Term Time V Stretched Funding

[InALonelyWorld]

Just need some advice about what may be best financially.

My DD currently goes to nursery 3 full days per week. She uses the 30 hours funding with their policy being term time only. I am a lone parent and this has helped me be able to maintain working part time at the moment and financially this works well for me to budget. I pay roughly between £250-£400, depending on where school holidays fall at the moment and £1050 to cover a month in summer holidays.
Today the nursery have sent an email saying they are going to start offering stretched funding now and working it out this is going to increase my bills slightly to around £600 per month on a long one but reduce my summer holiday fee significantly. I am struggling to work out what would be best moving forward.

WWYD?

You need to make an excel sheet with the exact costs, and compare the two.

I would say from a cashflow perspective it's easier to pay roughly the same amount each month.

Stretching seems a lot more expensive @InALonelyWorld

Even if you pay £400 over 11 months and then £1050 for the 12th = £5450

£600 for 12 months is £7200

To be honest, either way you will still be receiving the same amount of funded hours across the year. You won’t gain or lose any hours if you need all year round care. The only way you would miss out is if your lo only attends term time. It does change how you budget things but overall is much the same.

Yes but the cost that OP is being asked to pay for the remaining hours varies massively.

@InALonelyWorld will you be coming back to let us know what you've decided?

Clearly it will vary by the hours used in any month.

Re read the OP and do the sums. Or read the post where I did. They are v different costs!

After working out the costs I've decided to keep our funding to term time only.

I compared my last 2 invoices (feb &march), combined they total £645.50. So increasing my fees to £600 each month, whilst budgeting a flat rate would be great, it would likely only see me benefiting from the slightly reduced costs over the summer holidays which doesn't seem that worth it financially.

I’ve read it and do understand. However, it’s not just the summer holidays that cost more, it’s also the half terms and Easter holidays. If I look at any of my clients, I can work out their entire hours over the year. Then I total up the cost of funded hours and private hours (holidays). Either way, the yearly cost is the same. The same amount of hours are being used so the cost doesn’t change, it’s purely spread differently over the year so needs budgeting for differently.

She has already said the most the other months cost is £400, some without holidays are as low as £250. Even if you estimate every month is the most expensive of £400, plus the £1000+ summer hols, that is still cheaper than the stretched offer they have made of £600.

It shouldnt make it difference, you're right. But at this nursery, it does.