Cost of Childcare (discussion thread)

[nannynick]

So that the Cost of Childcare thread can be kept for the gut/instant response... I thought it would be best to create another thread for discussion.

If you have not yet answered the Cost of Childcare question, please do so now. Please do not spend time thinking about the answer - it relies on your gut/instant response.

So to start the discussion...

• The Question - Which of the following do you feel is better? A.) From £2.50 per hour (per child) B.) £10 per hour (per family) Please answer A or B along with how many children you have in your family... eg. A1, A3, B5 etc.
• End of Question -

First thing - did you actually read the question? Do you remember taking exams at school? Sometimes on an exam paper, there are questions which rely on being read correctly.
In this case, the question does not present sufficient information such that it can be answered. It lacks detail. It is the sort of thing that encourages someone to find out more.

As such there is no correct answer to the question, though answer C is the best: C.) Insufficient information to answer the question

So far there have been 4 answers given to the original question. All 4 picked answer A. With luck, if enough people answer the question, we will notice a trend (4 alas isn't really enough to determine a trend, but even so all the answers so far are the same - option A).

We are all bombarded with marketing messages every day. Therefore our brains have learnt to process those messages quickly to determine if we want to find out more about the marketing message (offer, product, service etc), or if we feel it is not relevant to us or is just junk.

Thus it was important that you did not spend very long thinking about the question... what was wanted was that gut/instant reaction. Once your brain thinks about it... it raises questions, as there is insignificant information provided by the question for you to be able to give an answer.

When someone has answered A... they have made an assumption. The assumption is that childcare costs £2.50 per hour, per child.

That isn't in fact what the question said. It said that childcare costs From £2.50 per hour, per child.

Do you spot the difference?

ehhhhmmmmm excuse me i said there

were pros
and cons to all childcare situations

Yes, XcupcakemummyX, you did write:
"every nanny and every chilminder are different it has pros and cos to each child care provision"

Which is answer C, put another way I suppose. So a brownie point to you Though there is no write or wrong answer to the question.

Is price a determining factor when choosing childcare - no it should not be, but in reality is it? That is what this question is designed to find out (I hope).

But Nick - gut reaction was - it says 'From' but there must be some circumstances where the 2.50 per child is charged whereas there is no negotiation within '£10 per family'..so go for the one which has a chance of being lower (if all other conditions (quality of care etc) are equal) and see what it comes to in a real situation.

(Sorry if that makes no sense I have a headache - but I did notice the 'from'..just was happy to take a gamble to see how it would work out).

so

in different parts of england to childminers and nannies charge different rates????

Oh, right, yes didn't notice that.
But, um, didn't you want a gut reaction? Isn't the point in a gut reaction that you don't study to deeply? And surely if 'from 2.50', the charge isn't likely to actually be £5/hr?

I guess the flip side is, if I went along & talked to provider & found that actually the only charged £2.50/hour very rarely, I'd feel a bit cheated. Even though what was written was totally accurate.

am confused, nannynick

i would feel ticked off it someone offered childcare from £2.50 per hour per child, but the criteria to get that was so tight, no-one could ever meet it. would resent being sucked in , and then that not being available.

so not sure what you want to discuss

gut reaction to cost of care

or gut reaction to type of advert

Millarkie - Yes, the word From is used quite a bit in marketing of some services. Legally the offer must be valid. Credit card companies often use this method - the APR they advertise is available to SOME PEOPLE, but isn't to all... it is dependent on the circumstances.

The gut reaction is what I wanted... generally speaking, peoples gut reaction is that From £2.50 per hour (per child) is more likely to be better than £10 per hour (per family). Reality however could be that fees work out to the same hourly rate, regardless of the number of children involved.

XcupcakemummyX - Yes, costs for childcare like any other service vary on location, as well as other factors such as the time of day at which it is provided, plus where it is provided. There are other factors as well.

Funnypeculia - Yes, the gut reaction is what I wanted. What I want to try to prove is that the gut reaction when it comes to pricing, can be wrong. But, because initially the human brain usually determines (what factor I don't know, we may get enough answers to start working that out, but I expect it would be 7 out of 10 times) that £2.50 per hour in this case, is the better option, then an advert for a childcare service saying 'From £2.50 per hour (per child)' will get a higher level of enquiries than the same service advertising at £10 per family. Does that make sense?

You may be wondering why I asked for the number of children you had. The reason for asking that, is that I wanted to see if that factor made any difference to the answer. So far, at time of checking, one person has answered B... they have 3 children with one on the way... so with 4 children £2.50 per hour per child, or £10 per hour per family, are the same.

so it was just a maths question in reality

soz i failed that

i have one sixteen year old and one three year old

and at the mo due to probs with kindergartens i am the childcare!!!!

i was a nanny and a nursery school teacher though

Oooh ooh - do I win?!?!

An advert that says 'from £2.50..' will get more enquiries but if the actual cost for that family works out more than their budget then the family will be annoyed by the wasted time and hassle of enquiring (well I would be!) You have then lost goodwill and the possibility of being referred on from family to family as a trustworthy company/person.
And trust is everything when people are looking for childcare.

I think you need to be honest and up front, if you need £10 per hour, then say £10 per hour (and of course, whether that is net or gross!)

Mind you, if there is any negotiation in the money, for the right job, let this be known at the interview stage - I once interviewed a lovely nanny who had set up a web page with all her details, experience, and 'ideal job' conditions, including quoting her expected pay. We read it all and took it as fact, then interviewed her. She was a possibility for our job but working out her pay using her named price per hour, and comparing it to our other options, we chose another one. Later (too late) she got back in contact and said that she would be happy if we 'made her an offer' re: salary.

Millarkie - I agree, my policy as a childcare provider is to have open transparent pricing. However, the same is not the case for other providers... a local nursery to me has a banner outside their nursery saying 'Day Care From: £40 Per Day' - which could, I hope I am proving, mean anything. The banner mentions nothing about age of the child, which anyone who works in a nursery knows will affect the cost of the care, as younger children require a higher adult ratio.

'From' Hmmmm.... very good marketing tool.

I worked in travel for many years and this 'from' tool was used to create enquiries ie:

Holiday to Majorca FROM £99-

so of course- the world and its wife would ring up wanting to go in the school holidays FOR £99. This £99 holiday in August would not exist, but we would try our hardest to find the cheapest deal for them ( which in August is not cheap at all)

So yes- I understand this 'FROM' thing- its misleading but does create enquiries - and if you have the gift of the gab, a good product to sell and something that the consumer wants - then it could turn out to be a good marketing tool.

I see your point Nick - and I also think that the parents who have to make an appointment to look round that nursery and get the sales pitch before being given a glossy brochure with a tiny paper insert which will tell them that their Babies care will actually cost them £64 per day..and the £40 is for over 3's from 10am to 4pm or whatever..will be upset by this...but being upset with a nursery when you can blame it on money-grabbing faceless managers/marketing officers is different IMHO to being upset with the actual childcarer.

The nursery in question only have two locations to my knowledge... if that makes a difference.
I think it is misleading, yet it is used in various industries including Travel, Finance (though they use the phrase 'Typical APR'). Until recently it hasn't be used for childcare... at least I've not seen it before... but now it appears that it is being tried. IMO this is not a good development for the industry, but with decreasing nursery occupancy rates I can see why they are trying it.

I don't like it

I didn't know that nursery occupation is decreasing - think it's got anything to do with the sharp increase of fees in the last 5 years? 5 years ago the nursery I used was £35 for a baby and now it's £68 - my salary has not risen at the same rate! (hence moving to a nanny a while ago, and wrap-around school care now).

I think that as more nurseries have started up, that some of them are finding it difficult to survive. One chain recently went into administration, due I feel (having read their financial reports) to not having enough childcare places filled.

For the question this thread is about, you all may be interested to know the pricing that I based the question on. I confess that it relates directly to what I charge as a childcare provider, so I used that as my starting point - rather than say use the nursery day rate, for which I didn't know any additional information (as the nursery does not have a website). I could have posted in Travel and done the question regarding holiday pricing... but I know about childcare so it made sense to put it in here.

The table is as follows:
4 children: £10 per hour (thus £2.50 per child, per hour)
3 children: £10 per hour
2 children: £10 per hour
1 child: £10 per hour

Thus, it could be said that childcare costs From £2.50 per hour, per child - but there are negative consequences to promoting From Prices, as I feel this discussion has shown.

So you were wanting us to answer the question without questioning the question and the answer to the question is to question the question which is why we were questioning your question in the first place?

Am i missing something here?

It doesn't matter what prices are displayed Nick - we all visit a few and they tell us exactly how much it would cost per week and we add that to whether we like the nanny and the childs attitude to them, the location, pick-up routes, etc.. It is not just cost.

None of us in our right minds would pick the cheapest childcare possible and sign on the dotted line without getting a true weekly cost.

This whole topic seems to be very overly-businesslike and answering a question that you and i already know is a marketing tool.

I do think that nursery is very misleading if you cannot ever pay as low as £2.50 (minimum is obv £10 per hour regardless).

However, that would quickly be discovered on finding out more info, I imagine. So my answer still really is A2, simply because (if I went back to work) I wouldn't be able to earn £10 per hour myself so would naturally be looking at a childminder at around £3.50 per hour.

I would look at £10ph advert and immediately dismiss it as being out of my reach and in my benefit to stay at home instead, while investigating the "From £2.50ph" one instead to find out the exact terms. Does that make sense?

Thank you all for your time and patience in responding to this thread (and the associated discussion thread).

I am sorry if anyone feels it was inappropriate of me to post this question, or for me to be rather blunt when it came to wanting it answered in a particular way. I thought that if there was discussion on the same thread as the question, then it would skew any useful results, which may then prevent this from helping the many childminders, other childcare providers, plus parents learn that when it comes to pricing of a personal service, parents must take care to collect all the facts, before they make a decision.

I am a regular contributor to Mumsnet, typically in this section, and I hope that the majority of what I write helps people. Some will cause controversy, sometimes I may upset someone, but I hope that the big picture view is that I am an asset to the community.

I am sorry if anyone feels it was wrong of me to post what I did. Will try harder next time... if you will still have me here

Been nice discussing with you Nick
(Although I did let my potatoes boil over whilst on MN)

I advertise my fees on my website as FROM £3/hr.
This is because I also offer weekend care and overnight care, and can even provide one to one care if required which means me paying for more staff and charging more to parents depending on the assessed level of care/supervision necessary.
I would also charge extra for a lunch - so the £3 is my minimum.
Saying FROM £3 just makes things simple.
The crunch decision on whether to use me or not is made by parents AFTER they have visited me.
The main motive of my website is therefore to get parents interested enough to come and visit. To get them through the door.
I don't set out to deliberately deceive as most parents do pay the £3/hr, but I want the information on my site to be quick and easy to read.