am charging too much ?

[eatfruit]

Hi it's me again

Parent and baby are coming next week. I told her I will charge £5.50 per hour ( I have reduced it from £6) and she asked me if I can do her a better discount on 45 hours a week I told her the best I can do is £200 for all week, which is a discount of £47.50, she said she needed to think about it.

Am I asking for too much?

Live in W3 area,

Any comments please.

you charge what you need to make a profit. dont let the parents dictate what you charge. if they cant afford you they can find someone else cheeper if they want to. be confident in your abilities and your business.

No idea on W3 rates but outside of London in Berkshire, rates are around the £5 per hour mark, so would not surprise me at all if rates in W3 are well over £6.

How much are nurseries in your area for under 2's? I expect £50 a day would be quite typical, some may charge more.

I'd say set your price... £5.50 and stick with it. Otherwise you will end up with various children on various price plans and it may make things tricky if the parents ever talked to each other.

addicted that's very true.

nannynick some nurseries charge over £50 a day. That's what I was thinking to do set it as £5.50 and you are right about the parents talking and it will be too much for me to work out all the charges. Some childminders around here charge £6.50 - £7.00 per hour.

wish i could charge that much

Plus 45 hours isn't full-time, so given that there are limited numbers of places for babies, then you may well find that you do get a parent wanting a full-time place (say 50+ hours a week). However you may not want a baby for 50+ hours per week, so it can be using having a baby for less time but it will affect income.

Baby places I feel are where you make the money, as it is full day care... rather than just before/after school.

Do you desperately need to fill the place? That's another factor to take into account... as some money is better than none. However if you are discounting that place quite a bit, it will annoy you as the years go by, as once a place is discounted it will be hard to put up the amount.

I don't think you're charging too much for the area. Our nursery in the Barbican was £1400 per month full time for one child, and this is five years ago.

£200 for 45 hours a week is about £4.45 per hour - so over a £1 an hour discount - and over £1.50 from your original charge. Can you afford to give that much discount? Will you resent the Mum after a while because she is paying less than the going rate? Would you be giving her notice if someone came along willing to pay the £5.50/£6 pe hour?

Only you can answer thos questions, so make sure you've thought it all through before you agree to it.

I am presuming you have checked out what rates other cm's are charging and you are in line with them, rather than just checking the nursery rates for your area.

Could it be that this Mum is just unrealistic about childcare costs and was thinking that childminders would be so much cheaper than the nursery? Perhaps she is just in the "it's not worth me working if it's going to be £200 per week" frame of mind?

Harriet yes they do charge alot when I enquired for my children in nursery it was £315 per week, but now the Government have those free places for over 3 years.

nbee84 ohhhhhh i never thought of it like that, am i able to tell her that i am unable to charge that? or do i have to agree to it now we spoke over the phone?

cargirl yes that could be it, i feel as though i might be greedy in asking for £200 aswell, i really do need to sit down and have long and hard think about this.

I am so confused now lol, sorry if im rambling on.

Yes, tell her that you've sat and worked out your fees and cannot give that much of a discount and that your fees are £x per hour. If all the other cm's in your area are charging about that then she is trying to pull a fast one and is unlikely to find a cm that charges what she wants to pay and is also unlikely to be a nice parent to work with.

It's your business, you set the rates - not the parents.

ok thank you so much for your help, will tell her so on monday.

Don't think you are charging her too much at 200 per week. She will not find cheaper and if she does it is for a reason. I saw two childminders on one street, very close to you. One was a lot cheaper and I thought before the visits i would go with her, but not afterwards- be confident in your prices and if she doesn't accept her loss.

somewhere, near me? you've got me thinking now yeah it will be her loss, I just have to get confidence first.

see what the market rate is and charge accordingly. in my area of worcestershire nursry and cm rates are on a par.. cms offer more flexibility though..,. and a better service imo..

thanks thebody nannynick with it been 45 hours will that be a problem then with taxes,

Re the taxes;

As a cm you are self employed.

You must keep accounts. Money coming in from children you look after and money going out regarding children you look after (todder group fees, food, bus fares, arts and crafts materials - and 101 other expenses that can be put down to childminding) you can also allow certain %'s of your heating, lighting and other bills (other cm's can tell you more about this).

Then each year you will submit a tax return and if your earnings after all deductions are less than your years tax allowance then you will have no tax to pay. If above, you will obviously pay tax.

You also have to pay national insurance unless your income is below a certain limit, in which case you would apply for an exemption certificate.

Sorry - answering your question about 45 hours being too much. It doesn't matter how many hours you work each week - the important figure is how much money you earn each week.

How would taxation be an issue?

What I was meaning was that by taking on a child for 45 hours a week, you have time leftover which isn't being used.

For example, say your operating hours are 7.30am to 6.30pm - that's 11 hours a day, or put another way 55 hours a week.
Therefore you would have 10 hours during which you are not providing care for this child... so 10 hours you could sell to someone else, though realistically I'd say it would be unlikely that you would fill that left over time.

This is one reason why nurseries charge a daily rate, or session rate... if a child does less hours than the full day, the nursery still gets paid the full day rate.

One way to look at things... if say you operate 55 hours a week:

55 x £5.5 = £302.50
If you offer 45 x £5.5 = £247.50 you are already giving a discount of £55 a week.
That however may suit you fine as caring for a baby for 11 hours a day, 5 days a week isn't always that fun. Thus you may like them going home early some days.

Talk to the parent about what hours they are wanting... is it really 45 hours a week, or do they need to factor in additional time so that they can do drop-off, collection which fits around your school runs. No point in them dropping baby off at 8.30 if you left the home at 8.20 to do the school run.

MonkeyPuzzle Nursery, Acton charges £47 per day, for 8am-6pm for a child under 2. They are registered for 9 under 2's.

That nursery may well be your competition. So may be worth looking further as to what that nursery providers and doesn't provide. From the inspection report it isn't clear to me how many children are in the baby room... suspect it may be a room for 3month to 2 year olds, so up to 9 children.

You would not be providing care for 9 under 2's, so would baby get more attention with you, or more at the nursery - hard to tell, as nursery will have more adults.

If the mum is looking for cheapest childcare, then that nursery may well suit her, as I work it out to be £4.70 an hour which I feel is fairly low for London.

However mum may not be wanting her baby to go to a nursery... she may be wanting more of a home environment, where her baby is with a range of children of various ages.

There are pros and cons to each different type of childcare plus the costs and quality will vary.

I am in Ealing and am usually £6ph inc all meals/ outings/ nappies etc. (£7 for ad hoc contracts)
That is pretty resaonable for the area. Nurseries are approx £65-£75 a day and cms £55-65 roughly for a 10 hour day depending on what is being offered.
Personally I WOULD'NT discount but then I never have probs filling vacancies.. think carefully before you do it as you may regret it!!
When I was cm in Acton (5yrs ago) I was £4.50 an hour as a cm then.....

I pay £200/week, for a 40 hour week, 8hr/day in Surrey. I think it's a lot. It's the most I can possibly afford. And I need to work. Thankfully my cm charges this rate and I can afford it. She's fantastic. She is so much better than any other cm in the area.

However, if she charged higher rates, I would not be able to use her. It's not a matter of, pay more for a better service... some parents can't pay more and that's that. Yes, it would be my loss, but I bet it would also be difficult to find another family because I know that this rate is the most that others in the area can afford as well.

I don't like the assumption that parents can always just pay out more for a better service. Not all parents can, but need to work to pay mortgage, bills...etc. If they could, we would all have nannies at home. (well, most anyway).

The difference of £10 a day was worth it. The discounted CM lived in a grotty home, it was awful. No visible/allocated space for the children, it was really children fitting into her home. Most of the time she said was spent in her kitchen/diner and this was filthy.
The second CM - had an allocated front room for the children, must more organised, bookcases, toy boxes etc.
Both in identical size houses but one obviously had much more pride in her house and her job.

So sorry can't agree that people will not pay for the better service.
It was £45 or £55 for the day (8am - 6pm)

I didn't say people won't. I said some people (a lot of people) can't. £10/day = £50/week = £200/month extra. I couldn't do that. Having said that, I would not leave my child in the first situation you described. I would keep looking and seeing how else I could organize childcare, even if that meant having cm close to home rather than work or vice versa or somewhere nearby but perhaps a bit more out of the way than would be ideal.

Of course you get what you pay for and cms have a right to charge whatever they want. I just don't like the assumption that all parents can afford an extra £200/month easily. Not all can. In fact, most can't. Of course, if a cm/nursery/nanny was out of price range, then that's that - you just can't use that carer... takes a lot of looking around and shuffling things to find childcare that one can afford, is best for the child and suits working hours.