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.

FlowerFairy

Conservatives are well known for making the rich richer and the poor poorer, in your case they are the best bet I would imagine.
However, if anybody else into thinking that Conservatives give a hoot about hard working parents they need think again.
It was labour who brought out the childcare element of tax credit, I can't see any government doing more than what is available already tbh.
Conservatives like nuclear families with a sahp whatever they say different to gain votes.

Lepetit, I don't think anyone is complaining that they can't afford childcare for 4DC. Just wondering on what planet His Daveness is living where he thinks any low paid job would cover the cost of 4DC.

It wouldn't so you don't have 4dc.

4dc isn't a right.

The 4 children point on R4 today was about the very popular benefits cap- the interviewer said it would make those with 4 children living entirely on benefits worse off. most of the UK think - well that's just tough - get a job or have fewer children. The benefits cap is very popular with both Labour and Tory voters.

Can I just say that outing somebody who has to nc very often, is bad form.
Everybody is entitled to post here in privacy whether you agree with their posts or not.

I don't agree with the one I am talking about most of the time, but wouldn't stoop so low.

Nobody needs to out her she does it herself.Earning a high salary is the be all and end all of life- check,down with sahp-check,private schools-check,nanny-check.........

I could go on.

FlowerFairy

That is fine and dandy and I suppose could make sense to people who are rich and don't live on benefits.

However, these families exist already. What will happen to those thrown into poverty, the ones who already exist.
We need to look after these families surely?

LePetit

Yes, I got last nc immediately and this one. She still deserves anonymity the same as others.
Hey, I'm the polar opposite, and one she really disagrees with but hey ho, we're all different.

I've been paying a nanny salary for almost 17 years.
Youngest is 9.
I can't see when it will end.
Chuck in at least 2 years of nursery x 4 children and how much is that all together? Not much change from £400,000 post tax income I'll bet. Or £800k pre-tax income. Ho hum.

Nursery is £55-65 a day here. Essex.

I cannot find a job that will afford me to go back to work locally with childcare.

If I return to London, I'm not confident Id earn enough either but also get to work 8-6 plus commutes.

Well it won't be long and they'll be at school.Paying for nursery is not for life or even for a long time.

Look David Cameron has a wife who works part time. Actually she works for her mothers company in a role created for her. Not everyone is that lucky.

He can say what he wants but I don't see much in the way of help for working parents. I have no idea how a young family is supposed to make it in the UK. Talking about a family with 4DC on benefits and not working is moving the argument away from where I think it should be which is 'It should always pay to work.'

Your dependants and lifestyle choices are nothing to do with that though.

Well it won't be long and they'll be at school.Paying for nursery is not for life or even for a long time.

Unfortunately, if your children are in a school without its own breakfast and after-school club, then you do continue paying. There are no childminders in the village that I live in who pick up from the local school. I am obliged to use the breakfast and after-school club at a local nursery, who drop-off and take my eldest child to school. The daily cost of this is £33.

Childcare for me, currently with one in Reception and the other in nursery, looks like it's going to be a very significant cost for the next decade.

I can understand why a childminder would not want to do drop-offs/pick-ups. She or he is by themselves and it would be a nightmare bundling up three other little ones and trudging off to the school .. certainly not worth the £3 an hour or whatever it is that they are paid especially if they can give the spot to a fulltime preschooler anyway. Also, if they agreed to pickup for one, they'd probably be obliged for another or two who might be at a different school.

Wouldn't a better and more economical solution for school-aged children be to hire an au-pair? If you were paying £66 a day to a nursery to do drop-offs/pickups for two children, that would £336 a week which is more than an au-pair would cost even including board, travel card etc.

Of course you continue paying after starting school.But it is vastly reduced and reduces all the time,disappearing by secondary.Do people actually think their bank balance shouldn't be affected by their own children?

They are your children and will need to be cared for.If you use a sahp or childcare it is going to cost you- end of.

breakfast and after school club isn't that cheap. school holidays are much worse, I'm a LP and can only get help with childcare costs if it goes over 4 weeks. I didn't know this and last summer childcare (just under 4 weeks) almost wiped me out. TBH once you include school dinners during term time it's not much cheaper than nursery.

meglet I am shocked at how expensive afterschool care is in the UK. It also shocks me that schools don't offer affordable holiday cover. It is no wonder families decide it is best for one of them to stay home.

I do question the GBP67k because I think if you look at what working parents expect to pay I think it is much much higher. I expect that if we lived in the UK I would pay about GBP120-150k over the first 12 years of each DC's life in childcare costs. So this GBP67k is a number watered down by the fact that there are so many SAHP's.

Like everything else, money gives you more choices.

If your income is low, and doesn't cover childcare you might have to stop work, meaning the overall family income is low and you are reliant on some kind of benefits for a few years, until childcare costs are lower (and they are lower for school age children, even with holiday and wrap around care factored in). The fact is, there are some benefits out there,which will still enable people to have those children and live. The lack of choice about working/not is a choice only available to those with higher incomes. But then, is it so very different to the fact that only those on higher incomes might be able to choose to buy a holiday home, or to have a lovely holiday or a better car, or live in the catchment area for a great school. I am NOT saying these things are right, just stating a fact, that higher incomes give more choices. It shouldn't really be a surprise that this with low paid jobs don't have as many choices open to them regarding childcare, as those on higher incomes.

We live in a broadly free market economy and higher income=higher choice and consumption possibilities.
We can only have what is within our means ......and that is not even quite true, because the government has already intervened with benefits, child tax credits, subsidised nursery places, childcare vouchers etc. Few people can say they cannot even have a child because of cost - so the government is protecting this 'right' just not funding everyone to be able to live a 2 income life, with free childcare.

It seems to me, that an increasing pattern will be that 1 parent in families of pre-school age children won't work, because they cannot afford to.
Once their children are at school, both parents will work as it will again be affordable. They may well work part time and may well be in low paid work (having left the workforce earlier) but they will be able to work and will be financially better off than in the early years of childhood.

When many of us were young, we had a parent at home in pre-school years. Many of our mothers then worked when we were at school. Some of that was to do with social values, but also to do with cost.

I think people get confused between women's rights to opportunities (education and employment) which have clearly improved over time, although there is still scope for improvement, and the right to choose a lifestyle regardless of finances.

I dont think anyone has a 'right' to work or to stay at home, just because they would like to. I think we do have a right to have a family and to live, and that is certainly possible for all, although choosing that 'right' also comes with the costs of childcare. And although the government will ensure those who cannot themselves afford to house and feed their children, have these needs met, they are not (and shouldn't need to, in my book) responsible for funding those who have chosen to have children, so they can maintain the same standard of living that they had before children. I think people should EXPECT to see a drop in their standard of living when they first have a child - children cost - however, of course no-one should be left in poverty. I think the government does aim to prevent people being in poverty, rightly so, but beyond that, people need to bear the responsibilities of having children and that will probably mean being poorer than before, and perhaps not having much choice about childcare options in the early years.

Final thoughts......I seems entirely reasonable for me to pay taxes, so that those with and those without children have accommodation, food etc.
It doesn't seem reasonable that I pay taxes, so someone who would like to work can afford their childcare costs, if they could do the childcare themselves and be financially independent.
The only time I think my taxes should be paying for childcare are when having someone at home doing childcare means they would still need benefits to cover their costs of living (realise people are in this position) and think it is then preferable to cover the cost of childcare so people can afford to work rather than just giving benefits. I guess this is what working tax credits are all about. Again,that low income person still has no choice - in this case they are forced into work, not out of it.

I don't see why I should be paying tax on an expense that is only there because I work. I don't see why someone who has opted out of paid work (and so doesn't pay tax) feels the need to comment on what the goverenment spends taxpayers money on.

To put the tax relief in context, the government spends more on free bus passes or the winter fuel allowance for the elderly than it does on reducing tax on childcare. Of course OAPs are great voters so the parties like to sweeten them up.

government

Um millions work and don't pay tax,I'm guessing they don't get a say or do the ones with a tax paying partner get a say or should really just the higher tax payers get a say as they are the only ones contributing ie putting more in than taking out?

And your expense is there because you have kids not because you're working.