childminders club- are you paid enough?

[Isyhan]

Whilst my cute little dd is asleep I want to start a contentious thread! I must be in that mood! Do you think childminders charge enough i dont! Having worked in the NHS and care homes sector a while I think parents actually get alot for their money out of childminders. If anyone was looking for a place for their elderly parent they would be paying £350 per week for residential care and that is for a fit and active person with no nursing needs. If a person was receiving one-one care in the NHS I dread to estimate the cost yet parents want one-one full time care of their child it seems for less than £150 per week, they want you to be trained, to be flexible and the rest. If this was a male profession I dont think it would be this way. Im a trained nurse who wants to childmind, I think Ill enjoy it but can I afford to do it? Im not sure?

one to one care in nhs doesn't effect the salary the staff receive. Our beds are costing between £1,500 to £3000K per week but this doesn't effect the hourly rate. It might improve our working lives if another service is paying for the bed by a bit of paint here and there or money available to put in the new kitchen or provide garden furniture but that's about it. I don't get to negiotate an extra £5 here or there because of it being one to one.

With cm's I look at the overall rate if they were full - that sounds reasonable with the day spent shared equally between those in their care. I wouldn't expect to have 1:1 care for the 8.5hrs they are with cm. Obviously if you are doing cm to be at home with your children then you've not got as much earning potential but then your personal outgoings are going to be less as no personal childcare bill plus there's all the tax reliefs for tv, electric, phone etc. But I guess the liability policy, cm associ membership and higher policy for car probably outweigh this.

If my house was in a better state of repair - still waiting for the decorating to be done, then I'd be giving it a go. The first year at least would be hard but once established, as with any self-employed person then its worthwhile.

On my recent travels to find a cm I've met many couples that work together as Cm's, so it must be viable.

I've even met one cm that got awarded a £5000 award from a fund funded by the national lottery commission - don't ask me what it was but the money was available to all childcare providers in deprived housing areas - she's built an extension to her house which is a play room but ultimately its probably added £10k to the value of her house.

Leximum - I was really raising it because on a different thread some parents were saying CM's have too many children. Im not talking about care assistants salaries but the person who runs the care home for example who walks away with a tidy 60% profit.

In some areas here chilminders get a grant but in deprived areas what can they realistically charge an hour. 3 children under 5 £2.50 per hour per child, £7.50 per hour, take food and expenses out!Mmm

isyhan - depends where you are, local to me cms charge £3.50-£5 per hr per child plus holiday pay, payment for food etc. I think this is a fair rate - hopefully to both sides.

I cahrge £2.75 per hour per child. If i tried to charge any more then i wouldn't get the children.
Somone said on the other thread (in fact several people said it) about childminders having lots of kids to mind, and doing it to get as much money as possible. Well, yeah, perhaps some people do have thier full quota of children, because it is the only way to make a living, we do it for the same reason as other mums go out to work, so that we can contribute to the family finances, whilst being able to stay. at home with our own children
On a different note, my friends 18 year old daughter babysits in the evenings and gets £5.00 per hour, plus £1 per hour for each extra child!!!
I have done training courses, first aid course, am fully insured etc etc, i have the children full time, during the day, when they are a wake, and get half that!!

Are people really asking you for one-to-one care though ?

I assumed that I was paying for one of my CM's allocated spaces - not one to one !

Some want one to one care and others want lots of children to mix with.

As a childminder I feel we really earn our money. I charge £3.60 per hour and the going rate around here is usually around £4 per hour. I have just had a vacancy come up and hope that I am going to fill it fairly quickly, but somehow think that it will take some time to fill. My fees are all inclusive I do not charge extra for outings, food etc as when full I earn enough to have a good standard of living and I do pay my income tax & national insurance bills as well. Yes I do have a lot of children on my books, most are after schoolers who apart from one 2 only have about 3 days a week & then some not in the holidays at all. I started childminding nearly 11 years ago when my eldest dd was 18 months and have built up my business gradually over the years. If I wanted to go 'out' to work I would need to work full time, miss out on my children after school & in the holidays, pay for their childcare & find it hard to earn as much as I do now even after taxes & deductions/expenses etc. Some people might think of me as being money grabbing because of the number of children I care for, but why do I have business in a stiff competition & others don't. I think it is something to do with a good service provided & a hard earned reputation.

Think this 1-to-1 is a bit of a red herring. My children don't get that at home.

My CM charges £3 per hour for before/after school. So DS is there from just before 8 am until 5.30-5.40 pm and I pay £10.50 a day for the 3 days. If he is there all day it's £2.60 an hour or £26 a day that I am paying (eg school hols).

So if she has 3 there all day and 3 school age ones that would be £26 3 = £78 plus £10.50 3 = £31.50 giving a total of £109.50 before expenses for working a very long day.

She's having an easy week this week though because she has only had DS for 1 hour before school 1 day and is still getting £31.50 off me.

I would assume that if I wanted one to one care that I would have to pay for the full capacity !!

Similar to how I would have to pay for whole swimming pool if i asked for it to be just me in there iykwim !

Surely unreasonable to expect one to one for £4 ph !

Well, I pay £4 p/h ea for my two, that includes food but not outings, plus holidays are paid. (I'm in Wimbledon). This is not so cheap compared to nursery. But I love my childminder - she is the nicest person I know!

isyhan -don't think being in a deprived area makes any difference - we live amongst local authoirity housing having bought ex-LA. All the cm's on the estate charge £3 to £3.50 (plus costs for outings and food) regardless maybe that's because there's many people like us - teachers, nurses etc that can only afford to buy ex-LA.

knowing local cm's and visiting lots of toddler grps has certainly whittled out those who have loads of kids and from threads here, knowing even reporting to ofsted doesn't necessary stop them working makes me avoid these esp as insurance policies might not pay out if my little one got hurt and they were in charge of above their quota - I wouldn't take the risk.

I have also avoided cm's who don't have a ready portfolio with all their certs etc or can't find their latest ofsted report and those who haven't acted upon the recommendations.

i know there's loads of redtape and hard work to get established but those cm's that do put in the work will reap the benefits and receive my up most admiration.

Nah, we aren't paid enough.

I'm always grumbling about it in here!

Cleaners get more than double my rate............

The national minimum wage is never considered....

You are right in saying it's because more woman than men do it, can you see a guy getting £3 and hour to look after someone elses kids??

I'm a bit confused about the 'deprived' bit. I was given a slightly higher grant for living in a deprived area - at first I was surprised as I thought they were saying I lived in a poor area or something which didn't make sense but then they told me it's because our area is 'deprived' of childminders iyswim.

do you know I didnt stop to think when early years dept said grants are for deprived areas they meant deprived of CMs.
Lexiemum - I didnt mean CMs operating outside regs. They should be shut down. Any CMs on here who have lots of kids are working with assistants I think. So that is quite different.

I think that I get paid enough, I charge £5.25 an hour (going up to £5.50 in April) which includes all organic home cooked meals and snacks, all fees for tumble tots, jo jingles toddler groups etc and our outings......we have one big one each month!

At the moment I have four children under 5 (with ofsted permission) five full days a week and I work b**y hard for my money. I am totally able to cope with these children, and the after school children that I have!

I am very qualified, a lot more than most childminders and have an outstanding ofsted report!

I think cm do cget paid enough 1:1 possibly not but most cms try to take 2/3 children increasing hourly rate to an acceptable level

I was talking only about my pay I get £2.75 per hour per child.

Surely everyone here would say that's a pittance!

And I don't take up to my limit as I feel one adult can't give 6 kids the attention they need, that's my personnel opinion.

Agree the one-to-one thing is not a good comparion - surely a better comparison there is nannys who get £7-8 net which is about £10-11 gross p/h for offering one-to-one care - not so far off your figures for residential care.

I do know that an ex-childminder thought the surestart nursery in her area meant she couldn't get enough work/compete on price. Does anybody else find this?

SSD, £2.75 per hour is not your salary, it is a client fee. And, cleaners can only clean one house at a time, so not a fair comparison.

As a small business owner, it is up to you to alter your business to make more money.

I have lsot clients who got childcare vouchers for childcare, so took their kids to nursery, i also find that a playgroup near me charges £4.00 from 9am till 12, whereas a parent with me would be charged £9.00 for those hours, so, yes i have lost out. It depends though on which kind of care the parent wants

I am a parent who uses a fab childminder. She charges £4 and hour (though I provide all meals)which has always struck me as ridiculously low for the service she gives.

I have however started paying for 4 days a week instead of 3 to give me the flexibiltity to change days at short notice or to use the occasional couple of hours on the fourth day to do some house hunting as we are aiming to move soon (Much easier to look at houses without ds in tow). I somehow feel better paying her for four days when she will 90% of the time only work 3 days as I feel bad that she charges so little.

Also I pay for 8am-6.30pm every day but I have never dropped ds earlier than 8.15am in the last 3 months and I always pick him up at about 5.50pm. I just like having the extra padded hours in case of an emergency. I do think she should put her rate up though.

NB - am not rich and obviously the extra cost makes a hole in our income but I really think the person who looks after my ds should be paid what she is worth.

I too got an outstanding ofsted report, I live in a deprived, both of childminders and economically, area, my fees are fully inclusive, of everything and my highest rate is £2.50 with reductions for siblings. I have not had a vacancy for 5 years. I would rather look after 6 children at £2.50 an hour than 1 at £5 an hour.I just suppose its different wherever you live.

oh my childminder only looks after ds 3 days a week and another little boy 3 days a week. They overlap on two days and she has a 5 yr old daughter so the most children she looks after are 3 at a time, one of whom is in school 9-3pm. one of the reasons I picked her . She certainly is not raking in money

So, where you you guys who charge £2 something an hour live? If I could get childcare for that price, I'd hire a housekeeper and ditch the nanny. Just kidding if my lovely nanny is reading this!!!

When I did use a childminder she was £5/hour in cash for one child.