Nursery charges

[SunshineaftertheRai3]

Have just received my daughters monthly childcare bill with the new price increase. Can I ask what you pay for food/sundries for 1 day in your childs setting? My daughter is 3 and gets 30 hours funded. She attends one setting 1 day a week (the hours she attends are funded) and the new charge for food is £57a month. Before the increase we paid £25.50. Am I been unreasonable in thinking this is a ridiculous increase in that it has more than doubled and we are paying nearly £15 a day for her just to eat.

Ours will be £18.50 a day when funded hours kick jn in September

DS’s when he had the 30 free hours (just before he started school in January) was £19.50 a day. It was ridiculous and I dread to think what his previous nursery charges now!

I'm afraid it's entirely normal. The amount that settings receive in government funding simply isn't enough. Their only chance to therefore cover their costs is to charge more for food and sundries.

If you are happy with the childcare provision, and are receiving 30 hours funded hours, then you have to make a decision about whether you are either prepared to pay the charge, or unfortunately, move your child somewhere else, if you can find something cheaper.

It's all the fault of the government, I'm afraid.

So many settings have give out if business as they are not able to run under the poor funding offered.

The situation is only going to get worse with the recent announcements about funded places for 1 and 2 year olds.

School based settings are often cheaper, but don't often run all year round.

Ours is £12.50 a day to cover food, the ParentAdmin app they use, suncream in the summer and other consumables like that. It's going up 50p a day next month. For that she gets breakfast if she wants it, 2 snacks (one in the morning and one in the afternoon), lunch and tea. Both meals are two courses and homemade. Lunch is a full cooked meal and tea is lighter - crumpets, sandwiches, soup, samosas and veg sticks etc.

My DD's will be £18.20 a day so that sounds about right to me I'm afraid

Clearly they aren’t spending £15 a day on food, but they have to dress it up as this as th government hasn’t funded the scheme properly. if they didn’t charge this, they’d close. Would you prefer that?

you may find somewhere cheaper, but it will likely be 9-3 or term time only. If that works for you then go for it, otherwise you may need to suck up paying £15 a day for childcare. Still a bargain compared to what you pay before the free hours!!