How does anyone afford childcare!!

[Char1997]

Hello,

I know there’s lots of discussion about this always but I am currently on maternity leave with my second and working out childcare costs to return to work at the end of the year/beginning of next year and for me to go back to my job full time it’s going to cost me £1800 a month!!
How on earth does anyone afford that but then on the other hand how does anyone afford to not return to work with two children?! Just seems insane to me that anyone can afford to live, buy essentials when needed, go to work full time PLUS pay that obscene amount of money?!

Yes absolutely I agree it is so hard doing the longer days, it all depends on whether it’s worth it for the OP to save on the childcare costs and really needed. Also depends if they get to WFH etc which is easier to juggle.

OP, as others have said have a look at any extras you are entitled too but also play around with a salary calculator, your hours and your husbands and the number of days you can reduce at nursery and after school club / holiday childcare. Eg if you both drop down to x30 ish hours a week rather than condense full time into 4 days (which is exhausting / might not be possible) would that save enough on the childcare to make up for the lack of salary..

You both do a 9 day fortnight (compressed hours may be an option too) so one day each week you alternate looking after the DC.

With great difficulty if you have more than one child and aren't earning megabucks. Or you have your kids far enough apart that they won't need ft care at the same time.

Fulltime childcare for 2 would have been 150% of my salary, and that was 12 years ago - 'luckily' I was made redundant at the end of my second mat leave (NB it was legitimate, not targeting me due to having a baby) and I think they were surprised how well I took the news my role was at risk as I'd done the maths and honestly getting a redundancy payout was the best thing for me as I still had a few months until my oldest started school. I guess if I'd kept my job I'd just have taken a loss for a while - my SIL did this for years, as her kids were just under two years apart.

I have a 3yo and a 1yo. I work 3 days a week and they’re with a childminder 8-5 on those days. Childminder - who is excellent - is £7.50 an hour, 3yo now gets 30 funded hours (we pay a top up on these hours though) and we use tax free childcare on top as well. Total monthly bill for both is around £900 depending on the month.

I think this is true. I gave up a career in law after two as if made no sense financially as he was higher earner. I got divorced. I now earn 30k working a nice , flexible, for the LA and get top up UC. If I’d kept my original job I wouldn’t be entitled to any benefits.

Decent quality affordable childcare would help keep women in better paid jobs imo

• £900 after TFCC and funded hours are used. DD will get some funding in September I think.

Honestly the childcare conversation never ends. It's really really hard for working parents. Our DS nursery fees was just under £1K per month. Thank goodness he started reception September last year. We try our best to work around each other for wrap around childcare and luckily for us, our jobs are quite flexible. We're thinking about having a second baby but I just don't know if we want to have such a big expense again for another 3+ years.

Yes but it’s only very short term. I had toddler then twins so was forced to work very part time as it didn’t make sense financially for dh to cut hours and he was commuting etc. after mat leave, dd3 had a year of funded care and we juggled a babysitter (while I worked upstairs) and dh took leave for set days I had to work but otherwise I worked when dh was home (midnight working at home very regularly). Then dtds got funded places at nursery and dd1 was at school so I upped my hours and got a permanent job. Dtds started school and I went back to full time.

Life is about sacrifices and you cannot have it all. It’s a bit unrealistic to expect to be able to, but it’s a very short term couple of years in the scheme of things.

Mine is 1.4k a month for dd2 full time, so that will be dropping a little in April with the new subsidies (nursery have started the ball rolling on that). We did a 3 year gap so our oldest is now in reception, and me and dp both flexi work to get our jobs done evenings and after school, so no wrap around for the oldest. We knew he wouldn't cope with it well.

We're not in our 'forever home' but we did buy a large 3 bed flat so everyone has their own space, and we're very slowly and cheaply fixing it up still! We don't holiday either, but we live 2 minutes from the beach, and we do day trips.

It's hard, but it's short lived.

Have you looked to see if childminders are cheaper I'm in west London and a childminder is around £960 for 40 hours.

Child care is definitely expensive. I think in your situation (where child care costs effectively cancel out an entire wage) id consider some options. Can you condense hours, one of you do Monday to Thursday and the other Tuesday to Friday ( assuming your mon- fri workers). That’s two days a week less childcare. Would it be feasible for one of you to stay at home for a couple of years? Or is a temporary job change possible for one of you, working evenings and weekends instead?

We have just moved out of London after having our second, as 2 x 4 days in nursery would be over £4400. We weren’t able to make It work financially despite both having well-paid jobs, and we knew this. Went ahead with small age gap given my age and chose to compromise on where to live (jobs not amenable to WFH or compressed hours). I don’t think it’s possible to “have it all” unless you’re truly loaded or have lots of family help.

That “help” towards childcare doesn’t cover the cost for either the parent or the childcare setting. Therefore, childcare settings have had to raise nursery fees to cover the shortfall from government hours. So a day at nursery will cost between £70-100, if not funded hours. As a result of this underfunding and childcare settings having to prop up their fees with under 3s, not every setting will be able to offer the additional funding for every under 3. The tax free childcare is £500 per quarter and so for a family using more than 3 days of nursery a week, not all their bill is tax free.

The cost of childcare is one reason we are likely to stop at one DC. If we have another, we’ll have to wait until DC is at school and then as I’m the lower earner, I’ll need to drop to school hours only so we don’t have wraparound care, just holiday cover.

FT fees for ONE child where I am are a min 1800 a month.

Its a joint cost that comes out of the bills just like the rent or groceries so that helps you not to think of it as 'A whole salary.' DHs salary is only just above thus amount so it still made sense for him to stay in work (I am the higher earner) rather than stay home with DD as it would hurt him to pause his career now, especially as we both have such flexible and understanding jobs,

Truthfully? We did go into debt by quite a bit because as much as we try and reduce bills, there were still things we spent money on like once in a lifetime trips of relatives visiting from Australia, for example. We took the risk that our circumstances wouldnt change and debt could be relatively quickly repaid once free hours started.

Its hugely frustrating that whilst our childcare fees have duly increased by at leasty 100pm every year, its still only 2K a year help from the gov! No increase in assistance at all.

im Currently on maternity leave. We are planning on me going to 4 days a week, my parents will have baby one day and then three days nursery which is £965 a month which is affordable for us but we’ll have to make cutbacks.

She’ll be 9 months when she goes to nursery in October so hoping the childcare funding goes ahead and then we will get 15 free hours so it’ll be a bit cheaper I think around £700ish then when she gets 30 hours the following year it’ll go down to £560ish a month. I feel so so so fortunate that we have had a baby and these extra funded hours have been announced. £965 a month until she is three would’ve hit us quite hard financially.

I don’t know how you do it. Where I live we pay £80 a month for two children, including 3 meals.

If you have a spare room in your house, an au pair would work very well.

I'm a childcare provider, I know how it works.

Some friends of mine both did compressed working hours, so a full working week in 4 days. He worked Monday to Thursday, she worked Tuesday to Friday, so they only had to have childcare Tuesday to Thursday. Not an option for everyone of course.

They also staggered their work days so that one of them did the drop off and the other the pick up so that they could minimise the childminder time as much as possible.

Yes it's a joint cost, but I always remember a friend of mine saying that as a family they were only £50 better off a month for her working full time and paying nursery fees, than they would have been if she didn't work at all (teacher).

She only kept working because the school was convenient and she wanted to be able to work there when the kids were in school themselves.

We didn’t really register how challenging this would be until I was on maternity with my first. We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to downsize and move close to work at the same time which enabled us to reduce our hours - both of us worked 4 days but my hours were compressed into three days so only two days childcare (no support).

With number 2, DS1 was only 15 months when I fell pregnant, so when I went on maternity, I took a year off and pulled him out of childcare, sold the second car and walked everywhere, took picnics and flasks of coffee and generally minimised spending. After ML was over, they both went to child care for 2 days each, and we juggled madly but came out of it without debt.

It’s very tough for the majority of families. All good now, it passes!

2k A month is low for two adults and a child to live off though, average salary full time in the uk is 38k each, so the op is below average but looking at her child care costs she’s not in a cheap area.

so she needs to pay rent /mortgage, all bills, food , clothes toiletries etc from that, plus commute costs, insurance etc . Nearly 50 percent of their joint income is going on childcare. Yes it’s for a short period. But wow. It’s a huge percentage of their income.

Yes it's a joint cost, but I always remember a friend of mine saying that as a family they were only £50 better off a month for her working full time and paying nursery fees, than they would have been if she didn't work at all (teacher).She only kept working because the school was convenient and she wanted to be able to work there when the kids were in school themselves

but that’s such a short term view. And says nothing for her pension or the fact the kids are soon enough in school and costs ramp down. And out her salary they pay half.

I really dislike folks who compare it to thr woman’s wages, like her career is worth nothing, and say well it’s not worth it, or we get nothing much over and above like it’s the woman’s cost. It isn’t. Compare it to the husbands.

Well yeah it’s hard, that’s not news to you surely. I had twins first and had to leave work as couldn’t afford childcare. This time round I work two jobs (one when kids are sleeping) to make it work, but pretty much all my salary goes on childcare.

I got pregnant on the pill in the last year of my degree. So zero savings and no family help what so ever. We've never been able to afford full time nursery only when funded hours have kicked in. So I set up my own business working opposite my husband. We have sacrificed a lot in terms of lifestyle savings and my earning potential. Career wise I will have to start from the bottom again. There was just no option to afford both.
If its possible to play the long game and keep your career I'd definitely do that. If you can live as frugally as possible for a few years.The cost of living now is ridiculous everyone needs wages to go up to make life doable again. They also need to look at wraparound childcare for schools and sen childcare. For some these issues don't go away when they get to school.