Charging for activities

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Just wondering if other childminders charge parents for soft play entry cost etc if you choose to take your mindees there or is it something you consider part of your costs?

No I charged for them. And parents didn't mind paying. But I didn't go every week.

I don't charge for them. When I did a big outing to Peppa Pig world with two children, their parents paid voluntarily.

I don't charge parents for outings or activities, but I don't take them to places that cost a lot of money. I have an annual pass for the local estate that has a massive play park and we go to a lot of places with free entrance fees.

Tbh, we can fill most days with local toddler groups, music groups, cm group, going to the library, going to the park, the sensory room, I don't need to go to more expensive places.

I personally think I need to be competitive in price against the local nurseries. I charge pretty much the same, but if i started adding extras on, it makes me less attractive and I think parents do look at the price and for some it has a massive impact on the decision as to where they send their children. If I was adding say, £5 a week on the bill for outings, I may well become more expensive.

National trust membership has enabled us to take the under 5s to all sorts of different places.

Nope I always pay and wouldn't expect parents to pay extra for outings.

My CM has annual passes for the local farm and NT and that is considered part of the fee, along with toddler groups and the occasional soft play visit. If she plans a one-off trip then that is charged for extra.

I always pay for activities myself as I would hate to have to start justifying every outing to parents and I know some would not be happy paying extra.

Thanks for the replies they've been really useful

nope-it's my choice to take them so I pay (after all, I put it through my books so it reduces the amount of tax I pay....). The problem is,if you have more than one mindee and one parent isn't prepared to pay extra,then what do you do? Pay for one but the others pay for themselves?Or not go at all, which means the ones that do pay extra have to miss out?Easier if I pay!

I pay. It gives me the freedom to do what I want with the kids without having to ask parents for £. I always tell the parent what our plans for the day are but sometimes we change our mind last minute due to naps etc and it would make things complicated.

Same here hrh

My cm pays when they do structured activities/go somewhere chargeable.

They only go for 5 evenings a fortnight, so a this is probably once a fortnight...it could be anything from going to a softplay centre for a couple of hours (which would cost about £7/£8 for the two) or a cheeky mcdonalds as a treat.

In the holidays when they're there for full days, our cm generally does free-entry stuff like kids activities at museums, community centre or library. The only time she's asked for money was for the dc to spend when they were going to a half-day arts and crafts event, which also had a bookfair there. So we gave her spending money for the dc so they could choose a book each, but she paid for the entry which I think was £2 ea.