To hope our childcare costs will be minimal/none?

[firstlittlebub]

By the time I go back to work we should be eligible for 30 free hours.

We will need 2 days a week all year round

I know settings charge a top up fee for consumables, but AIBU to expect our bill will be minimal or only a couple of hundred pounds?

I'm hoping so too OP but am currently on mat leave - following with interest!

My daughter goes full time term time only. We get three days a week funded any pay of two days. We pay under £500 as month including food etc on the funded days.

We are in the Midlands, I know nurseries are a lots more expensive in other areas.

With the funding being spread out over the full year I believe it is 22 hours a week so hopefully you only have to pay the consumables 🤞

The 30 free hours is term time only. Some settings only allow you to use the ‘free’ hours in their core session (our nursery is 9-3 so she’d have to go 5 days between those hours to benefit from it) and some allow you to stretch the funding of 38 weeks over the 52 weeks. We have saved loads but it’s never been ‘free’.

Definitely not none I’m afraid! The funding only applies for school hours - so nurseries will charge for the hours around the school day. It also only applies for term time, so in the school holidays you’ll be paying full fees. They’ll also charge a pretty hefty (in my experience) ‘setting fee’ for food, materials etc. I generally found our nursery bills were halved once DC got the 30 hours. Sorry it’s not better news.

Free hours are only term time, although most nursery's will average them over the year so you may need some paid hours depending on how long the days at your nursery are

YABU because most providers have specific sessions the hours can be used and won’t generally give you full days.

Yeah mine is, I pay about £80 a term for snacks and breakfast. Is a brilliant place, but term time only.

OP you might find private nurseries will have a minimum attendance to claim the 30 funded hours, ours did when my DD came in when she was 3 days attendance per week. 30 hours stretched is something like 23 hours. Ours charges £2 per hour top up for the funded hours so it works out at something like £22 a day for the funded hours then they've put the normal rate up to £70 a day. Can use the tax free funding for that.

Im afraid you can only use the ‘free’ hours term time only. Do you might have to pay around £40 per day for the school holiday dates or take those off as holiday!

Also there is absolutely no guarantee that the current offer will remain on the table ..a change of government or policy could alter things. As it is, the current "free" hours are really nothing of the sort, its a complicated subsidy scheme thar no-one thinks has it right. OP if things will be tight for you I strongly recommend you research and save as much as possible in advance.

YABU to expect it to be free. They aren’t free hours, they are funded hours. They are also term time only so you’ll end up paying for school holidays or having your funded hours pro rata. Not all nurseries can afford to do the funded hours.

Nursery for 3 days 8-6 costa us £1,000 a month so a very long way off free or minimal. When we get the funded hours for 3 year olds (they are still working out the affordability for two year olds), I estimate it’ll still cost us about £500 a month. So again, not really a couple hundred.

Yes, not great news I'm afraid. It really depends on the nursery, but some will insist on a minimum of 3 days a week. They'll charge for long days and the 22 stretched hours might be over 5 days, so 4.5 hours a day? Then some are increasing the costs of the remaining hours, consumables etc. So it's unlikely to be free, but it should be a lot less. I'd expect £400 or less per calendar month of stretched for non term time.

Also, some nurseries only take 15 hours. I've raised with an mp, but they can't force nurseries to accept 30 hours. It's so frustrating.

Yanbu to hope
You would be foolish to plan on it though. No one knows how it will pan out.

We’ve just become eligible for 30free hours and use 3 days per week. Spread through the year we get 22 hours a week which is 2 days per week at DDs nursery. So we pay £5 a day meals etc and 1 day per week. I imagine you’ll just have a v small sundries/meals/materials bill.

Just to let you know, our nursery is only offering 5 x 30-hours funded places - total. Everyone else gets the 15 hours. They just can't afford to give any more. There are about 100 families at the nursery over the 5 days. I really don't know how they select which families get it!

YANBU - people are missing the "minimal" part of things.

We're doing 3 days, and even if the 9m old funding goes, we'll only be paying something like £350 each max pm, and that's rounded up/generous overestimates.

My side hustle will cover that! My main salary won't be touched by it.

But I do live in Birmingham, which has a good track record of being affordable on local salaries. Loads of availability here, so I guess nurseries have to be competitive even if they're good.

After tax free for 2 days a week with 30 hours ours works out to £250 a month- pretty standard around here!

Thanks everyone, it’s so interesting how different places operate

It depends on how your nursery runs the scheme. At our nursery you would have a £7 a day food bill (optional, you can send packed lunch) and the 30 hours stretched over 52 weeks would cover 2 days. So you'd pay £14 a week.
But other nurseries are far more restrictive on how you can use the hours, and have far higher additional charges.

We did 3 9-hour days a week. Our nursery let us stretch to 22 funded hours a week so we paid 5 hours per week (£25) and a £15 top up. Minus tax free childcare, we paid about £135 a month. They all differ though.

My DS gets 30 funded hours. His nursery is open 51 weeks of the year though, so we "stretch" his hours to 2 full days (10hrs/day) each week, year round. We pay about £60 a month on top of that for food. I suppose it depends where you are but it's not an unusual setup in the town I'm in.

We stretch ours over the full 51 weeks, which gives us 20ish, our child does 2 days a week so as of April he will be completely free. His nursery is a private nursery and they don't charge setting fees or consumables. It's an incredible nursery to be honest and they get ALOT of extras that a normal nursery wouldn't provide and they are one of the cheapest in our area. They might be unicorns but amazing affordable nurseries do exist

Depends where you are in the country I imagine. SW England, 3 year old in 3 days a week. Funding covers 2.5 days and them there's a top up/consumable charge for funded hours.
It's around £280 a month.

You need to contact nurseries around you and see what they charge.

One near me would charge you £10/day, would allow you to use the two full days year round.

Another would allow you to use 7hrs of funded hours against a full 8-6 day, with a food charge on top.

Yet another would only allow 30 hours for a full time place.