Childcare costs London and SE - which option did you go for?

[Marghe87]

Hello everyone,
I am not quite there yet but was wondering if you could share some info re the amount of £££ you spend on your baby’s fulltime childcare in London/South East.
I live in Surrey and nurseries in my areas are around £1800 for a full time place – shocking! I was told childminders can sometimes be a bit cheaper but it is hard to find one that can commit to 5 days pw full time. How do you manage your childcare arrangements and how much does it cost you?

Thank you all in advance.
x

Hey, I’m in London and pay for 4 days with a childminder 8:00-6:00. £1040 per month. So expensive but still cheaper than local nurseries. Hope that helps!

I pay a childcare provider who lives in my apartment building. I live in Surrey too. Finding childcare was difficult at first but I refused to give up looking. A nursery school was out of the question for my family as the fees were astronomical. It is cheaper to use a babysitter or childminder.
Childcare.co.uk is a database of childcare providers who may meet your needs. Also try asking around for recommendations.

@April2020mom - yes, I am amazed and cannot see how a family with a "normal" income can afford years of childcare when the costs are so high.
I had a quick look online (I am literally just gathering info to be prepared for the future but I don't have an immediate need now) and it seems hard to find a childminder/baby sitter that is available all day for the whole day in the area where you live etc...
Perhaps if you really go for it and search plenty in advance it becomes easier. How long in advance did you have to book yours?

when I started in childcare everyone went back full time at between 6 weeks and 6 months and paid for full time childcare until their child was 5 plus and there was no help, no tax credits, no vouchers, no tax free scheme and no 30 hours funding. If you did choose a school nursery and most did you still paid full time care. houses certainly in London were still proportionately as expensive. Now I cant remember the last time anyone asked for a full time space over 10 years ago most still have 8 months to a year off and only have to pay childcare up to 3 years (or less) so can space children out and only pay one full space at a time and save that year on the eldest while on mat leave. They also get the schemes. Yet still its not enough. The only way your nurseries are surviving is by employing Apprentices on about £3.50 an hour as they cant afford to pay minimum wage and take the Government funding of £3 to if they are lucky £4.80 an hour.

I pay about £1200 for a shared nanny 4 long days/44 hours a week.

There has never been more help with childcare costs that there is today, and yet it only seems to encourage an ever-greater attitude of 'entitlement' that somebody else should be picking up the bill for people’s children.

Where in Surrey are you? We pay £61 a day for nursery in Surrey (near Hampshire border) and found that when we took everything into account there wasn't much in it between a childminder and nursery. Childminder was about £10 a day cheaper but I had to provide all meals. Once you factored that in it was much of a muchness.

Plus with childminders there is their holiday/sickness to take into account which you don't have to deal with in a nursery. The nursery has been fantastic and DS loves it there.

I think £61 a day including meals is actually really reasonable. I dropped to 3 days a week and with tax free childcare we pay about £650 a month which is a lot but we manage just about. I'm now pregnant with DC2 and there will be nearly 3 when baby 2 arrives so will be nearly eligible for the free hours so hopefully we'll make it work. It's not forever is how I look at it!

It’s refreshing to hear a mum who things £10 is a reasonable daily charge for meals. We’re used to hear people bleating about being "ripped off" for being charged £2 a day for food.

Tbf, it can be 'swings and roundabouts' with regard to the availability of nursery/childminder times and days. Nursery times are often the best fit for 9-5 employees; less great if you work different hours or need care over Christmas, New Year, Easter, etc. They tend to be very inflexible over times, charging by the 'session' rather than the times the child actually needs to be there, or imposing £20 fines if you’re so much as a minute late to collect.

It’s a dangerous myth to suggest nurseries never close. They can and do close with very little notice and monotonous frequency for all manner of reasons. Every family needs to have a back-up plan, no matter what their first choice for childcare.

West London- childminder. We pay £5 an hour for 10 hours a day 5 days a week, usually works out £1150 per month but we then use TFC to save 20%.

Our nursery have been brilliant. They've never charged us on the odd occasion we've been late due to traffic or whatever. They might if we were late all the time and in those circumstances I wouldn't blame them! They've also taken DS for an extra day here and there at short notice when we've needed them to (obviously we have paid for this).

DS has 3 meals (including a hot lunch cooked fresh on site), 2 snacks and all drinks including oat milk that they get in for him especially. I don't think I could do that for much less than £10 a day when you factor in prep, power to cook it etc so seems fair enough to me.

We work standard office hours so nursery works well for us. I appreciate all childcare could possibly become suddenly unavailable but with childminders they will (quite rightly!) be looking to take 4/5 weeks a year as holiday and everyone gets ill sometimes. Plus childminders often have their own children at home so there is their possible sickness to consider. The majority of those factors aren't a consideration at nursery which is one of the reasons we opted for it.

I have friends who use childminders who are equally happy with the set up, all depends on the individual circumstances/priorities of the family.

Thank you for all your answers.

I do not feel entitled to get more than we are already entitled to, but I am sure everyone agrees that £1850 per month for a few years is a lot of money for most families and therefore I wanted to know how others cope.

I live in Surrey buy very close to London.

I think that is a lot for outside of London. I live within the M25 (SE) and full time nursery is £1500.

Surrey does tend to be much more expensive and on a par to more central London. I know £8 to £10 an hour was common in Kingston 3 or 4 years ago, further out the price goes down a bit. But as house prices and rents are a lot higher in most of surrey as are business rates they do have to charge higher rates.
Many people look outside their immediate area and route to reduce costs.