Could a nanny be the way to go?

[cupofteaplease]

I am having a childcare nightmare for September! We lost our previous CM due to not being able to committ to working hours, and she is now full. I have hunted high and low and cannot find a local CM who can have both my girls for the hours we need (M-F 7.30-5.30). At the moment our only option seems to be separating the girls and choosing 2 different CMs, or a CM for dd1 who will be in school so only needs before and after school care and putting dd2 in day nursery.

We've had an au pair before and that really didn't work, or I would have considered a CM for dd2 in the day and an AP for both girls before and after school.

So I'm now thinking, could a nanny be the way to go? Are nannies ridiculously expensive? If a nanny was OFSTED registered, could we still apply for tax credits? (as the claim would be based on last year's paltry salaries...)

I need FT until November, then my working days drop down to Weds, Thurs and Fri only- this is so complicated

Yes if nanny ofsted registered could pay part with childcare vouchers.

A nanny will cost from £6-£10 net an hr (thats per family not per child) this will depend on nanny's qualifications, experience, location and whether you employ a nanny who brings own child to work.

A nanny with own child may be a good option as maybe willing to do full time for short period as you say only need til nov then go part time doing 3 days as most nannies with own children want part time.

Other option is employ a nanny from out set for wed,thurs,fri and see if you can get a temp nursery place and before/after school club mon,tues til nov.

Thanks for your reply- how would you recommend finding a nanny (especially one with her own child, I like that idea!)? I assume from your posting name that you are an expert

you can use an agency or use other websites like nannyjob or gumtree

Very roughly a nanny works out around £100 per day plus employers NICs. S if it was 5-days per week all year, then I'd say around £29,000 in total. If you are not supplying a car, then there are additional costs such as paying the nanny to use their car (40p per mile) which could add another £1000-£2000 depending on how much the nanny travels with your children in their car.
In London the costs go up, I'd say about 20%.
There are also other misc costs, such as Heating/Lighting of your home during the day (as you wouldn't be bothering much with that if everyone was out), Nannies lunch, Payroll company to do the payslips. If nanny had a budget for activities of £5 per day, then that is another £1150 a year in expenses (based on 5 days a week, 46 week working year).

As from November you will drop to 3 days per week, the cost will drop then.

How to find a nanny - initially I would say place an advert on www.nannyjob.co.uk and see what responses you get. You could also try putting an advert in a local newsagents.

Thanks for the replies- nannynick, that is more than I earn so I fear I may be back to the drawing board...

Yes, once you start looking at it as an annual salary it looks a lot bigger than the hourly rate.

In Sept and Oct you are wanting 50 hours a week. Then onwards you want 30 hours a week.
So you could be looking at 1600 hours a year easily. At £10 gross per hour that is £16,000 before you add on Employers NICs, travel and other misc costs. So in your case I suspect around £20,000 is realistic... as a cost to you as the employer.

To get as accurate a figure as possible you need to work out how many hours per year the nanny would work, then multiply that by the Gross hourly salary, then work out Employers NICs and then estimate the likely costs for activities/travel/payroll admin.