To ask you how you manage childcare costs?

[Lalalalawhitenoise]

Specifically with 2 nursery aged kids and both parents working.

my eldest has 30 free hrs but with the wrap around care and then the out of term costs, it is eye wateringly expensive, roughly £2k per month full time. I earn just shy of 40k and take home shy of £2300 per month and with the rises in everything (we’re expecting £500+ extra on our mortgage if things stay as is, mortgage is up end of next year). I’m freaking out. No childminders in the area with spaces either and this is one of the cheaper nurseries

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It’s a bit late now to tell her not to have the second child, which she’s already said was an accident anyway! OP will your youngest have started school next September?

We changed our working days to be 'opposite' each other!

Was just going to say this. All the people on this thread who are smug about having planned their gaps to avoid this might not be so if their second pregnancy had turned out to be twins (like mine).

As several PPs, we're handling it by dipping into savings which we hope to be able to rebuild once they're at school.

Age wise I should have been but i was in education for a long while and used a lot of my and dh savings for our home, so whilst we do have some, some of it to fund both mat leaves and the rest is intended for our htb and then with the rises in everything the amount we’ve saved has got less and less :(

Quite!

To be getting the free hours now, your older DC will be in school by the time your mortgage is up so hopefully that will mean you're ok.

Next year I'll have three DC in nursery. The older two will be getting free hours and I condense my days and accept that I'm pretty much working for nothing at the moment.

I'm a lone parent and have accepted I will live on savings until 30 free hours kick in. After childcare costs I earn £700 per month. I live in a home I inherited so I won't be homeless thank god. I honestly don't know how people do it.

Reduce mgage by extending term until kids get into school?

I had a 3 year gap so my eldest got the 30 hours funding whilst we paid for youngest

I work 4 days as does DP - he compressed hours and I do 30 hours so we only have a Sunday off together this means we only need 2 days of childcare with a childminder which is a cheaper option than a nursery.

We saved for maternity leave

D

I had two babies a year apart. We relocated after the second so I left my job and decided to stay home until the youngest was in receipt of her 30 hours (in Scotland so all 3 and 4 year olds get free hours). I did some studying whilst a SAHM and managed to get a slightly better job than the one I had before my career break.

My career break was 2 years - I'd have been nervous to take longer than that. I also set up a LISA and SIPP to offset the loss of employment pension.

I was lucky to find a job that is very flexible so I do most of it while children are at school/preschool and some in the evenings while my DH puts kids to bed and does housework. No childminders here or grandparents to help out so it is a juggle.

*in Scotland so all 3 and 4 yr olds get 30 hours

oldest is qualifying for 30 free hrs in jan so can go to nursery school next September and then reception the year after. But it doesn’t seem like cost goes down after the 30 free hrs?

sounds silly but do you still pay for childcare over lunch at school? Because there is still wrap around care

Same, it's not forever and lovely when you get to the end and have lots more disposable.

eldest will be in nursery school not reception, she gets 30 free hrs from the new year

Twins and an older one. We had to employ a min wage nanny paid her my salary and lived on credit cards for three years then paid off when they started school. It took 5 years to pay it off. Absolutely awful.

Our term is already long, we’d be extended it until retirement and I think that can be tricky, well according to DH who used to be a mortgage advisor

You can always overpay or reduce mortgage term again in the future.

Ds1 is 6, in ft school and then we pay £12 a day to after school childminder and we share the holidays between us and holiday club.
ds2 is 2.5 - ft nursery at £240 a week year round.

Joint income gross 60k
its sucks but it’s only for a few years and then we will be out of the other side.

Yeah that’s not on our agenda now that’s the future as you said, we need to pay our htb or else our mortgage will be even more awful, according to dh we can’t really extend the term further as it was the max term we could take out as per retirement age

I'm through it now but we went interest only on mortgage and
Both went down to 4 days a week and DH worked weekends.

Oh shut up

We don’t have a large enough repayment vehicle for the short term, i was thinking If rates stay as is, maybe a 2 year tracker as they seem to be the cheapest rn and base rate ‘should’ have started to come down.

it’s all so crap. The 40k is actually a new job offer as well, but a year ago even on a lower salary with 2 kids in nursery would’ve been ok, so much has changed so quickly

We only had 1 but basically just accepted that we'd have very little money for a couple of years. I went back fulltime when DD was 9months so we had full nursery costs till the September after her 3rd birthday in May. The 30 hrs helped a lot, they reduced the childcare by about half as we spread them over 52 weeks rather than just term time.

When she started school there were still childcare costs and logistically it got a bit harder. Nursery was 8am - 6pm so a bit of wiggle room either side for pick up/drop off. Breakfast club at school started at 8am but after school club was a 2 Hr session that started at 2.50pm when school ended and finished at 4.50pm. Getting back from work by 4.50pm was nail biting, a couple of red traffic lights or any extra traffic on the roads and I'd be screwed. It was cheaper than nursery though. £1 a day for breakfast club, £10 a day for afterschool.

The benefit of those few years of penny pinching and crazy schedules is that I was able to progress my career. DD is 8 now, I was on £28k when I went back from mat leave, I'm on £85k now because I've been able to go for and get several promotions.

My partner works 3 days, and I do compressed hours over 4 days, we pay for 2 days at nursery for 2 kids a week. Even just for that it’s still lots of money.

I wanted to be the part time worker, but my salary is more so we had to do it the way or have no money really.

childcare years are so bloody hard

I accepted I was pretty much working for nothing but saw it as an investment in my future working life. I wanted to work at least part time for my wellbeing not just for money. I was also getting decent pension contributions from my employer.

This. It is a temporary period which we saved for and accepted knowing we'd be financially far better off once both were at school. I don't know anyone for whom it hasn't paid off - all the families i know with two incomes are much better off but also better placed with the long term goodwill to request flexible working when kids start school.