How much cheaper are your proposed nursery fees when the 15 free hours for 2 year olds begins?

[ChaosAndCuddles]

I currently pay £980/month for 3 days a week, term time only. With the 15 free hours, the fees drop to £700.

I was expecting something slightly less than this, but I am grateful for the discount anyway as once my daughter turns 3, my nursery won't charge me anything as the 30 free hours cover the 3 days a week, term time only.

How much cheaper are your proposed nursery fees when the 15 free hours for 2 year olds begins?

From £70 a day 3 days a week so £210 to £150 - full price during non term time and we have to pay for a meal top up so even once baby is 3 funded days will be around £11 a day. Still huge savings. I hope the nursery can stay afloat

I was paying around £725, however my nursery are bringing in a price increase on the same day that the funding starts which cuts into the savings so I will pay around £570. It’s better than nothing but my bill will still be a very significant chunk of our monthly expenses. Luckily my DC is eligible for 30 hours in September.

Are you sure the nursery won’t charge you anything once your daughter access the 3/4 year old funding for 30 hours? Many settings are having to cover a huge shortfall as the 30 hours is so underfunded.

They haven’t changed the pricing for my eldest daughter and said it would remain free when I enquired… but who knows what will happen come April. My middle child also will qualify for the 30 hours in Sept so I am hoping she is also free then, which means I am able to send my youngest to nursery and that will cost £1075 a month.

I don't know how old your youngest dd is, but remember from September there will be 15 hours funded for all children over 9 months old. So if they turn 9 months old before 31st May, then they will qualify.

76 a day down to 30, so my bill will still be £850 for my two as my youngest doesn't have funding, that's 2 days a week

I also don't mind paying that, anything funded is a bonus and I love our nursery

Cut off date for the Autumn term is 31st August.

Can I ask where you’re finding this info? Thanks

How do you all know what your bills will be? I have asked my nursery and they have just said they can't tell me yet!
I've tried to work it out but it's difficult as my DD is full time not term time only, and I'm not sure if we will have to pay a meal supplement etc.
Currently paying £1200. I'm expecting around £200 reduction which will definitely help.
Although they put their fee's up 10% every year so I'll soon be paying £1200 agin 😂🙈

I'm a childminder, it's always 31st August, 31st March and 31st December for each subsequent term. It's in our funding emails and paperwork.

Thanks, so if a child is 9 months by 31 August they will be eligible for 15 hours per week free from September?

@KatyCuckoo yes the cut off date is 31st August, I was thinking of something different when I wrote it. OP yes your dd will need to be 9 months old by 31st August to claim the funding in September. So born before 30th November to qualify for September.
The cut off dates for funding are always term related and are on 31st August, 31st December & 31st March. So as long as your child is either 9 months, 2 years or 3 years by those dates then you will be able to claim for the appropriate funding for the following term. Remember you will need to reaffirm eligibility every 3 months otherwise you could lose the entitlement to the funding. This is assuming you qualify for it in the 1st place.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2/early-education-and-childcare-applies-from-1-april-2024

This will be helpful.

Thanks, so if a child is 9 months by 31 August they will be eligible for 15 hours per week free from September?
Yes. Providing you meet the earnings criteria.

We don't qualify for the funded hours due to DH being over the income threshold so our bill is going up £100/month as nursery are raising fees to subsidise it. I don't begrudge that we don't get the funding or tax free childcare anymore, but I find it annoying we are subsidising everyone else's 'free' hours since the government isn't paying nurseries enough.

Thank you, my youngest is 1 years old already so once they allow me to apply for her funding I will do so, should my financial situation be the same as it is currently.

My middle child turns 3 in April, so will get the 15 free hours till September, when she qualifies for the 30 hours and will be free 🙏🤞

That is disappointing that your nursery has to do that. I would be slightly bitter at that. I’m not sure how mine are managing to keep fees the same each year and not increase even with the new funded hours.

But you still get the 15 universal hours from 3?

With 15 funded houes, my daughter's full time nursery place is reduced from £2,148/month to £1,894/month 😂

Barely anything. We expected to save around £200/month, however the nursery is increasing their full-time monthly fees by £108 and charging us a daily consumables charge of £15 per day for the 4 'free' days per month. So that's £168 of the £200 gone, leaving £32 left. Once the tax free childcare is taken into account, we're only saving £25.60/month.
We're so disappointed that we've decided to drop to our child to 4 days/week. My workload is very low on the 5th day and we'd been considering it for many other reasons. The fees just pushed us to make a decision.