To want to work but cant because of crippling childcare cant I have a life?

[mummycanthavealife]

Really want to work but kids under 5. my dp works long hours so never sure when he will be home, I was offered a job but had to turn it down because my hourly rate would of paid for my two children to be looked after so turned it down.
I really want to work give my kids a better quality of life but what is the point should I wait till my children are at school advice greatly appreciated,dont think im entitled to any help either,thanks mn.

boo you must be eligable for tax credit, we get it and I earn quite a good salary! PLS APPLY

You sound like a very resourceful and motivated woman, any chance of setting up your own business and working from home (at least until you're $$$)?

we have applied, we get child tax credit of £20.25 a week for a baby under 1 year and a child of 4.5. we dont get wtc or the childcare element.

Final comment since ChippingIn is determined not to agree in any way, shape or form...

I'm not arguing this point for my own sake. As I've said, I'm now at work and very happy.

I simply feel that people who want to work, and contribute meaningfully to the economy, but who are unable to due to the high cost of childcare, should be helped in some way. And I truly believe that any short-term loss to the taxpayer in general will be more than made up in the long term by keeping people in the workplace where they can work for promotions, keep their skills up to date and generally inmprove their earning potential.

have skimmed through this thread and as long as people only relate to their own situation and not see the bigger picture and put pressure on govt the situation will continue.

IMO the 'privatisation' of childcare and lack of subsidy is blatant sex discrimation.

The fact that the vast majority of women do the low skill low pay work is also evidence of this.

It is madness that the poster could earn more by doing nights in Tesco rather than continuing in their career.

And as for relying on one larger income that's fine until redundancy or divorce. Also the long hours culture and discrimination against women who find themselves on the mummy track will never change until men and women share the load more both in house and workplace.

sorry bit ranty.

And I used to resent more than half my take home pay being used to pay for childcare - we spaced out our dcs due to affordability ochidcare.

Now I am single parent and the burden of being sole wage earner is heavy.

I worked out yesterday that I would still get a good chunk of my childcare paid with a joint income of £40,000. (As long as both parents are working at least 16 hours a week). It still doesn't make me any better off than we are now though, unfortunately.

In fact we would be worse off when you factor in travel costs ... and I would begrudge putting my 2 year old in full time childcare and me working full time and still being tight every month. Perhaps that makes me a scrounger to rather live off of the tax credits we are entitled to now but meh.

The mistake these women make in their teens is picking careers which will earn them peanuts. Why don't they decide to be surgeons or actuaries or accountants? What is it that makes them go for low paid stuff? All these issues flow from women who pick jobs with very low pay.

Not everyone can be a surgeon or accountant Xenia and not everyone wants to be or would be happy doing so.

Disagree with that, because some people are really talented at, and interested in, professions that won't earn them enough to easily be able to afford childcare.

I work in education; I don't earn peanuts, but neither did I earn enough to easily afford childcare for 3 children.

I worked anyway, for the intellectual stimulation, the social life, the career development and the pension. I have no aspiration to be an actuary or an accountant - it just doesn't float my boat.

I have always worked, and I need stimulation and interest in my life. That doesn't always go hand in hand with a super large pay packet.

I don't think the country actually needs 20 million surgeons or actuaries or accountants TBH. If that many were fully trained up then they would also be paid peanuts too.

Do you know Xenia, you are right in my case. I hold my hands up and admit if I could do it all again, I would have done a different degree and got myself a decent job before I had my kids. I can't turn back time now ...

Although I am currently doing distance learning to be an accountant! lol

Annie - you can state your point in as many ways as you like, however, I am still not going to agree that if a couple jointly earn a decent wage then they should still get 'help' because one of them earns a low salary. Children (mostly) have 2 parents and when that is the case the income of both parents needs to be taken into consideration, not just the income of the lowest paid parent.

I am all for helping people who need it - a parent who become widow/er, parents with SN children, if one of the parents becomes ill/disabled, if one of the children becomes ill/disabled - what I am not happy for my taxes to pay towards is childcare for one parent on a low(er) wage when the other parent earns a lot of money.

I was pissed off with been a stay at home mum last year so managed to get a full time job. I left last week and i am at the moment enjoying been at home with my boys.

We couldnt afford childcare because of how expensive it is. We put our kids in childcare for 2 days a week when DH was on nights and i was working and the monthly bill is £498.11 - The childcare element wouldnt have been paid until May! By then my child care would be over due.

Tax credits say you are responsible for paying for your own childcare fees! Some weeks i dont have enough for nappies left alone £500! Its ridiculous! Trying to get mums out to work but the government wont help them get back into work with the deposits for childcare.

Childcare costs about the same as a day's pay on minimum wage

So if childcare costs the same as a days pay on minimum wage? Whats the point in working at all? so at the end of the month you have NOTHING left.

The way i see it is the people who can pay for their childcare comfortably can say its easy to pay for childcare because they dont struggle to pay it themselves. Therefore they can throw comments about like
'you should have thought about childcare before you had children etc etc'

But if you are in a position where you cannot afford to pay childcare costs then you are stuck.

I use to work 40 hours a week, my DH became a SAHD and after 6 weeks decided to go back out to work. He found a full time job and i lowered my hours to 24 hours week so that we wasn't paying extortionate childcare costs.

My husband left his employment after his contract ended as it was only for 4 months. He has been a SAHD now since January and is willing to get back out to work. I quit my job after having problems with my manager and my depression was coming back and i was like a person with a nervous problem, coming home in tears, and cleaning walls because they looked dirty. I handed my notice in and left.
My DH got a vacancy at a warehouse which he was told was permanent and then it turned out not to be and was only for a week. At the time he started his employment i was still working and because it was nights he was working he would need some sleep during the day so placed the boys into a nursery near to where i worked. The cost of the monthly fees are £498.11.

We informed Tax credits and they said the first element would be fully paid in May. We don't have that kind of money to spend on childcare and we was told that we would have to be responsible for paying our own childcare costs.

When you are skint as it is, you cant afford it. My husband is still out of work and so am i. I am on JSA and looking for work, My DH has an interview next week (fingers Crossed he gets it)

But having two parents working and two children in child care whether its 1 or 5 days a week, we cannot afford it.

I think the government should introduce some kind of Nurserys that are for low income families and the fees are paid for by the Government. They can throw amounts of money onto the war in Afghanistan and pay themselves stupid wages and buy moats and stupid duck houses but when it comes the actual people paying for all these costs, the Government do not want to know.

Dh and I are keyworkers, get virtually nothing in CTC so don't claim it (having been underpaid, overpaid & had no idea if we could spend the money they gave us in case they wanted it back) can't afford to live close to where we work so have high petrol costs (just working out whether can increase mortgage and move closer since spend more on petrol than food).

It has meant that in the first few yrs when childcare is at it's most expensive I was working for nothing which given the hours I do is so dispiriting. Only when childcare vouchers were introduced along with childcare costs reducing did I start to make some money. But equally I couldn't afford to lose my job. We saved to have children and live very, very pared back lives.

I received a letter last week forwarded from our old address (we moved 4 yrs ago). The letter stated that we owed $2786.88 in overpaid tax credits for 2008/09. We have never registered for tax credits, never received tax credits and here's the kicker we emigrated from the UK to Tanzania 4 years ago!

Those of you who say I'm being unreasonable - how about this scenario. Mary wants to work, but had to quit her job at the end of her maternity leave for DC2 because she doesn't qualify for help with childcare as her DH earns over the qualifying salary. But they aren't well off my any means and struggle to pay their bills. However, if Mary went back to work, with two DCs under 4, they would be several hundred pounds out of pocket.

Mary gave up a promising career as a microbiologist, and is now getting further and further beind on new techniques, skills and current development in her field.

One day, Mary's DH comes home and announces he's running away with his secretary. Mary is now a single mum. She can afford to go back to work now as she qualifies for tax credits. But because she has been out of work, she struggles to find a new job in her field as they are thin on the ground. So now, instead of finding a cure for cancer, she's stacking shelves at Tesco.

On the other hand, if Mary had been enabled to work through those tricky childcare years, she would still be in her promising career and have some thread of dignity and self worth left.

This whole 'the low-earning partner should stay home and sponge off the high-earning partner instead of the taxpayer' is insulting and derogatory, mainly to women.

There has to be a line though, otherwise you'd be paying for everyone.
What if Mary's husband earns 250k, but is mean and won't give her any money?
What if Mary has a sizeable inheritance but put it all into property so is cash poor?
What if Mary's husband earns 100k but is a gambler?
If my aunt had bollox she'd be me uncle.

What is the qualifying salary anyway?

It is neither insulting or derogatory to suggest that a woman minds her own children and her husband pay the bills, neither is it to expect him to pay for his childrens care if outside the home.
You, on the other hand are being highly insulting by calling those of us who do not WOH "spongers".

Some people are happy to stay at home, other aren't and feel like they are sponging, that's what I meant, didn't intend to offend anyone.

Sorry, I can't ever see it as right to tell someone they should be happy and grateful that they have to stay at home and be supported, and that their worth as a working human being is not as much as their partner's.

To the OP and avoiding all the other angst on the thread YANBU After being a SAHM for a couple of years, we are now in a position whereby sometimes, I am working for about £1.60 an hour. It's not all day every day but it is particularly the case during school holidays when DH can't use flexible hours to cover when I'm working. We do it though because it suits us now - I enjoyed being a SAHM but got to the point when I needed to get back to work as I felt all my years of experience and the qualifications I'd gained were in danger of slipping away. on the months when the childcare sums add up, then it's great - we can now afford some of the luxuries rather than just the nessecities. On the months when the childcare bill exceeds my wages, then it's not so great - but at least I am enjoying work and rebuilding my career.

And it is completely insulting and derogatory to me to suggest that a woman should stay home like a 50's housewife and mind the children while her husband pays the bills!!!

And what some people absolutely fail to grasp is that myself and other are not for one moment suggesting that chilcare doesn't come from a man's salary too. We're talking about when a couple, with joint income, are worse off by a significant margin, when both are in work.

I haven't read this whole thread but about half. AnnieLobeseder this is aimed at your 18.21 post. How about this scenerio.

Mary had help with the childcare costs and both her and her DH were able to remain in work.

They were also able to go on holiday, buy new clothes, live in the same house, shop for groceries as they always had done, run a car (or maybe 2), own a pet etc etc etc.

Yes childcare costs are expensive but if going to work is something you want to do badly enough and the money you make doesn't cover that cost then you need to make a sacrifice somewhere else in your life. Sell your house, don't go on holiday, don't rack up debt in your 20s, buy clothes second hand, don't spend as much on your groceries.

If it means that much to any man or woman to return to work then find a way to make it happen don't expect someone else to fund it for you. And there is almost always a way when your family earns too much money to qualify for WTC etc. Even if you break even, then surely that is better to do that than have the same money at the end of the month but be miserable.

It gets on my nerves when people who earn a salary that does not permit them additional help (such as WTC) moan about how they 'can't' do such and such. I'm sure these people don't think they are living extravagant lifestyles but compare it to the single mum on a minimum wage and yes your lifestyle will almost certainly be extravagant.

Life isn't easy. That's the boring truth of the matter.

this mary story is not very feasible! I am sure she could get a better job than stacking shelves

sorry but there is only so much money in the pot, and I think there are many more
pressing issues than the marys of this world

If you are that concerned abput losing your foot on the ladder, you might have to work at a loss for a few years

Dh and I have a very pared back life: no holidays, eating out, don't drink, smoke in order to afford to have children - our choice. But just like for everyone else, costs have gone up whilst salaries have effectively declined. Financially we are worse off than my SIL and her hb who earn less because they are able to claim WTC and other help. But there are other personal factors, like they can use family to help out with childcare, we can't, and we have hefty commuting costs (which is a difference of £1100). It isn't a matter of being profligate with money but having expenses that some families have to cover and others don't.