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.

the nanny also has to live off her salary...the cm has to live off what she earns...the nursery worker needs to get paid....

unless all taxpayers are going to pay more to subsidize childcare then costs will always be high. but - it's a time limiting cost; generally -
huge costs pre-school age, then lessening thru primary school and then to zero as they get to teenage (then it's a choice about which extra curricular clubs etc). if nearly all your take home is paying the nanny, nonetheless it is an investment in long term eg pension contributions, paid holidays, etc. CTC helps pay child care if your earning power is lower...

unless your child has SN/is disabled as then you never get out of having to use carers in order to work - (and just hope that some of that is funded by the State thru social care...)

Want2b I honestly don't see how the UK can't afford properly subsidised childcare if other European countries can manage it. The tax thresholds here are exactly the same as in the UK.

The thing is, we might pay our nurseries £40-50 a day for 10-12h of care, and that is all well and good. But the nursery workers don't get paid that, or anything near that! They are on minimum wage or just above, and would themselves need tax credits or extra benefits from the govt to live (so they aren't paid the living wage).

So all that talk about well we need to pay so much because our nursery workers need the payment, well, they don't get them. I am of course not discounting the fact that in nurseries that are run like businesses, they have managers, kitchen staff (cooks etc), pay for lots of toys, cleaning staff, activities etc, but still...

So I think if other countries can have similarly high taxes for their citizens and yet offer day care at €400/month and we can't, there's something wrong. Where that something is going wrong, I don't know and I am not equipped to speculate, but would like something to be done about it.

I'm done with childbearing and my younger child is 4 so I won't need nursery childcare in about 6 months or so. I will be using after school care for the next foreseeable 10 years or so, and around here we are talking about £9-10 per day. Not cheap I know but beggars can't be choosers.

In the town where I live the recent immigrants are English and Russia families either with young children or looking to start a family. Most English families are staying until the DC get through the early years. Most of these families have dual working parents. We are all in good jobs and paying taxes here rather than in the UK. I think it suits current politicians for families like ours to stay away because if we lived in England we would be sahp's using our time to change the status quo.

Add on the loss of earnings if one parent goes part time too! Like I did.

My children are 10 and 6 now. I still pay childcare but not as much. When my eldest was 5 I calculated how much I had, so far lost, taking a reduction in hours and paying childcare for the hours I worked...£160,000 (that was for ONE child and only 4 years of being back at work)!

Not cheap! But, we love them to bits!

There is no regulation for the how much nurseries can charge, so it's no surprise that a nursery in a village in Kent will charge a lot less than a nursery in the most affluent parts of London. In my local area, the average is £55 a day where as just two miles away in Ilford it's about £40 a day, and a childminder I know charges £2.50 an hour in Forest Gate. It's market driven, and in more affluent areas nurseries (and some childminders) charge exorbitant amounts. How much they charge (or any of the financial data) of nurseries is not in any way regulated. However, nursery staff isn't paid much more in affluent areas - maybe just above minimum wage. Some managers are making a lot of money - some reinvest in their business, some have a very healthy income.

Nurseries are monitored very closely by Ofsted for their standards in education, and for the safety / child protection but they are a necessary service that is not financially regulated. The costs will continue to go up as it is market driven and managed as businesses.

In some other countries, nurseries are heavily subsidised by the government. There is an argument that countries/regions where government are subsidising nurseries, making them affordable for parents, see an increase in families where both parents work and therefore see in increase in the money they collect in income taxes. I don't know if it offsets against the cost of a subsidised system, but I think it probably does.

When I go back home and my friends them how much childcare costs here and tell them that I stopped working for 4 years because we couldn't afford the cost of sending two children in nurseries, I get lots of questions and they cannot believe how much it costs.

Here you pay an amount dependent on your income. I get an extra slice off for being an LP. So one child with a cm 45 hours a week comes in at €140 per month.

I don't know how people manage. I feel very lucky to have a job that although low paid and unreliable, is something I can do from home and in my own time/ to my own choice of hours so if my child's too ill for nursery, for example, I can stay home.

You see here in the U.S. the right to be able to provide for your family is taken very seriously. There are expensive daycare centers in my town and we use one of the cheapest. Ours is cheaper because the training is federally funded and shock horror but some of the kids are on free places due to parents in min wage jobs. I love that DC are in a mixed environment. While the expensive daycare talks about Spanish lessons my DC have everything in dual language. DD has only just started asking for water. The sure start centers in the UK were a copy of the head start program here in the us. I really like what I see going on at the daycare DS is at.

Oh sub where are you in Europe?

But ofsted also inspects childminders, and pre-schools don't they? And yet they cost so much less. My child goes to nursery full time 4 days a week and one day of pre-school that starts at 9.10 and ends at 1330 and that costs me £14 for that session. I provide a pack lunch for her. I've done the calculations and even if they offered a service from 8-6 or even 9-5, it would be something along the lines of £30-35... Nowhere near my current £48!

I understand that the nursery needs to pay for the cooks, cleaners, etc but wow, the overheads are mad! And of course, they are run like a business, whereas the dear ol pre-school seems to run on fresh air and love. I don't know how they make the money....

My cm has 4 kids. I think the maximum is 6. Nurseries are two adults per group of 20 kids.

The cm is state registered but I don't think she's regulated like in the UK. No ofsted etc. in fact they re trying to bring in more regulation now but there's resistance from the parents. Parents don't want the cm "reporting back " to the state about their child, so there's an exemption you can sign.

I don't know that nurseries are inspected. Your child gets a folder with their details and examples of their work in etc but it's not inspected or passed onto anyone. It's for the parents really. You can choose to pass it to the school when they start or not.

In fact the general feeling here is that the less state interjection the better...

GAAASPPP ! To think people who look after children for a living should have bills and mortgages, children to provide for and food to buy too ! I'm always so shocked to read theses posts . Child carers are entitled to earn a reasonable wage. They are caring for the little people who are the future. Childcare is expensive because you have to pay people to do do it. Harsh but true ??

Afaik nurseries have to pay thousands a year for their registration (to cover the admin and cost of inspections).

There is an argument that it's the massive increase in early years regulation over the last 20 years that had led to the sharp inflation beating rises in prices.

The solution could be more state run nurseries, more charity/voluntary nurseries, social enterprises or more employers providing them.

All I will say us that when food and petrol started to be paid for by credit cards we were forced I to a long hard look at our finances with 2dc in nursery. If I tell you that the outcome is that I'm a SAHM, it says a lot about child care.
I have a degree and want a masters. But when my youngest starts school I'm looking at being a dinner lady. DH works away mon- fri so there's no option of shared responsibilities.

Childminders in my area cost the same and sometimes more than private nurseries. I never understand when people elsewhere say they're cheaper?

Suboptimal
Nurseries are not 2;20 it depends on age if kids
Under 1 it's 2:1, under 2 it's 3:1, under 3 6:1 as they get older ratios change
Round here cm are c. £38-40 vs nursery c£47 day- however they have a couple of toddler for the day and then also about 6 pre and post school kids, I chose nursery because I didn't want to be paying for my child to be out in all weathers in a buggy taking someone else's would to school, only later to be one of many older kids
Appreciate not all like that but that's why there is a difference here!

sleepdodger, the day in the buggy was also one of the reasons I chose nursery for mine.
Nursery is more flexible, whereas CM needed drop-off time to fit with school run. And there's no cover when CM get sick...

Linked to whether or not to use childcare so we could both work to pay off a large mortgage, after much global travel we've now chosen to rent for a few years and not get tied to a huge mortgage so we can live relatively stressfree when our kids are so small (I'm sahm DH is high tax earner long commutes) In this way we see our lives somewhat easier but are aware that we are paying someone else's mortgage. But for us it was a no Brainer for our kids to have me raise them as we couldn't put a price on the emotional attachment that they have been given. I will eventually retrain & go back to work & then my salary will be saved for a mortgage. We are both mid thirties so we see ourselves with time to gather funds rather than pay out on childcare and create more debt for our family (we live a simple frugal life but are content with our choices)

Those ratios are crazy. For 6 wks to 18 months its a ratio of 4:1. Most places work to a 3:1 ratio. Dd is 3.5 and its a ratio of 8:1 with 2 teachers in her room. At her age I honestly have no idea why you need such a low ratio. Heck I know a mother with quads. By these ratios she shouldn't have been able to look after her DC when they were babies! Not only did she do it for the first six months she caused major disruptions when her DC started in daycare as they took up so many spots. Total cost for four babies was $2600/month. Quite the bargin if you ask me!

Exactly want2b.

The ratios don't work exactly the same here because the ages are mixed. So at 3 DS will be 1:10, but the 10 are made up of kids aged 2 to 6.

In our family the cost has been the loss of my income completely while they are young. I will then retrain to do something part time (or get a TA job as I used to teach) when they are at school. That means that I will never return to a full time salary, or to my previous career. Still works out cheaper than paying for childcare though!

Our cm for dd was cheaper than nursery for DS. I'd prefer cm for 0-2 but a nursery from 2-5 our cm never took a sick day in 3 years. She was a retired teacher so wasn't so desperate for the money that she had full ratios. Dd was often only 1 of 2 DCs she would have during the day then she would have 2/3 more after school, different on different days. She started at 5 months so I like that she had 1-2-1 with the same person everyday. I preferred the nursery when it meant more toys and more social play.

With our next dc dp will be a sahp so we'll see how that goes.

How do you know people don't work? Maybe people think my dh doesnt work as he works from home and is self employed?