45k salary entirely eaten by childcare

[Sofiewoo]

Granted salaries aren’t what they were only a handful of years ago but aibu to be shocked that my 45k salary is now entirely eaten by childcare and getting to work??
I figured if you are earning in the 20s you would assume that but not mid 40s!

I’m trying to weigh up whether to just take the next year and a half off instead of working for nothing. I know, pension, career blah blah but it’s mentally very difficult to juggle drop offs, work schedules and sickness but be no better off financially at the end of the month.

Did anyone else not realise it was a bad as this?

And you say this to dads as well @whatswrongwivme?

parents can want their children and love them but also work so that they have w roof over their heads and pay bills

It sounds like you were lucky to have 2 very flexible employers!
Theres no way we would be able to do
something like this, we don’t have enough annual leave to cover the non term time holidays for a start and although we have both used a flexible working request to change our hours neither employer would be happy with us working until 2 half the week and making it up days later.

But you’ve said yourself - your wage isn’t paying the bills. You’re working for free.

Only as of the latest fee increase.

The poster said “never mind the money”
which is a pretty naive and out of touch comment given its pretty obvious most people use paid childcare to enable them to work, to earn money.

Having children is a commitment though. You can’t say ‘oh I do love them and want them, I just don’t want to look after them.’

We’re talking a lot about this country not providing affordable childcare, but maybe we should start asking why it doesn’t view childrearing as a meaningful vocation?

I’m sure op, myself and all other working mothers would happily stay at home and look after their own children if they had no money issues /rent /mortgage /bills /food /clothes etc as a bare minimum and all of these paid for by the wonderful money tree that Phil Mitchell in EASTENDERS has

Are you the only earner though? It's been decades now that you'd need two salaries to raise a family in a pricey area.

We weren’t lucky! We both deliberately moved to employers where we knew that we were likely to be able to do this before we had kids, and built up goodwill also before we had kids so our bosses knew we wouldn’t take the piss when we requested flexibility. Plus both of us used to catch up once the kids were in bed on our 2pm days, so we’d be logging on at say 8pm for an hour just to check nothing urgent had come in. Now the kids are at school we’re both back full time so it was for a limited period and I’d say our careers haven’t really suffered.

It may not be open to you but I’m just using it as an illustration to show how people manage the fees, especially with 2 kids in nursery. Plus you’ll never know if you don’t ask.

In terms of holidays BTW quite a few places will take young kids for holiday clubs, or even their old nursery. It still works out cheaper. And quite apart from
anything else what do you plan to do when your eldest starts school?

(Again most people juggle it with family, holiday clubs, unpaid parental leave and taking holidays alternately rather than always together but you do need to make a plan).

The fees for under 2s is around £11 so more than a lot of nurseries’ hourly fees?
Funding for 2 year olds isn’t far off either at £8 per hour (average nursery per day of 10 hours £80 a day).

It definitely covers the fee so I’m not sure why nurseries are saying it doesn’t. It’s not the government’s fault they mortgage or rent expensive premises.
There is a problem with the 3/4 year old funding of £5.50 an hour but they can have x8 children so £42 an hour.

Childminders are restricted in the number of children they can look after which is where they don’t make enough with 3 and 4 year olds (when you add costs in). I would raise funding for them as they do a great job.

If nurseries weren’t profitable, they wouldn’t be owned by offshore companies making massive profits (partly from the government (I.e. tax payers) funding). Sunak's wife was on the board of one of these childcare companies.

There's plenty of more awful parents out there who kill and abuse their children at home than there are awful nursery staff. Posts like this always come up, always intended at mothers that god forbid they don't want to spend every waking moment with their child, they are somehow awful parents.

I have full sympathy for you OP. I really don't know what the right answer is. Only something you and your husband can decide on but as a fellow working mum (who works full time), I'm glad to see you're not being guilt tripped by absolutely nonsensical posts like this.

My child is only a couple of years older, there is simply no need for you to be rude and dismiss viable options that would save you tens of thousands; you're literally being told exactly how others made it work. School nursery may still have places if you call to ask. When you use part time, you split out the hours between you both and flex time so that you have fewer hours for your child in nursery; try actually asking your employer as it looks like you're missing a trick when that is the norm these days. If you can't, then your DH can still do it as every afternoon or morning session saved will save you money. Either of you can also preserve your CV and pension by being part time rather than having a gap. You need to stop complaining and start looking into actual solutions.

I kid you not, the system is backwards

@Sofiewoo one thing part-time will do is mean a higher percentage of your income is in the personal allowance.

Thinking rough numbers.
Personal allowance is about £12k
You earn £45k Taking into account ni and pensions less than a quarter of your income is tax free.

Dropping to 3 days £45/5 * 3
You earn £29k Ni and pensions almost half your income will be tax free.

Do the maths properly and decide if for the next couple of years it's worth going part-time or stopping completely.

Gwtting 85% of childcare costs paid is "backwards"? In what way?

He was a SAHD until youngest was 4, so 5 years in total. So 4 years of trying to get back in, not 9. 9 was total time out.
It's not odd at all, a few years out and it's like you never had that career beforehand. Technical, saturated industry so knowledge quickly becomes obsolete and competition is brutal.
Eventually he did a boot camp thing to upskill and Eventually got a job (graphic designer). But only on 25k. Which he was earning far in excess of pre kids but it's like that first career never happened.

@Sofiewooto be honest it was ever thus. Absolutely no better in the old days before ‘free hours’ , nursery was still incredibly expensive. And for a much longer time with short mat leave! I had a September baby and paid full childcare fees from when he was 3 months old until 2 weeks before his 5th birthday. And before anyone says well housing etc was cheaper, er, 12% mortgage rates?

honestly it’s not easy feeling you’re working for nothing but it really isn’t nothing- you’ve got your pension, your professional development and keeping that important foothold in the workplace.
I have zero regrets. FWIW I did just 2 years of part time at one point and it’s knocked a considerable chunk off my occupational pension. Due to compound interest the reduction feels very disproportionate to just 2 years of working 3 days a week! But it is what it is. Fortunately it was only those 2 years so my pension will still be enough to retire at 60 and live off.

I think it’s entirely understandable to want to vent when you see all your take home pay disappear - but then you’re paying for your precious children to be looked after which imo is the most important thing of all. My kids’ nursery was amazing, there was a big focus on outdoors, lots of creative activities etc and as adults they have fond memories

Either go part time or if you can afford it, take a few years off work- you won’t get those precious early years back with your kids. Be a SAHM for a while, kick start your career later on- life is too short to work for no financial gain! X (I was made redundant in Mat leave - so ended up taking 5years off, retrained and am now a teacher, after having a cooperative background)

Or yes give up work if you want to stay home.

Can I ask, lots of teachers seem to want to get out of teacher. I'm considering a career change.
Is it better or worse than the corporate world?

Many of the women on this and other threads like this are working because they want to though, or to ‘stay in the game’ or to add to their pension.

OP is a case in point that they’re not doing it for the income.

There are also loads of threads by women who don’t like looking after their children and say they find their days ‘off’ a massive slog.

I know lots of jobs can’t be part time - but this is where everyone should be looking at creative, workable solutions.

what about job shares? So two people working in a job meaning the role is covered full time.

teachers can job share.

I’m sure it would work for loads of employers and employees with a bit of thought.

There's plenty of more awful parents out there who kill and abuse their children at home than there are awful nursery staff. Posts like this always come up, always intended at mothers that god forbid they don't want to spend every waking moment with their child, they are somehow awful parents.

I always find this an odd argument. I think we’re kind of assuming here that OP’s is a loving home without abuse. Therefore putting a 1yo in nursery probably isn’t better, is it?

Also, maybe reframe from the perspective of the parent and think instead about the baby. It’s not about being a ‘bad parent’ if you don’t want to spend every minute with your child. It’s about what that presence means to the child.

Looking after your own baby can be pretty dull. But it’s not dull for them.

I want to add in the staying in work thing as relevant but with an anecdote.

I work in an area that has many different specialisms and due to current line of work there are now many streams I don’t have recent experience of.

I also work in a theme and seem to have been pigeonholed making it very difficult for me to move “theme”. I’ve been second three times in job interviews and each time because I didn’t have the right “themed” experience (each time that was not listed as an essential requirement as I wouldn’t have wasted my time otherwise).

so sometimes even if you stay in work it’s difficult to stay “current”.

Maybe staying in work isn’t all it’s cracked up to be - industry dependent of course.

Anecdotally I walked away from a high paying job City to sahm for 6 years. Set up on my own now earn the same as I did in my high paying job. More than Dh actually. Dont underestimate yourself.

Speak for yourself - I never found being with my children dull. I just wanted to continue a work life after becoming a parent.