparing raising a child 'these days' with raising a child years ago is pointless. The cost of housing is now so much higher. Whether you rent or own it is unlikely that you'll be able to do so on a single salary. Property prices are over 1000% higher than they were in 1980 - wages have not increased at the same rate (only around 40-45% increase with longer hours worked for salaried workers than ever before).

Also, I really can't get behind the view that only the exceptionally wealthy get to have children.

This is really tough OP! It's a big rise and clearly a nasty surprise. I wondered about a few options. Can you chance the mortgage term (extend it) to reduce the costs. Elec and gas is way more than I'd expect unless you are talking projected post-cap costs. If not, can you see what is guzzling your elec or gas? Can the loan term be re-negotiated or can you put it on interest free cards for now and pay off more slowly. That's a really expensive fuel and car costs. If it's a gas guzzler, you need to consider changing it. If it's because your OH is driving a long way for work, is there a way to get more local work? £300 on groceries is not massive but you could reduce. If nappies are bumping things up, consider cloth ones. Good luck.

Can I just add.......the 30 hours are not free, they are funded. So the local authority sets how much they're going to give to the childcare provider, and if the provider charges more per hour than what the government gives them,then they will have ways of charging parents the difference to make up for it. Otherwise they run at a loss. If the nursery is open all year round they may offer stretched funding which spreads the cost over 48 weeks but obviously gives you less than 30 hours per week

I really think you can cut your grocery bill. I manage on far less than that for 2 adults and a teenager. Of course you may not want to eat how we eat: entirely from scratch, mostly vegetarian, lots of pulses. But might be worth trying for a while.

Feel for you OP. You shouldn't have to justify having a second child. You both earn well and work hard. The country is broken because you should be able to afford a couple of luxuries yet you can't even cover the basics. It's a joke. We're in a similar situation (2yo, impending mat leave), we bring in a bit more but still feel poor.

@Ozanj

How heavy is your workload Fridays? If it’s light then just skip them. When I wfh with 2 yo DS I just switch my camera off during meetings and use a noise cancelling headset so people can’t hear him in the background

Absolutely disgusting. Fair enough in a short notice help my child is ill/I have no childcare at short notice one off situation. Not every Friday. That's appalling.

Your husband actually brings in less money than you do when £400 of his £1900 goes on car and running costs. It would be better for him to take on a full-time employed job that doesn't involve travelling. Then maybe do a bit of his self-employed thing at the weekends and while on annual leave if needed.

I sympathise OP- I think you’re getting a lot of tough responses here, which I imagine you weren’t prepared for.

I think you and DH need to think outside the box in terms of what he can do- this shouldn’t all fall on you to juggle your working hours and come up with solutions.

He’s self employed- surely one of the benefits of that means he can set his own hours? I’d be expecting him to come up with a compelling reason why he couldn’t take on the responsibility for either drop offs or pick ups every day. That would allow you to slightly reduce DD’s nursery hours and you can still work your full working week.

DH works full time and I do slightly more than 4 days a week- he’s does drop off, I do pick up which means we can slot our start and finish times around pre-school hours (8-4) without needing to worry about wrap around care.

And absolutely about DH reviewing his rates or charges- I think there’s a general expectation of everything going up, so some increase shouldn’t surprise many people!

Pension - put payments on hold until you can afford them.

Council Tax - if you don't already, call and ask to spread payments over 12 months rather than the usual 10 months.

Mortgage - ask lender if you can increase the mortgage term to reduce payments?

Groceries - you need to cut right back.

Loan - transfer balance to a 0% credit card? You could potentially reduce payments to the minimum and save yourself some interest.

TBH you sound a bit overwhelmed. If it's all getting a bit much please consider calling a debt charity like Step change. They can contact the loan company for you and set up a reduced payment plan. Or you could call them yourself. This would affect your ability to get further credit though so don't do it unless all other options have been considered.

And finally, have you thought of giving up work? Working all the hours you do, just to pay someone else to look after your babies. Is it really worth it? I have been in the same boat and it didn't dawn on me until baby number 3.

Good luck OP

I’m a bit baffled about all the suggestions to increase the term of the mortgage.

That requires a full mortgage application and credit assessment doesn’t it?

How on earth is a couple who don’t have £100 to spare a month, and another child on the way, going to pass those checks?

Even if the mortgage payments are ultimately lower - the lending criteria is still very unlikely to be met on incomes that tight

So you cannot afford an £100 a month but you’re having a baby? that wasn’t a very smart move , sorry

@Dixiechickonhols

16.30 post she says paying 40 hours so works 4 days and child in childcare 4 days 8-6.

I went by her original post saying full time hours so assumed 5 days

One should never assume lol

If it’s ,literally 6mths I would put the Cost on an interest free credit card
and any savings each month whether food or petrol if less one month pay towards if

Hi OP,
Hope some of the unnecessarily harsh responses aren't getting you down. Really feel for you. You both earn well and clearly have done the right things, got a degree, started a business and work hard and your outgoing are completely reasonable. You are not at fault. It is insane that a couple cannot afford to have two children with a combined income of over 50k. There are some good suggestions in here. I really hope something works out for you.

Sounds tough OP.

Can you investigate 50/50 on the pension scheme which means that your contribution is halved, you need to calculate the tax savings though so you won't actually save 50%.

Childcare costs are absolutely crippling.

I don't agree with the people who say you shouldn't be having no 2! Really uncharitable!!!

You just need to get over this bump and you'll be fine. I second calling StepChange - fabulous organisation.

YABU. I don’t know how to put this other than to say you knew full well you couldn’t afford another child yet choose to have one anyway because you “hoped” you could make it work.

At best this is misguided and foolish.

I also wonder what people would say about someone who had chosen to spend all their money but then couldn’t afford a mortgage increase. I bet they wouldnt get much sympathy.