To not understand what this means on our nursery pricing?

[HeadsShouldersTitsandArse]

Can someone with more brain cells than me please explain what this means?

Because £12 a day on food, nappies ect seems bloody expensive.. I’m used to £3-£4 a day.

I have two children, I can’t afford £350+ on nappies and food every month.. that’s more than our entire food shop 😂

I’m really starting to sweat😅

How can your nursery make any money if you pay them £3 a day?

And if you don’t volunteer to pay it, they will decline your application for a place. They don’t need to take your kid.

That isn't allowed.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, and I'm not saying I don't understand why nurseries need to charge this. But it is specifically not allowed. Any additional charges must be something the parent can opt out of, and the funded pace cannot be contingent on the additional charge being paid.

I don't see how OP could opt out, practically. Because of what it's covering, it's not really feasible for the nursery to not provide those to just her child if she opts out.
At my DD's nursery, the only additional charge is for food, and they're fine if you don't want to pay for food and send in packed lunch instead.

It might not 'be allowed' but it's guaranteed to happen.

I know it’s not allowed, but they’ll do it. And I hardly think the government will follow up all the complaints about nurseries doing it. They’ll have other excuses for being unable to offer a place.

I’m not really sure what the problem is - £12 a day for childcare for one child is bloody cheap in my opinion!! I’ve had 4 kids and only ever had the 15 hours free at 3 years old for all of them

It’s pretty standard unfortunately. Funded places aren’t fully funded. The way I had it explained to me (not sure if it’s 100% correct but it makes sense to me) is that government funding pays the wage for the actual staff to look after the child (sadly it’s sometimes not even enough for that), but doesn’t consider all the extras which come along with it that the nursery offer or have to provide to be able to care for the children - so resources, snacks, nappies, wipes etc. Imagine sending your child to nursery but they couldn’t have a snack, lunch, drink, nappies, fresh bed sheets at nap time etc because the funds didn’t cover it. That’s why the extra charge came in. £12 a day isn’t bad at all. My sons current nursery is £70 a day for a standard non-funded day (he goes 5 full days so bill is astronomically high) and then £20 a day for funded days when he’s eligible. Needless to say we’re moving him to somewhere cheaper but we still have to pay a daily charge on top of the funded hours for the days he uses them.

Surprise surprise, the Tories have claimed to implement something ‘free’ which is actually resulting in

a) people paying no less (and in some
cases more) than they were before on childcare, and

b) providers closing completely because they now can’t make ends meet, which results in more people competing for fewer places.

@TeaKitten not sure yet as she won't get the hours until January but last year when my other daughter got the 30 free hours it was £4.50 a day.

The way I had it explained to me (not sure if it’s 100% correct but it makes sense to me) is that government funding pays the wage for the actual staff to look after the child (sadly it’s sometimes not even enough for that), but doesn’t consider all the extras which come along with it that the nursery offer or have to provide to be able to care for the children - so resources, snacks, nappies, wipes etc

Overheads like nursery rents, energy bills and covering minimum wage pay rises have also gone through the roof.

I’m surprised you think £12 is ‘very reasonable’ when you paid less than half that than to be honest! I thought you were going to say £20 a day or something

@TeaKitten I'm just comparing it to the £67 a day I'm being robbed or currently 😂

But it’s not just £12 a day for us.

It’s £12 a day, and the standard rate outside of the funded hours. I work full time because I need to to pay our bills, so the kids get their funded hours and then I pay their standard rate for the other hours which means paying roughly £650 standard, plus the £12 a day for two children.

Thats around £1000 on childcare a month. I only get paid £1300. I’m so baffled. Not by the nurseries so much, they have to do what they’ve got to do to stay afloat.

I’m working for £0.53 an hour. But I can’t not, because the £300 puts food on the table.. although with prices rising it will barely even cover that soon.

This is a very commonly discussed problem. It's everywhere. On here, on socia media (e.g. Flex Appeal campaign), at baby groups before mat leave ends, in the headlines. 54,000 women are pushed out of the workplace annually and one of the reasons is that 2 under 5 is currently unaffordable - unless you both earn very well or, like me, you live somewhere where the hourly charge is relatively low. I know plenty of couples delaying or entirely giving up on child 2. You haven't mentioned a partner but I'm assuming there is one with a salary paying the other bills.

People say it's a shared expense across the two salaries but I struggle with that when you know what the net financial gain of one of those salaries is.

@shakeitoffsis same!

@HeadsShouldersTitsandArse its shit because it’s not free as ‘advertised.’ But 12 pounds a day seems like winning a small fortune to me at the moment!

Do you qualify for Universal Credit?

Do you have a partner who works? It shouldn't really be seen as your cost alone, if so.

Are you utilising tax free childcare op? That will help a little. But your earnings seem low for full time, on minimum wage it should be around £1400 a month, which may only be £100 difference but that's quite a lot when every penny counts.

Our previous one just went busy because of ‘funded’ hours and the difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff on crap pay . We got a month’s notice and had to scramble to find somewhere else. We have, thankfully, but it’s more expensive, bigger deposit, admin fees to sign up. Bloody hard. We can only afford 3 days a week of childcare and now I have no choice but to take on evening and weekend work to juggle everything. Plans of having a second child have sadly been completely scrapped.

Nurseries have to pay rent, buildings insurance, business rates, gas/oil, electricity, water, and council tax, food, staff salaries. Energy costs are high with having to wash bedding daily and catering companies are expensive. There are other hidden costs, like DBS checks, annual Ofsted and insurance costs, website costs – as well as training costs in mandatory areas such as first aid, food safety and child safeguarding.
Then there’s the price of supplying food and drink, nappies and wipes, cleaning materials and first aid supplies, and all those obvious things a parent would expect from a nursery like toys, outdoor resources, arts and crafts materials etc. But the government’s answer is to offer more funded places that aren’t properly funded and to try to alter staff ratios to unsafe levels. I work in a nursery and have seen a sharp rise in children requiring one to one attention and children needing referrals, which require hours of form filling and evidence gathering by the senco, not always paid. Thousands of settings are closing each year and we are heading towards a situation where parents will struggle to even find a place for their child.

I could not bring myself to work full time for £300.

When my eldest was little I did 5 hour shifts on a Friday, Sat and Sun evening at a local shop and took home £400 a month (this was about 10 years ago) at minimum wage that would be about £600 now - with no tax to pay as you will be earning under the 12K odd annual threshold.

Assuming that you have a partner that works a Mon-Fri job you wouldn't be far off your current earnings (after childcare) if you just get a Saturday job - better quality of life - and you would have more scope to earn more with overtime for example if this was in retail that you could add an evening or a Sunday.

You should then be able to find your kids provision for their free hours that is actually free such as a nursery attached to a school that they can take a packed lunch to and as you won't be working at those times it won't be a problem that their hours are short. Also not a problem if they are off ill as you are home.

I know that people often reply that you should keep up your career (i.e. work for next to nothing for years with the idea that things will improve in the future) but if you are earning £1300 a month (for full time?) I can't imagine that this is a job that you couldn't get back into in a few years time or something equivalent. I don't mean that to sound rude. I work in care now and could easily take 3/4 years out and get a new equivalent job or match my wage in hospitality, retail, office admin etc.

Surely you share the costs with the kids’ father?

some always comments this and I never understand why. It's household income so the household income is only increasing by £x per hour.

That’s daylight robbery , we paid £1 a day extra to help with the snacks . I’m in Scotland not sure if different

Yes. Exactly this. Ours is £7 per day contribution. £70 for a full day. I need full time childcare for 2. I pay for 8 days a week (1 day is funded, 1 day provided by family). I don’t earn enough to cover the cost.

You are paying £1000 a month for full time care for 2 children?

That's 1000/2 = £500 per child
500/4 = £125 a week
125/5 = 25 a day
25/10 = £2.50 per hour.

Surley it's a bargin to know your children are safe and cared for, fed, educated and having fun for £2.50 an hour.

I'm not sure there are many other services that would be cheaper than that.

If the overall cost is more than you earn, then you need to consider how to restructure your working hours, or stop working.
That is a choice you need to make if you have 2 young children.

However, saying that, there are other settings that will structure their fees differently, so look around if it's too expensive.

That's the deal. Take it or leave it.