Not paying for childcare this autumn as bills go up

[Essenceandvibes]

I've just had an epiphany.....I absolutely won't be paying a penny for childcare this autumn as bills increase and I won't be made to feel guilty about it either. I can work from home and watch my baby and pick up my 10 year old from school without the assistance of anyone else and if my employer has an issue with it, he can pay an extra £2000 per month post tax to cover the cost of full time help.

Our bills are going to be about £800 a month just electricity and gas alone for our detached 4 bed house, this isn't even thinking about the increase of petrol or groceries.

The mortgage has also gone up a few hundred quid too....childcare and commuting is now a luxury not necessity and I really hope every parent joins me in asking for employers like it or lump it

Shameful the government have let everything get this far, the knock on effects will be huge

At least she was trying. What are you doing about it apart from trying to pull down people actually challenging this rubbish?

At least she was trying.

What she was 'trying' to do was get women a lot less privileged than her to take measures that would get them fired from their jobs. Hardly a champion of the greater good.

@Cookiesareworthit

I am not pulling down anyone. I was referring to the OP trying to start a revolution which is unlikely to suit a lot of women (as already evidenced in this thread). It is not going to lobby the government, it is simply going to piss off a lot of employers and potentially make some womens employment rather unstable. Additionally as also evidenced in this thread a lot of women simply don’t want to look after their baby whilst working from home. They did it during lockdown and it was bloody awful.

I’ve already sympathised with your private rental predicament and it is most certainly shit. I would be raging too but do you really think the OPs proposals will solve many peoples problems? It won’t.

Well for a start as an individual I have never once voted for this government. I’ve also engaged my MP on various matters that people tend to shrug about, mainly about the lack of funding in education and the current scraps that are dished out in the sector but that’s another thread entirely.

Beyond civilsation? What an utterly ridiculous thing to say.

I appreciated OP's post for the bigger picture.

Something needs to be done. OP was writing about something SHE could do that would work for HER.

But everyone just loves an opportunity to shout 'suck it up, Sue' instead of saying 'what extreme measures can we take to effect change'.

The attitude on MN is very much 'I have to suffer, so so should everyone else'. It's a self-centred way of thinking.

@NippyWoowoo

Not true. OP stated that if we were ALL to do it, it would lobby the government into doing something. Yes there IS a bigger picture but OPs proposals aren’t it.

wesayenough.co.uk

I was talking about the big picture of the opening post.

She doesn't say that in her first post, it's 'I' had an epiphany, 'I' am doing this

The everyone came on frothing and it went south.

I stand by what I said, generally speaking there is a very self-centered way of thinking on MN.

“Something needs to be done” = “I want someone to give me public money”

I was amused to read your post upthread where you complained that Britain apparently has ‘the highest taxes in the world’ despite being ‘beyond civilisation’ (??!!). Do you work in tax? If so, which source are you getting your information from? I’ll bet that you don’t know much about tax at all and that you are blustering with no evidence.

You complain that Germany, for example, has cheap childcare and better hospitals. Why do you think that is? Think really hard. Are the German government ministers finding Euros down the back of their sofas? Secret diamond mines? Or does Germany, er, levy higher taxes to fund all of those things?

Let’s go with the latter. How much more tax are you, personally, prepared to pay to bring about this utopia? As, presumably, a net beneficiary who would like free or cheap childcare. I can guess. You wouldn’t expect to pay more tax. No, you would expect to pay less. Everyone else can pay more.

Anyone ticking off their bingo card, eyes down for the full house. You are looking for:

• it’s not a race to the bottom, you know
• Amazon
• tax the billionaires
• tax the rich

Hahaha I meant Nellybarney’s post.

OP was writing about something SHE could do that would work for HER.

The OP said this in her opening post

I really hope every parent joins me in asking for employers like it or lump it

So not just about what she could do, no.

@Iamthewombat I agree with everything you’ve just said. I’m a net contributor and would be happy to pay more tax to see childcare etc. subsidised (even though I’m already paying for a lot of stuff I can’t use), but it sticks in the craw when it’s always the same people wanting to take and assuming someone else will give.

Appreciate these sensible posts re tax

You know what’s going to happen now, don’t you?

Someone will come along to snarkily tell you that there’s nothing stopping you paying extra tax over to the Treasury if you feel like it. Even if that was another £10k a year, as if it would touch the sides if only a handful of people did it!

I know, I regretted it the second I posted it.

And of course it’d be meaningless without the necessary societal shift behind it - as it is, the current incumbents would no doubt give my extra money to a company without ferries or spend it on upgrades to a second home or something. They wouldn’t bundle it up and send it out to fifty randomly selected parents.

This was my first time replying and I won't be making that mistake again, thank god my social circle are a lot more compassionate

Let's sit and wait for the headlines come February shall we?

Childcare will be the first expense to cut down on before heating or eating and it won't be out of choice or an "epiphany" like OP had. It'll be because people are desperate.

Anyone who cuts out their childcare is running a big risk of not having a job at all, given that many employers have had a gut full of this during the pandemic and rightly or wrongly have reached the limits of their patience. I struggle to see how masses of people are going to reach the view that it’s worth risking their main source of income to save money on childcare.

Then again I work with people who are doing this now because they want to save money, not because they have to, so perhaps I’m being naive.

Let's not forget that many employers were very reassuring about people having to work from home and look after kids during the first lockdowns, because it suited them. That BBC interview clip of the man with his child running into the room halfway through being shared far and wide again, with an attempt to normalise such situations and tell people not to worry - because furloughing people who couldn't get childcare didn't suit most employers.
Now, since childcare is available as normal again, many of those employers are once again implementing their policies that state childcare must be in place during working hours, even if the employee is working from home? Why? Because it no longer benefits them.
We are fortunate to not need to worry about increasing costs, but our childcare bills currently total nearly £1500 per month... That's more than a lot of people earn. I do wonder how a single parent on NMW would be expected to manage. I know a few couples where one parent has given up work because they were working simply to pay childcare bills and struggling to meet every other expense on their partner's wage.

I am an employer… i’d call you in for a disciplinary and if you continued after that, i’d rattle through your warnings and fire you.

Your kids are not the firms issue, you’d be less productive.

Posts like ur’s reinforce why i dont all working from home aka chilling at home.

I appreciate you're having a rant here through frustration which I'm sure most of us feel. That said if that is your attitude with you employer yes you are being unreasonable.

By all means ask what options are but IMO you cannot work effectively and do childcare, one or both will be compromised. A good employer will value good staff and should try to find ways to help but very much depends on the job and would require flexibility and/or comprimise from all parties.

Woah, I'm glad we're not like this towards employees. 😳

Far too many Mrs Judgeypants on this thread! I totally sympathise, OP.

Currently on mat leave and returning to work in the autumn, will be working from home but absolutely no intention of trying to look after the baby at the same time, really fail to see how that would work! Plus, you really need boundaries between work and home life.

Why blame the government as it was your choice to have kids. That a selfish attitude to expect other taxpayers to contribute. Anyway, to answer your main point, if you can babysit at the same time as doing your job, fantastic, but only providing there is no detriment to your output and especially absolutely no interruptions or disturbances when on calls to clients.