Husband earns over 100k. Do we get 15hrs free funding?

[Bermuda1102]

Sorry I know a lot of people have asked this but I’m still confused.

My husband earns over 100k. I earn 30k.
our son will be 2 in Jan 2024, so come April 2024, will we receive 15hrs funding from the government? Then, if we are to have another child (not pregnant yet), by the time other child is born, when they start nursery, they too will get 15hrs?

Someone said you get nothing if one earns over 100k, but I thought EVERYONE gets 15??

it’s so irritating if you compare our situation to parents who both earn 90k each. I know we’re fortunate but with my husbands salary comes higher mortgage payments and we live and work in London.

anyway, I hope someone can answer this for me.

thank you so much

I registered with mumsnet earlier this evening to write this post in the hope that I’d get some useful responses. Thank you to those who have been kind. I will now delete my account and avoid using mumsnet. So many of you have been so cruel. Thank you for making me feel like utter cr ap.

@Cowlover89 yes but that’s not applicable to OP’s situation as neither are on benefits.

Sorry, OP, don't delete your account. People aren't usually this unkind, but I think that with the cost of living crisis some people are being unusually vindictive towards those they perceive as wealthy.

What a horrible tread. People should be utterly ashamed. People earn different amounts and have different commitments. Earning over 100k in some parts of the country does not make you rich.

Op take care and claim what you are entitled to.

Actually I think this kind of shit always comes out on high earner threads

i remember posting once that I had 2 under 3 and going back to work and wondering what was the best combo for childcare (nursery vs childminder etc), husband and I both on high salaries & long hours. You’d have thought I had posted that I was abusing my children. So much vitriol and hatred, mostly of the “look after your own children” kind. It really was awful.

Yes people have been unkind but I'm struggling to see how earning over £100k anywhere in the U.K. does not make you significantly well off. I actually think it's pretty tone deaf to suggest otherwise.

Seriously? do you really think the taxpayer should pay for your childcare considering what your joint income is?

OP and her high earning spouse ARE the taxpayer.

They will be paying SHIT loads loads of tax, and are as entitled to the benefits. that come with paying tax, as everyone else in the country. Given that they are HIGHER TAX PAYERS, I would say they are more entitled, not less.

I completely see where you are coming from and agree that earning that much gives you privilege, but just to give you an idea, I earn just over that amount and my mortgage on a small 2 bed flat is £2500 a month and childcare will be £1900 a month when I go back to work (for one child)
I’m from a working class background and saved every penny I could when I started (recently) earning a higher salary to afford a 10% deposit on a place, hence the higher mortgage repayments. Our household income is about £7.7k definitely a lot but if we were to have another child we’d be paying £6,800 in mortgage, bills and childcare alone.
It’s not as easy as just “moving” as our jobs are here, we’d then have to pay more childcare and see our DD less. Of course we’d also have to save a significant amount of money for stamp duty and moving costs too.
I am definitely very lucky to even own a home and be able to use childcare, don’t get me wrong. But I also pay a lot of tax, should I not get a little bit back?

@Butterfly898 nobody is saying your outgoings aren't large but I think it's tone deaf to literally say earning over £100k doesn't make you rich. It doesn't matter how you made it, you make that amount and it's stretching the idea of what is not rich to suggest because of your life choices cause you to spend more, you're therefore not well off. I think everyone should claim what they're entitled to absolutely this is not about that, this is about the use of certain language.

You get 15 free hours but if you reduce your husband's salary to under £100k by pension contributions then you are entitled to 30 free hours. That's what we do.

It makes you well off, as I’ve recognised. It doesn’t make you “rich” when you can’t live in a flat anywhere close to where you work in this country and have two children easily without spending nearly all your income on it. It SHOULD make you rich, certainly.
People’s anger on this thread is misplaced.

A £100k salary is going to come with long hours, likely in London. Which means expensive housing, expensive childcare, expensive commute. Nobody is pleading poverty on £100k but it's certainly not vast riches like some people seem to think. "Choosing" to reduce outgoings in our circumstances would mean "choosing" a whole new career in a whole new area. Its really not that simple.

@Oliotya I think you're naive if you think people who earn £100k are the only ones working long hours. There are lots of careers where when you're not that far into your career you're earning far, far lower than that and working all hours.

Earning that much makes you rich because you have choices that people on lower incomes can only dream of.

Missing the point spectacularly. Can you not see the ludicrousness of someone on 100k not getting it but two people on 90k getting it?

Added to which if you live in London, £100k salary would give you the sort of lifestyle a £35k Sakarya would give you somewhere up north

If you live in London you don't have a choice. I think the op meant his job pays well because it is in London therefore it comes with a ridiculously high mortgage. I don't think people in other parts of the country have a clue.

Totally get where you are coming from here.

What most people completely fail to acknowledge in these threads is that people earning six figure salaries usually have jobs based in central London and work long hours. You very rarely get paid that kind of money in the regions, or doing 9-5, and if you do the chances are you're closer to retirement age and don't have young children in nursery.

I'm not in the UK but I work full time and have young children in a crèche which closes at 6:30pm so whichever one of me or my husband is picking them up that day needs to leave work by 6pm at the very latest. Even 6pm would be considered an early finish in some of these very well paid city jobs. You can't add a ridiculously long commute to that. You just can't.

It's all very well saying people with high salaries and high outgoings have chosen the large mortgage, but you try doing a high powered well paid job in London and commuting in from a cheap town in the Midlands. It's just not realistic.

So the reality is that the kind of people with these six figure salaries will be paying a fuck load of taxes, servicing huge mortgages, paying for very expensive childcare, and paying more for just about everything from groceries to travel to parking in London and the South East. They just don't have the kind of disposable income that others seem to think they do.

And yes, these things are choices. They could choose to live in Nottingham and do a 30k a year job instead. But if everyone made that choice there would be much less tax revenue to pay for everyone's free hours, wouldn't there?

What makes you think it's a big house. Do you even have a clue how much houses commutable to London cost?

Generally not the kind of jobs where you need to live within a reasonable distance of central London though.

You don't have to leave OP. Just consider this a crash lesson that their are all types of people reading your post and if you want feedback, my gosh you will get it unsugercoated.

It can be useful. I learnt the hardway too. The simple way would be change your username and never speak of your wealth. It stokes the beast.

@MargotBamborough yes they are, I don't know what you're talking about, of course London is the place to work for the best opportunities in careers in law and yet jobs for people just out of uni aka paralegals can be around £20k and working over hours is expected to gain a training contract

they are not 'free' - they are 'funded' and most nurseries have to charge a top up to cover the shortfall because otherwise there would not be sufficient to pay the nursery workers.

The AVERAGE salary in London is £37k. While its easy to spend 100k with tax, mortgage, and childcare costs, to say its not a high income (but not highest) is disingenuous. There are family homes commutable to London for a lot less... where do you think the teachers, nurses, shop workers etc live? There is an element of choice to live in "nicer" areas.

But thats irrelevant here... the OP is just as entitled to state education, NHS care, police on her street etc as the rest of us.

I didn't say that though did I?
But I can work hard as a Dr or teacher anywhere in the country. DHs job only exists in London. Yes, it's absolutely a choice, but it's not like we can take our £100k and move somewhere cheaper.

Do you not think it might be even slightly relevant that paralegals on 20k are going to be young, childfree and living in house shares? And working those kinds of hours for relatively low pay in the hope that by the time they're in their 30s and having children they might be on 100K+ so that they can service their huge mortgages, pay their exorbitant travel costs, pay for your children's free nursery hours through their eyewatering taxes and then have people like you begrudge them getting anything back themselves?

There is alot of misinformation on this thread OP. Here is a link to the guidance of the new childcare rules.
educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/07/07/free-childcare-how-we-tackling-the-cost-of-childcare/