How could care essentials be £218.50 a month ?!

[Daisydips]

My child nursery says care essentials cost £218.50 a month. My child is 3 uses the toilet and only ever comes home with paper with normal black pen drawings on. What possibly could be costing £218.50 for it be an essential payment?

Am I being unreasonable to question this ?

do give us the breakdown of what you actually pay per hour...

Its astonishing that people want everything for nothing and expect free childcare. Would YOU think it's enough if your hourly salary was what you pay the nursery?

How is that OP’s problem? Other than she’s being hoodwinked.

Here is some proper advice Op away from
the derailing ones. Unless the nursery is fantastic in every other aspect I would check
prices around other places near you.

Of course this depends on whether nursery places are hard to get in your area or not. If they’re excessively charging like that it means they know they can because they may have a monopoly in the area.

It’s area dependant too, DS is paying only 60 in the North of the country for DNephew so it’s an astonishing amount that they are overcharging you.

I don’t think people actually realise the cost of running a business.

I didn't say it was her problem? She's not being hoodwinked though - it's the reality of the childcare industry atm.

You seem very keen to paint the nursery as some profiteering racket when the reality is that they can't survive without charging these amounts.

As you say, if she's not happy she can look elsewhere, but I think £220 a month for 30 hours/week childcare is a bloody bargain and she's not likely to find a single nursery that doesn't charge these "extras".

Exactly. It's so expensive - rent, heat, electricity, water, insurance, staffing costs, pensions, supplies, cleaning, food, nappies, toys - and people think they should get it for nothing. Batshit.

The 200 is being charged for essentials not 30 hours of care. 200 is an excessive amount for essentials.

The point is that the 30 hours funding doesn’t actually cover the cost of the care.

Thats why they’re all charging additional fees - it doesn’t cover their costs.

A lot of nurseries locally to me just aren’t offering the hours now - not worth it. That is the end result if they aren’t allowed to charge in a way that makes their business viable.

Well, duh. Because they're not allowed to charge for care - so they have to dress it up as something else

Isn’t it for food as well? We pay £180 per month for additionals but that includes all meals, snacks and drinks (milk, smoothies), nappies, wipes, sun cream, play consumables like play dough and extra curricular activities (football coach, language lessons, trips and special events).

Assuming the child is full time that’s basically 21 days a month ish so £10 a day. I’m guessing it includes snacks, possibly lunch, hygiene items etc. doesn’t seem so bad broken down

Nurseries are profiteering- screwing over parents and nursery staff. There’s a reason that private equities are investing heavily in the nursery/childcare sector.

You dont have enough information to say this. If the child attends 50 hours all year around then only 22 hours will be funded and 28 hoirs need paying for. In which case, that is a miniscule amount per month!

Op was lacking in detail.

I was about to say the same; it’s around £10 a day which doesn’t seem like a huge amount really.

Lunch, snacks and drinks could easily run to a fiver especially when you factor in the staff needed to prepare it. And then you’ve got equipment for activities like sand, arts and craft bits, etc, trips out, any visitors that come in for classes, wipes for faces, soap, spare clothes in case children don’t have any or go through theirs, sun cream in the summer, etc.

You can ask for a breakdown and it’s an optional charge but it doesn’t seem an outrageous amount to me.

The governments funding is only for education/care element not for any of the other essentials around caring for the children. Meals, snacks, wipes, tissues, nappy sacks, paper towels, soap, extra activities, seasonal activities etc. The funding allows for a basic eyfs curriculum but if your nursery is paying for something like tapestry for learning journals, taking children on trips out, do special things for Xmas and other events, parent information evenings etc all these things are extra costs to the nursery that have to be paid for.

Did YOU read the previous posts clearly explaining this ? The money given by government for funded hours does not cover wages, training , toys, bills and consumables. There is a considerable shortfall. Therefore settings ask for money for ‘ essentials’ which ensures they can cover everything.

Nice goady post. Is it just based on your own opinion, because you expect free childcare and everybody else to pay for your child, or do you have actual figures..

When you see how many private nurseries have and are closing down because it's just not sustainable

Hardly insane, it’s only around £10 per day!

Government funding does not even cover wages!
Additional costs will include Wipes, toilet roll, soap, anti bac gel, laundry costs, washing up liquid, towels, spare nappies, toys, books, art supplies, messy play supplies, gardening cost / plants, building maintenance, bills, appliance testing, paediatric first aid ( every 3 year) , compliance training , staff uniforms, food/ bits for Christmas party, first aid kit, office equipment and supplies.
Please tell us how you would like nurseries to cover the above?

You get funded hours at nursery; not free childcare and everything that goes with it.

I think there is a huge misunderstanding about what the funded hours covers and all the additional expenses left over. As other PP have said, £218 over a month works out to be a negligible amount.

Even six or seven years ago when my youngest was at nursery that didn’t even cover two days at nursery.

Whether I expect free childcare is irrelevant to my comment. I get no free childcare. I don’t expect other people to pay for my children. But it does piss me off that I pay through the nose for it and yet the women hands on in the nursery looking after children are some of the lowest paid workers in society. All the while the nursery are raking in.

A quick google will confirm my PE statement.

Some people try to pay their babysitter a tenner for the evening, because "its' not fair babysitters earn money. Trust the CF to want free childcare and free nursery too.

Funny how no one ever complains nail salons are too expensive?

I’ve never asked to pay nothing. It’s labelled as ‘essentials’ which is why I question it. If it was labelled nursery fee I wouldn’t say anything.

I asked what the essentials are for and they said nappy cream and wipes etc. which wouldn’t cost that much a month

Plus I pay additional nursery hours on top of the essential cost. So it’s not me asking for a free nursery

Can't make money at 1:13 ratio for 3 year olds?