childminder has raised fees by £1! what can I say??

[hana]

my cm was planning on raising fees from Jan 09, and only by 50p an hour - today I found out she is planning on raising them by a pound, and by Sept. What can I do, if anything? any reasonable conversation openers that I can use?
dh didn't get a pay rise this year, I got about 2.45 I think and she wants 8%. Yikes. don't know what to do.

Are you in the position to find someone else you'd be happy with?

was just coming back to say it's hardly shattering news....

not really. am just angry that she is doing this. might have to look into a nanny (did briefly last year) and now it might be cheaper. It's almost and extra £50 a month. bugger

Crikey that's a bit steep

Of course we have to earn a living, and costs are going up rapidly, but £1 per hour hike at such short notice is Not On.

I do increases at 25p per hour, I would baulk at even increasing my fees by 50p per hour at once.

Not sure what your opening gambit could be, apart from pointing out that you were able to absorb the increase from January but this proposed increase from September is going to be v difficult.

Opening a dialogue rather than terminating the contract immediately would be better for the child/ren, no upheaval, re-settling elsewhere and what not.

HTH

thanks guys.
she is losing dd2 for 3 hours (will be going to preschool) so is losing money there and one of her other mindees is going to school full time - so losing that income as well.

So really she should be trying to fill her FT vacancy to plug the gap rather than loading the extra onto her current clients.

Hope you manage to work something out - I am Not a Fan of CM-bashing usually but i think that in this instance she might be taking the Pee.

Good luck

i thought you had to pay the cm for the hours your child was at preschool if she is dropping them off and collecting from the preschool

So am I right in thinking your child only does to the c/m 50 hours a month?

my CM has raise her fees by 25pence per hour every year but a pound sounds steep to me.

well, sympathies, but my nursery raised fees by 10% last year. No warning at all - we just got a letter stating our new monthly bill would be X, effective as of the end of the month.

So not sure what you can do about it apart from change (or threaten to change) - they charge what the market will bear and are entitled to do that.

How much is the hourly rate.

Just wondering if it is way under average.

I'm afraid many people fail to realise that cms are self-employed and can charge whatever they want. We're not charities. If they don't get the custom from charging too much then that's their problem.

hana - if i were your c/m i'd be charging you while your dc was at pre-school[as do most c/m's] BUT there is no way i'd dare raise my hourly rate by £1 - i raised mine by 20p in january and will raise again next year.

cm isn't doing a drop off for dd2 - dh will be doing that and I'm assuming I won't pay for that 3 hours? bugger, didn't factor that in.

need to get back to her
and thanks for all your thoughts

Will you need the morning in the holidays? If so she is likely to charge for it

no, its a term time only contract

how many hours is she at the cm a week?

2 days - but one dd is only there from 1130 til 430

if it's a term time contract i wouldn't imagine she would charge for the hours at preschool unless she picks her up.

what is her new hourly rate?

i was told not to increase fees until contract renewal was due as they could rightly claim they had signed a contract with the old fee on it for duration of the contract. I have since learnt to put the same end date on all contracts regardless on take on date so all can be increased at same time. I am going to be lucky this year as both paretns want a cahnge of contract so can amend fees then!

it doesn't really matter who takes dd to preschool - c/m will probably still charge you as it would be very unlikely she could fill the 3 hours therefore she will be losing out.
having said that i have a preschooler who i dont charge for {parents do drop off} i wasn't that happy but parent wouldn't budge and i needed the contract.Mindee comes holidays all day so i can't fill the space.

you need to talk to her and negotiate.

Are her rates low, average or high for the area and when was the last time she had an increase ?

If she hasn't had one for a say 2 years, then I suppose its reasonable to have a hike. My lovely CM hasn't put her rates up since DS started about 18 mths ago and whilst I am delighted that she is now such good value for money, as she was at the expensive end for this area when DS started, I do wish that she would put her rates up slightly as it is only fair, but it's certainly not my job as the customer to raise it !

It does seem rather a lot in one go at a time when most people are struggling financially.