Childcare costs: Parents now pay £67,000 per child in total

[KateMumsnet]

According to a report released today, the cost of raising a child and supporting them through university has risen to £227,226, with childcare costs showing the biggest annual rise at 3.7% - almost twice the rate of inflation.

In total, parents now pay an average of £67,586 per child for childcare - and, according to the report, mothers believe that they need to earn an average of £26,000 a year to make returning to work worthwhile.

Does this chime with your experience - and if so, how has it affected your family? Have you had to make difficult decisions because of the cost of childcare? We'd love to know what you think.

It is a wierd sign of our times when someone suggests that you might want to plan financially for having children and is met with derision.

It's a horrible sign of the times that so many people are working but unable to afford to save or plan ahead financially.

When people have children they should realise that they will either have to look after them or pay someone else to look after them. It seems odd to expect to have children that someone else will look after for free whilst you and your partner work and keep all your wages to yourselves. You have to put some work into children whether that be actual childcare or paying for childcare. You can't just give birth and expect the government to be responsible for looking after them. That sounds quite harsh. I do think childcare is very expensive and this could be improved but all this talk of how it should be completely free is irritating. Young children need cared for.

Just for comparison..I am in an expensive city in the U.S....it will cost me 440 pounds for full time daycare..pre school when I put my 3.5 year dd in in September if I can find work. I chose to stay home as I felt it was best for my kids and for the family...giving up a well paid job....I do not know how anyone in the uk does it seeing these costs....many must just break even.....I guess if the thought of staying home with your kids makes you feel faint then that is still worth it. In the U.S. most go back to work..only 7 per cent of mums stay home....the lower cost of child care must be part of that. The uk has many great features but I am glad we left simply due to the situation where all your income is used up there just to get by if you have average income.

In the USA......big city....440 pounds a month for 7 till 6 pm a day....not that I hope to use it for such long days...simar to France....so what is France doing that the uk is not?

My choice is this
Pay childcare work ft fortunate to still have some dispose able income
Quit wand not pay mortgage
Delayed ttc dc2 due to cost of care, now still not pg and if we're lucky and get pg soon will have massively bigger gap than wanted between kids (6 yrs)

....so what is France doing that the uk is not?

I don't know about France, but over the boarder in Italy the private child care sector has to compete with The Hoards of Nonni and a healthy supply of black market babysitters.

There are state nurserie as well, but it's not at all easy to get a place, or a place with the hours that you need. So I don't think they exert a downward pressure on commercial prices to the same extent that grandparents and "paid under the table" babysitters do.

I am just breaking even with 2 in childcare, DD1 will be at school in Sept so will be a bit cheaper then, and again when DD2 turns 3 in 18 months, and again when she goes to school.

Not wanting to wish their early years away but am doing it for the long haul, really can't see how I would have found a job after 5+ years not working, don't want my skills to become outdated and the job market is tough - part-time work is hard to find and I've ended up with 3 p/t jobs, all 1 day a week each.

I'm lucky to have them, feel fortunate that they are relatively well paid so we break even on my salary, as even for the long haul we would struggle being out of pocket - much as I want the DDs to know that we both work and both bring in money. Also with no family locally I really value nursery and what the DC get from that experience, I'd feel isolated at home with them full-time and apart from me and DP they wouldn't regularly spend time with other adults and have other people to learn stuff from and have fun with until they went to school.

I sometimes resent the cost of childcare, but know I'm lucky to be able to afford it at all the way things are, and it's not for ever. I hear other parents (who have normal jobs and don't seem loaded) talk about this or that independent school and wonder how the fuck they can afford it. We will not be considering private school...

I wouldn't be happy to pay more in tax to fund other people's childcare. We chose to reduce to one salary to have a SAHP (even though childcare would have been less than DH's salary)

Yes to be honest. Highly subsidised childcare is unfair to families with an SAHP. We 'pay' (via the loss of the SAHP's earnings) to care for our own children and pay (via taxes on the working partner's earnings) to care for other people's.

Yes I agree with the earlier poster who says having children 'costs'. There are either the cost of loss of earnings in you stay at home (sacrifice of X amount of pay) versus the cost of paying someone else to do the childcare.
Why should we expect it to be free, or to choose to work and keep all of the money whilst the state/tax payer foots the bill?
I agree that current costs of living, especially housing is a very real problem for most. This I think is why childcare then becomes problematic, rather than the childcare costs themselves. Perhaps it is all consequences of the free market.

I live overseas, partly because of the cost of childcare.

I'm now a LP and I'd love to come back to the UK.

We have a pretty good standard of living here and part of that is due to subsidised childcare. I pay under 100 pounds a month per child for 45 hours a week.

If I moved back to the UK I'd have to weigh up the financial implications. Although I have a good professional job, it may be that I'm better off on benefits than working full time as the childcare would take up my entire take home salary. Which is utterly ridiculous.

So we stay put.

Jesus Christ I've just put the figures into an online calculator - as I say, I'm a degree educated professional.

I'd be left with 450 pounds a month after childcare. That's to pay rent, food, heating, clothes.... everything.

I'm shocked. I'll be staying here...!

I wish I could pay that for childcare. I live in London and a full time nursery costs about £1,800 a month. That's why I couldn't go back to work, because I'm not paid enough to pay for it. 11k a year sounds like a bargain to me.

This probably isn't a popular view, but I do feel that many people don't think through the practical implications of having a child/children.

I also find it very galling seeing people round here who have 3+ kids, shiny new cars, seem to manage to go off to Spain on holiday each year, wouldn't dream of putting their children in charity shop clothes, and have a 3/4 bedroom house - and neither parent works.

My DH's taxes go towards supporting people to have a house and number of children that we couldn't begin to afford in our wildest dreams.

We have chosen to have one child as the financial implications of more would mean a real struggle.

We live in London and can't afford anything more than a tiny 2 bed-flat in a 'cheap' and unpopular area. We don't have a car, all my and DD's clothes are from eBay, charity shops or TKMaxx, we don't drink/smoke and only eat out for special occasions - and always take DD with us as the cost of babysitting is nearly £10 an hour and we have no family nearby.

Thanks to one of my relatives having a holiday home, we have been able to have a holiday in the UK each year for free.

DH is a higher-rate tax payer and we don't qualify for CB. Apparently we are rich... well, we can afford to pay the mortgage, bills and eat and not have to go into debt to do it, but I don't feel that not having a maxed-out credit card and enough savings to cover 3 months of expenses makes one rich.

I'm a SAHM, didn't plan to be one, but my employer decided to fire me the week after I told them I was pregnant (I sued and we settled out of court and my settlement helped reduce our mortgage enough to be doable on one salary.)

Unfortunately the job I had, which was well paid, doesn't exist elsewhere. I did get another FT job but it meant a 40% pay cut - a month's holiday club for DD cost more than I earned, let alone travel costs or contributing to mortgage/bills. I now have a small business of my own - doesn't make much, but I enjoy it and saves the £thousands that we were spending on childcare.

We made the choice to have a child and the expense that that entails and have made changes to our lifestyle to do this. We're happy to make those changes, but still doesn't stop me feeling annoyed that people who do nothing to contribute to the pot can have more and we are funding them.

I also find it very galling seeing people round here who have 3+ kids, shiny new cars, seem to manage to go off to Spain on holiday each year, wouldn't dream of putting their children in charity shop clothes, and have a 3/4 bedroom house - and neither parent works.

I've never actually heard of or seen this irl. Where have you seen this????

I also find it very galling seeing people round here who have 3+ kids, shiny new cars, seem to manage to go off to Spain on holiday each year, wouldn't dream of putting their children in charity shop clothes, and have a 3/4 bedroom house - and neither parent works.

I can honestly say that in 45 years of life I have never ever met anyone who does that.

Neither parents work? Where do I get this lifestyle, one I have never ever seen before.

I assume these people have inherited vast swathes of wealth and probably therefore have contributed to the pot with inheritance tax and higher rate tax on their savings etc.

Come round to parts of London where council houses can be passed down generations.

The council estate we live on there are a number of people that seem to manage to have 3 kids and a car and no-one works.

I thought that families like that were a MN legend, but I now know one! Overseas holidays, several holidays a year, two children, very little paid work. And they can pay for childcare with tax breaks, while I can't. I thought they were an urban myth but now I can claim they exist :)

The cost of childcare means that DS is very likely to be an only child, despite the fact that we would like another child, as we simply cannot afford to pay childcare for 2 children. We do not have any family childcare, apart from some babysitting on the odd weekend so we can have a night out. If we wait until DS starts school to have another child, then my DH will be 50 years old which we feel is too late to have another child when we do not have financial security.

We need my income as my husband's average wage just covers all our outgoings but isn't a steady income and can fluctuate from week to week - there is always the potential for his wage to reduce significantly month to month as so much of it is bonus related. Even if it was a steady income, there would be no money left for emergencies, clothes, Christmas or birthday presents or any 'spending' money. To be honest, even if I didn't need to work I would want to - earning my own money and being independent is important to me.

We currently pay £710 per month in nursery fees for the 4 days I work. That is actually quite cheap compared to other nurseries. I know a childminder would be a little cheaper but the nursery allows flexibility which I need as I'm self employed. Because I'm self employed, I cannot get childcare vouchers; my husband's employers (a small company) haven't put the scheme in place, despite my DH repeatedly asking them. It makes me so mad that they could do something which saves us money, and saves their company money, but they just haven't bothered. They have cost us an extra £1k out of our pockets over the last 12 months, which we wouldn't have had to pay if they'd provided childcare vouchers. By the time the new tax free childcare scheme comes in in the Autumn, it will have cost us another £900 more than it needed to.

The new tax free childcare scheme cannot come soon enough for us - it will be a great help to us, saving around £140 per month, but it is still a hell of a lot of money to pay out each month. Other countries manage to have affordable childcare, why can't the UK?!

suboptimal we are in the same boat. I am a qualified accountant and DH was offered a top position in the UK division of his employer. With my salary DH would be paying for me to work and his income would be about £80k year a less due to higher taxes. Financially speaking it made zero sense for us to return. Ironically in Denmark where taxes are just as high as they are in the UK but daycare is provided to support the 35hr week with cost based on the lower income earner. This is why so many Danish families have dual income households. It isn't perfect by any means but this system gives parents a choice.

Also daycare we use is cheaper because the town have given them an exemption from paying business rates on condition they pass on the savings to parents. Why can't the UK do this?