To think nursery shouldn’t be charging me for bank holidays?

[Givemegoldensun]

Can I ask AIBU? Nursery costs just over £90 a day for an 8 month old, and they expect us to pay for bank holidays when they are not open. To me this seems unreasonable. We are talking about paying £185 for no service (Good Friday/Easter Monday). It this normal practice? I don’t want to be an asshole but we are financially stretched and I don’t think this is fair.

I learned that lesson and changed my working days!

OP- I agree. You are paying for a service they are not providing, doubly so if you have to then work the bank holiday yourself and pay for alternate childcare. I think No Service- no payment. If they need to pay their staff for bank holidays then this should be reflected in their prices overall.

I think everyone who is justifying lumping all the charge onto the users of that day are totally brainwashed by the system. It just isn't fair on the Monday users.

We just paid our standard fee each time and it never varied. It was pretty easy to understand that they could change it to not charge for the closed days, but then the other days would be higher. Plus, then the nursery would have to send out bills and tell everyone exactly what to pay each billing period. That would take time and cost money. The net result would be the same intake of funds, just more hassle for everyone.

That is a straw man argument. The OP does not employ the nursery staff.

I agree it's unfair OP but it is sadly industry standard.

I've used three nurseries across my two, and all 3 had different policies:

1. Annual fee divided by 12, so it was a monthly cost that made clear the closure periods (Christmas period and bank holidays)

2. Charge for each day's attendance, didn't charge for bank holidays

3. Charge for each day's attendance, did charge for bank holidays.

So based on my small sample size (and this is across an area of 20 or so square miles) there is no 'normal' way of doing it, it really is different depending on the nursery.

I paid for bank holidays and holidays for both the nursery and CM my DD went to.

However I got out my calculator and worked out that it would cost more per year to send her elsewhere.

OP if you don't want to pay for bank holidays find another nursery that doesn't charge them and move your child to that one. It may work out cheaper or it may not.

Unless you pay as you go and not a monthly.rate then you are being unreasonable

The cost is a yearly cost paid monthly

Daily rates will be for comparison

Even those 3 days have a yearly rate paid monthly

Mine are teens now so no childcare to pay but we always paid for bank holidays yes

Yes this happened when my DS was in kindergarten. I think if they didn't then they would just tack on the cost across the year. To keep the place you have to pay.

I moaned about the cost of decent childcare even then and nothing has changed in 28 years.

we didn't pay bank holidays when my daughter was in nursery (left in September to start school). It would never have occurred to me that we should since they were closed on those days and not offering care.
I'm surprised it is seen as so normal tbh.

PrincessTeaSet a gardeners overheads will not be anywhere near those of a full time nursery. See Shinyandnew1 @16.08.

nb and it wasn't a standard monthly fee we paid that might have invisibly spread the cost of those days, each invoice was itemised individually with the number of days attended, so costs always fluctuated month to month.

Normal practise - we are 4 years out of the nursery years but we absolutely were charged for BH.

Nurseries pay their staff for bank holidays, you are paid for bank holidays. It stands to reason you pay them for bank holidays. You're commissioning their services and as part of the contract you signed you agreed to pay them for bank and public holidays.

Find a nursery that spreads the cost or don't use a Monday. Otherwise suck it up.

But nurseries get a hard deal with customers' attitudes. "She's only 8 months old" reads like she's only little and hardly any bother... "we're w financially stretched" that's not their problem, that's yours. You opted to buy a service, no one forced you.

They still have to pay their rent/mortgage, gas/electric standing charge, insurance etc all year round, as well as their staff. Usually they would charge 12 identical payments which include BHs

With a lot of their fees.....and soon to be even more in the local authorities and government control how do you expect them to cover their costs? It's not as simple as put your hourly fee up when most of their business won't even be at the current break even fee.

How much of your boyfriends hourly fee is set by the government? You do know the government are not paying the normal hourly rate for childcare which will soon be 15 hours for all ....so around 50% of many children's hours will be underfunded come September. Maybe settings should just do 4 day weeks

Seriously 28 years ago you paid full for 4 years childcare now there is 30 hours subsidised for 3 and 4 year olds, 15 for 2 year olds and in September this will expand to 9 month olds.....with a plan to give 30 hours.

This.

I expect you'd kick off if you weren't paid for bank holidays.

I agree it’s a really unfair system, especially for those whose children attend part time. My DC was attending Mon-Weds and we always ended up paying for bank holidays while those who were not attending Mondays did not.

I think most nurseries do this unfortunately. I did see one that was charging slightly less for Mondays to make up for bank holidays and that’s a fairer system as it spreads the cost across all the children attending instead of penalising those who are in on Mondays.

It's frustrating but I rationalise that I get paid for bank holidays, so why shouldn't nursery staff?

It does seem unfair on parents who have children in nurseries on a Monday, as most bank holidays fall in a Monday, but not sure what they could do about that...

The subsidiary is a joke.

Lot of parents childcare costs have gone up due to the subsidiary not covering very much.

I was lucky my nursery and childminder managed to keep their prices the same for years. Now they have risen.