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?

My childminder charges £30 a day, in south east London. She's highly in demand, and takes children before and after school as well. I don't want one to one for my kids, in fact, I like the group atmosphere and the professional attitude.

Thing is - do CM's really just do it for the money ?

I thought a lot of you do it because you want to stay at home with your own kids anyway - and this way you get to do that AND earn some money ?

I couldn't have earned enough being a CM so I had to go back to the work I did before - we all make our own career choices I think !

My childminder's kids are grown up. It's her job. A job which she does very, very well indeed.

But is she on here complaining about her pay ?

Yes MI my CM's youngest is now about 15 and the others are at university.

I live in Stockport in Cheshire, or Greater Manchester, whatever you want to believe. I charge £2.50 per hour and am the cheapest in my area, I do this job for the love of it and not really for the money although the exotic holidays are very nice. I run a professional business and am in high demand. Like others say some of us do it for the love of it and not the money. Each to their own.

dd3 goes to a c/m from 8.30-12.30 each day. I make her a packed lunch and pay 3.20 per hour which seems very reasonable, especially as on 2 days she is the only child there and on the other 3 there is one other child. C/m is brilliant and if she put her rates up I would still stick with her.

I find this 'I do it for the love and not for the money' a little annoying really. When I was calling rould other CMs to try and find what rate they charged there were two who said I charge a low rate because I dont do it for the money. It seems to me that this devalues the business of childminding. Why cant they just charge the going rate, be business like but get alot of worth out of the job aswell. It makes you feel like a money grabber if you dont do it for free! When I spoke to a mum who was going to use one of thiese minders she said 'Im a little suspicious because she doesnt charge enough'.

I run a very proffessional business and to me the money isnt everything, granted its nice to be paid but even nicer to be valued.I have never been asked why I am so cheap just when can they start?

I don't do this job to enable me to stay home with my own children as they are all (technically) adults now. I do this job as I like working with children and their families. I don't think it's wrong to expect to be paid for it, and I certainly wouldn't do it if I wasn't paid for it!

I give up my weekends and evenings to do courses (which OFSTED like us to do) - I'm not sure that many salaried people would do that without pay (??), and I offer my services and time (more weekends and evenings) free to mentor new childminders, sit on our county childminding association, and be a local vacancy co-ordinator.

I agree with Isyhan - if childminders tell parents that they charge a lower rate because they don't do it for the money (and I know a couple personally), it puts the rest of us in a very bad light. If the money isn't an issue, why charge at all?

I have a dh, 3 expensive dds and a serious chocolate habit to fund. I work for the same reasons as anyone else - I help pay the bills, enable our dds to go to university, and hopefully have a holiday in the summer (chez Cornwall).

It's really nice to have parents posting positive comments about their childminders (I keep wondering if any of them are about me but, sadly, I don't think so!) It's nice to be appreciated.

I'm starting to wonder if it's it wrong to enjoy your job and be paid for it?

You may well wonder why Im writing this at 5.22am. Well Its because I have a 4 mth old baby. Anyway Prisoner have you heard of a catalogue company called hotel chocolate if not get it. The hot chocolate with chocolate dippers is to die for. I felt the need to tell you that. Shall we start a chocolate appreciation club.

isyhan - snap i have a 4mth old baby too i was up in the night too but only to put her dummy in im hoping it wont be long before she sleeps through properly

We're in the same boat then. Just weaning her now because she's waking because shes hungry I feel. Anyway going to try and get my head down for 10 mins whilst shes asleep.

i enjoy my work very much and i don't feel im to badly paid for it. im here for my own children b4 and after school and it beats (for me anyway) working in an office which i did for 20 years. I earn £4.00 per hour per child and i am allowed 3 under 5 and 3 5-8 year olds

Sorry to sound naive but as a mum going back to work out of necessity to pay bills etc, don't we deserve to earn a wage after paying for childcare? To be honest if i thought I'd be any good at it I would probably earn far more through being a childminder and staying at home to look after my baby. If outstanding childminders want to charge more and still get good business then fair play to them but there is only a certain amount of people who can pay for that kind of service?

I used a childminder about 10 years ago for ds. I paid £99 each week, which didn't leave much to take home after tax, ni, bus fares, "business clothes", lunches etc. At that time I thought childcare fees were extremely excessive.

Now I am a cm myself however, I find myself frequently unable to pay my bills on time. I charge between £3.25 and £4.00 per hour (cheaper rate for fulltimers because with parttime contracts you can never fill the unused hours).

I'm told as self-employment goes, childminding is one of those with the highest expenses. From our income Childminders have to pay:
Tax
Ofsted Annual Fee
National Insurance
Public Liability Insurance
House Insurance (need extra cover for equipment etc & limited choice of companies that offer insurance to Childminders)
Petrol, Business Car Insurance, maintenance/mot etc
Car seats appropriate to child's size/age & appropriate for cm's car (new law in May)
Extra toilet paper, tissues, wipes, washing powder
Exta cleaning products (had a poo covered carpet & wc yesterday to clean!)
Gloves, first aid materials (these now have dates on & have to be replaced regularly if not used)
Safety products, eg stair gate, cupboard locks
Fruit/nutritional snacks to cater for all diets
replacing damaged & lost toys/games/books/equipment
stationery (receipt books, files etc)
Arts & craft materials
Admission fees (eg toddler group)
Membership fees (NCMA, toy libraries etc)
Training courses/workshops

To name a few!

On top of this we can be given notice at any time when parent has lost job/changed job/moving house/child changing schools etc and our income is about to be reduced through no fault of our own.

While I'm being pessimistic about childminding when you look at how much a cm takes home and compare it with the hours worked:
actual childminding hours - mine currently 7:15 am - 6 pm
bookkeeping & tax returns
administration (correspondence, contracts, forms)
emails & website
preparation at start of day/cleaning up at end
cleaning toys & equipment
preparing meals & extra shopping
training/coursework (home assignments & at college)
interviews with prospective parents

You just have to love your job to work so long for so little!

i think it depends on where you live , what qualifications you have /experience etc according to pay.. i personally charge £45 per day and no one has batted an eye regarding price even though there are others around the same area that charge £30 -35 p.d. although i am N.N.E.B trained and 20 yrs exp with all age groups so felt able to ask that plus i only take on one child at a time to give them lots of 1-1..basically theyre getting a nanny deal on childminders rates as, if i went back into nannying i could ask £70 -80 p.d. i dont charge extra for outings and provide home cooked food from scratch plus i provide wipes/ even nappies..ive got one more p/t child for another couple of months but after that will only have the one as i like to then be able to concentrate better when my two get home from school .. i only work termtime so have to be able to charge enough that covers hols as well although my dh thinks i should charge£50 p.d !!! he says what i do is worth more than what im charging now..but i think you can outprice yourself if you go too high so i`m happy to stick with that price...

My childminder doesn't chrge enough as I frequently tell her. Please don't shoot me when I tell you she charges £2.60 for the first child and £1.50 for the second. Plus about £1 for supper. For a friday evening 3 hrs inc school pick up, we pay £15 for 2 kids. That is FAR TOO CHEAP. But I am not going to stop her

In the holidays it means a full day 9 - 6 inc meals is about £23 for the oldest and about £15 for the younger one.

It is crazy that she charges so little and is so good!!

There's a real range of fees but its quite apparent to me that some childminders must actually be paying parents to look after their children! Having been a full time working mum paying for childcare who is now wanting to childmind and having rung round lots in my area I can see that! However at the end of the day its their business but I do think it makes it more difficult when you want to start up and earn some sort of living at it as parents do compare prices. I think though that if parents find a good childminder and go to work happy then they are prepared to pay.

Childminders where I live charge £5 per hour, I'm not saying its too much, just that if it was more expensive per hour and I were to choose a cm for my baby I would def have to stay at home and look after him myself! I am by all the extra expenses for the cm.

Surely you can only charge what parents can afford, maybe more affluent areas can charge more than economically deprived areas. I live in one of the top 10 deprived areas in the country and offer affordable childcare.

So by that standard I must live in a deprived area!! I live in a nice village in Essex, not deprived at all