Hang on in there until school age doesn't work?

[TwoTimesShoeShop]

Keep seeing similar comments about working with high nursery costs, to keep going and then it gets easier when they're school age.

DC starts school in September. At the moment I pay £297 a month with the 30 free hours for 3 days a week. For 50 weeks a year care, so I don't have to worry about covering any holidays etc. So £3,564 total a year.

I was counting down the days until we'd be better off. But, breakfast and after school club are £18 a day. So £18x3x38 is £2,052 a year. Great, just over half the cost. Except, oh wait, instead of covering two weeks of holiday I need to cover 14. I get six weeks, so does DH. Even if we never have any time off together except bank holidays and weekends (a bit miserable), we have two extra weeks we'd need holiday clubs for, at £65 a day, so £65x3x2 is £390. If we allow ourselves a two week holiday together, that's another £390. So now the annual total is £2,832.

So we're a whole £61 a month better off and only have two weeks annual leave together. If we wanted to take all our annual leave together (as we can now), then the total is £3,612, so more than nursery!

I can't spread my hours over more, shorter days, as I have younger DC. Childminders are more than breakfast and after school club. We don't have anyone else who can do pickups/drop off etc and no family or friends to watch them for a bit.

I'm just not sure why people say that if you can get through the nursery years then you'll be ok once school starts -actually we'd be either worse off financially, or worse off in time together.

I feel like I was on a countdown to September and now the goalposts have moved. Maybe secondary is the real cheaper point?!

AIBU that 'hang on in there until school' as financially it'll be much easier then isn't actually true? Or am I missing something?

Currently paying close to £1k for DS, 4 days a week nursery with 30 funded hours so personally I can't wait until September!

I think us parents of older children havent caught up, but i remember thinking it wasnt hugely cheaper. It was just over half.

We got 15 free hours not 30 and actually the day rate hasnt changed that much. And our wrap around care was a cheaper. The infant school charged £1 for morning club! Iknpow its now £5.

The main thing i remember was holiday care had annoyingly short hours like 10 til 2, then you paid a massive premium to get a normal working day..

Why aren’t you using tax free childcare? That’s a bit bananas.

Anyway, you’re not wrong, OP. Everyone is saying £200ish a month is cheap but it’s only cheap if you can afford it. Our primary school doesn’t offer wraparound so I’ve resigned myself to paying £1500 a month for it until secondary. It is what it is.

YABU to say 'it shouldn't be said because it's not true' because for many people it is true'

She is using it. But does seem to quoting the 80% of nursery costs as the total against 100% of the after school care so it's a bit apples and oranges but doesn't change that her nursery costs are much lower than average and ASC much higher.

OP you know you can use the tax free account for holiday clubs too so that will help.

From my point of view its easier to negotiate flexible hours around school if you've always worked. You're right that it's not much cheaper once they start school, summer holiday clubs are around £50 a day. But keeping working gives you a pension and hopefully a supportive long term employer.

The very early teens seemed to be the cheapest here. Once they're in fully adult clothes and need driving lessons it's back to burning money again.

As pp have said, your nursery costs are really low, so you can't really expect to see much of a difference.

Children do cost money, I'm afraid. With two parents working FT, the costs you quote sound very manageable really. Were you expecting the primary school to provide free wraparound care or what?

I think you've already seen your big drop in costs.

School is effectively 30 hours/week. You've already got that funded so less of a different going into reception. If you weren't receiving that funding the drop would be much bigger. That's what people mean about the "starting school" drop

We live in the second most expensive city in the country and our holiday clubs are around £38 a day for 8.30-5pm. There are loads of options where we are- maybe shop around a bit.

I would say though that the childcare costs are only half of it- between 2 primary aged kids we’re funding 6 clubs a week plus 2 swimming lessons (which is actually on the low side compared to friends kids). It’s an additional £80-£90 a week during term time. Obviously none of this compulsory but it’s difficult when children really want to take part and all their friends are going.

Anyway- I agree, financially it doesn’t get at all easier.

Tbf £3k / year in childcare isn't that bad is it? For a 5 year old? From a dual income household?

Hard to imagine how your most precious asset could be cared for more cheaply for 14 weeks +

I can't say I've ever heard anyone say that. Of course it gets harder once they start school. Nursery is generally 8-6 5 days a week all year round. With school you have to get back for 3, plus all the school holidays, or to mention all the things the schools expect you to attend.

There isn't really any easy solution. People manage by a mix of part time work, paid childcare, grandparents, wfh.

It might be cheaper if you can work school hours but if you're full time it's even more stressful than nursery.

Yep, such a fallacy. Nurseries are often open earlier and later than after school clubs too, so often the expenses are even higher for wrap around care.

Holiday clubs are around £35 a day, and I live in an expensive area.

For most of us, nursery costs are far higher, so only paying for wrap-around school care reduces costs massively.

HTH

It’s because your current costs are minuscule as it is. Some people are paying upwards of 14k a year for childcare in nursery so your costs are pretty minimal if you have two wages coming in.

Agree with majority that you have unusually low nursery costs together with unusually high wraparound and holiday club costs which narrows the gap significantly. A FT place at DC nursery all year round was £2000/month after funding. I am assuming the wraparound is outsourced to a nursery or other external provider as they charge a lot more compared to when arranged in house. Holiday clubs here are £30-40/day but that is for the 9-3/10-4 hours and easily increases to £60+ if adding on extra hours for 8-5.

I am very much in agreement that life is so much harder when they start school, not easier and the comments of hang in there/increase your work etc are not helpful unless you have a very flexible job that allows you to wfh and do your hours around the children. As many PP have also mentioned, the mental load is so much more when they start school, lots of things to remember, last minute requests for xyz, early pickups, coming in for assemblies etc. Add to that keeping up with progress and work, emotional support etc (basically parenting that comes with a child as they get older) and then sorting out the childcare for holidays. You are always on a hamster wheel.

Society is not set up to allow two parents to work full time. Life is such that you need two incomes to run a house and bring up a family but the support for child rearing is simply not there - the saying 'it takes a village' exists for a reason and there is no such village in todays society, just a bunch of people blaming parents for having children they 'cannot afford' even though said parents are working really hard and doing all they can

I agree, you have very low nursery costs. I used to pay £600 a month so now that school club costs around £200 a month I’m happy. Your holiday club sounds very expensive. I live in the north and pay £17.50 a day for 8-4 in the holidays.

Our nursery was £55 per day and wrap around care only £20 per day, and I had 2 born less than a year apart so when they both went to school it was significantly cheaper for us. We did only take 2 weeks annual year together though, which is when we went on holiday. You seem to be accounting for 2 weeks together to go on holiday and 2 weeks together at home?

Childcare is expensive all round. I do think though that in your case your nursery costs are very low so you won't see as much of a difference

I was paying over 2k/mth before mine started school, so even with bs/as care some days and ~£60/day holiday clubs, I am still better off now

Also our holiday club is only £25 per day.

We live in an expensive area of the country. We need childcare 3 days per week.

• Nursery costs for my 3YO 3x week = £900 with 15hrs funded applied which equals around £10,800 a year
• Afterschool/brek club 3x a week when he reaches school age = (£6 brek club 7:30-9am, £13 afterschool until 6pm = £19/day) = £228/month for ~9months per year £2,052pa.

So moving from nursery to school wraparound will save us £672 a month on average so it is cheaper (£8.7K saving per year).

Full day holiday club - £32/day.
We try to avoid this as much as possible and rely on friends, grandparents and leave from work. But even if I had to send DC x3 a week through every school holiday (14 weeks) it would only be £1,344 a year. That still leaves us over £7K better off over the year, in comparison to us paying nursery fees.

I also have an older child too, so have to pay for his wraparound on top of youngest's nursery. I do appreciate that it feels never ending, but it usually IS cheaper once they get to school age
...... you know, before you start adding on all the costs of the extracurricular clubs they suddenly want to join 😂

Sorry if I missed this but can you wfh? It's much easier to wfh with school age children in the holidays than toddlers. I did this when DS was younger, not every day as it's not ideal to be stuck in the house with the telly on 5 days a week but it was much cheaper.

In summer holidays I would book 2 days off every week rather than 2 full weeks off, so it meant I only had to work 3 days a week. Sent DS to the holiday club 1 day a week so I could go into the office then had him home with me the other 2 days while I worked from home. Saved a fortune.

Your nursery costs are really cheap!!

I pay £900 a month 18 months in 4 days and 4 year old in 3 days. I work 4 days. My mum has 4 year old one day. They go 50 weeks a year. I am praying my bill comes down even with wrap around. I have sources a childminder for school holidays £5 an hour

As well as what everyone has said, it's very unusual to go to wrap around care at both ends of the day every single day. In 10 years of teaching I think I've come across this once in all the year groups across the school. There is one child in my daughter's class that does it. It surprises me how few people actually need wrap around.

We're in London and holiday clubs around here are cheaper than that. And as PP have said, you can use tax free childcare.

Also my experience with them is that they do substantial early bird discounts (15-20%), sibling discount (usually 5%) and sometimes also a discount for booking the whole week. Some near us offer a Friday discount too. Once you add those up, plus tax free childcare, you're paying a lot less than the headline rate.

Once ours get a bit older, I intend to try them.on the very cheap local youth club 10-3 type affairs and then WFH with them the rest of the day but I think that will need to wait until the younger one is 7ish

The OP only needs 3 days