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😅

Look at working 4 days a week? You don't loose as much as you think and you'll save a whole day's childcare.

Sorry, but £12 a day is cheap. Breakfast club for £8 and after school for £13. So you likely will pay more for a lot less hours when they are at school.

That's because the staff member to child ratio is lower for two year olds than three/four year olds so they find it slightly higher to make up the shortfall.

Our nursery charges £2 per funded hour for consumables, so for a 10 hour day that’s £20. The cost of unfunded nursery days are now up from £67 a day to £75, as of the start of this scheme. I barely make any money, but I enjoy my job so I’m not leaving, even though I’m spending everything I earn on nursery and commuting, pretty much.

But they can charge for nappies, food and resources so the way that reads is the contribution is not to top up the funded hours it's to pay for the extras.
The funding only covers the actual childcare not any of the extras so it's expected they charge separately for that.

Are you applying tax free childcare saving to that?

It’s £76 a day here and that’s the cheaper end, zone 5. Friends in zones 4 are paying £100 a day.

It’s a top up fee as the funding doesn’t cover it. It might be worth checking other nurseries locally as they all vary but most have some kind of top up fee.

The cause of inflation seems to be Conservative policy ideas which don’t work. This massive jump in nursery costs is surely inflation.

Your issue here is that you can’t use your funded hours as you need to. My top up charge is similar but we can use our hours for the full days so we’re only paying the top up charge each day. Have you looked around locally to see if there is another nursery that would allow you to use your hours for the full day you need?

Quite a few nurseries in my area have closed down due to not making any profit with government funded placed. There is only one childminder in the area, she refuses to.do the "free hours". This is a massive problem, the government do not provide enough funding. Could you reduce your hours, so that you don't have to pay more than £12 per day?

Government funding purely covers the childcare element. So that £12 a day needs to cover everything else including food, nappies, toys, activities etc.

I think the government currently give around £5-£5.50ish for each funded hour. Our nursery is £8.60 an hour so they have a massive shortfall to make up.

I don’t think £12 a day is that bad tbh.

The government calling it “free hours” is purely political. It’s really a contribution of £X towards childcare a year. As such is causes lots of confusion.

I think you need to ask your nursery for clarity.

You are saying only part if the day is funded.
The pricing suggests the whole day is funded, then £12 on top. Or is it the fee before 9am and after 4pm causing the issue?

My son’s nursery charges £2 a week for those on funded hours and that goes towards snacks. If a parent doesn’t pay it the child doesn’t go without though as it’s a voluntary contribution.
most of those children are 15 hours a week.
we use stretched funding and all meals are included because we’re still paying the full rate on top of the 22 hours per week. My monthly bill is £595 a month.

There is only one childminder in the area, she refuses to.do the "free hours".

It’s heading that way around here as well.

Rather like NHS dentistry… you might be entitled to it, but if you can’t actually find one that will accept you, you will have to pay full rate.

In NI we don't get any of these "funded" hours at all, and we pay the same taxes. Nursery for 3 days a week is costing us £741 a month.

It’s not a race to the bottom.

Could you ask if you can provide packed lunch?

Because the optic that only mum’s income should be considered leads to the male-female pay and pension gap. And that women are going to take time out of work to care for children meaning they don’t get hired/promoted. And that men can just do bath and bedtime and be heroes while women carry the mental load.

This is a massive issue in society that impacts all of us.

OP do you use tax free childcare?

I think you need to go back to the nursery and ask whether £12 a day is for everyone who uses some funding, or just for those who only attend 9-3 and don’t pay for any nursery hours outwith that.

If your kids are in 50h a week and 30h of that is funded then you should see some benefit to it, or if you’ve spread the hours across the year then half the week is funded.

It feels like the issue is they’re marketed as ‘free’ hours - unless your child only attends 9-3 or go to a school nursery, it’s not going to be free.

Not sure what planet OP is on to have been paying so little?

I paid 1300 /m until 3yo funding kicked in
Now it's 750/m

Yup, this is completely normal. It's not really money for those things specifically, it's just money to pay for everything the nursery needs to stay afloat, because the government aren't actually providing any extra money.

Our nursery fees were more than our mortgage when my son was under 3 (and both were over £1000 per month). We both earn reasonable salaries, and on days I commuted the cost of nursery + train fare was the same as my salary. I think it was £67 per day, four years ago.

Most people, unless very well off, waited until they got free hours before having their second child. Now this racket of a government have made it sound like you'll pay very little towards childcare... but it's bollocks. As you have discovered. It's why lower-paid women so often leave the workforce, often for years because when they start school you'll discover wraparound care isn't as easily available as they make it sound when you look round the school.

What was your plan before the new funded hours were announced? Planning on giving up work or how were you funding the childcare?

How old are your children / when does the oldest start school? If it’s close then it’s worth going back to work even though the income won’t be great just from pensions / keeping yourself in a career long term.

Our is £3 a day for the lunchtime hour supervision (packed lunch from home) as the kids are there 8.30-4.30 and one hour a day falls outside the 30h funding. We also pay a "snack money contribution" of £15 per term which imo is ridiculously low. Our nursery even said it's voluntary!! Lord knows how they keep going!