Nursery costs in London, any tips?

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Hi there, I'm currently pregnant with our first child and I've looked into childcare costs in Bow, London where we live and have been shocked at the prices coming back - e.g. this morning - £1580 per month (plus an 18 month waiting list so we'd have to apply now). This is not far off our mortgage. My husband and I are on reasonable, professional salaries - or so I thought - but this cost is enormous.

We normally have about £1000 left over each month after bills/living costs etc which we'd normally put towards holidays etc but we bought our first flat in late 2018 and every penny over the past 1.5 years has gone into costs associated with this as it was a neglected ex-council flat in Bow (East London) so we have no savings and there are still house-related things we'd need to do or pay for before the baby is due. Also, we'd need to somehow need to save an extra £580 from our normal living expenses just to pay for nursery. We already don't have a car, rarely eat etc so I'm not sure where this money will come from.

We have no grandparents who could support with childcare. Are there any better options out there? I feel like we're taking on the impossible trying to have a child in London. We considered moving out back in 2018 when we bought our flat but we're not from the UK originally and if we left London we'd have zero friends or support network. Also, there are few jobs in our fields outside of London. I'm also now 40 (it took almost 20 years to get on the property ladder with current house prices) so it's not like we can put it off until we're earning higher salaries.

Any help appreciated, we don't know anyone with children in London.

Thanks!

Oh we are in SE London, zone 2.

We both earn decent salaries but still can only afford one child.

We both do compressed hours- DH has all day Friday off; I have Monday mornings off, so we only pay 3.5 days/ week.

You also get 20% contribution towards childcare from the government, and about £82/month in child benefit (depending on your salaries).

We have no support either- all costs are ours.

@amd94jgkap3nvpoa3p10dnpaddo0.
Your parents cant have had the typical income...in the 80s everyone had to go back to work and you couldn't get a normal mortgage without 2 incomes they then lent 4 times your combined income and interest rates where 14 % one day they went up to 18% such an outcry they put them back down again. They had 2 cars again unless working not the norm with many not having one car. So I guess your looking at a much wealthier family than the norm

Do be careful with compressed hours, if you're both working longer days when your child is in daycare, do you also have time to commute to pick them up before it closes?

Eg if your standard work day is 9-5, compressed hours could be 8-6 over 4 days so may not be practical.

Both DH and I do compressed hours and have a day off each, but do 4.5 days rather than 5, obviously taking a salary drop too.

Something to bear in mind if that's useful

@amd94jgkap3nvpoa3p10dnpaddo0.
Subsidies for childcare only started with 3 year old funding. Before then parents just had to pay no choice.

Could you move out of London and commute? this is what DH & I do- 45 minutes to central London and our nursery fees are £1250 a month so not cheap by any means but a saving nonetheless compared to London and housing is cheaper.

Could you get working tax credits and child tax credits or childcare vouchers. X

Do people actually read the bloody posts before commenting?

@copperoliver they’re on £100k combined, no they won’t get any help. You can’t sign up for childcare vouchers anymore either they’ve stopped them.

It's so so tough. Nursery around me is £1800 per month!!!! Is there any scope to change careers and go freelance? That's what I did but appreciate not always possible.

What did you say you're left with after bills and nursery?

It is really tough. Would you consider approaching your lender and asking if you could go interest only on your mortgage, if only for a fixed period of a year? It might ease the burden.

Sorry not to sound doom and gloom but something I didn't realise before my son started nursery is how sick he would get constantly and we would need to have him off nursery. It's horrible just throwing the money away when he doesn't even go £160 last week 😩

And of course you need to take time off work to look after them

@BuffaloCauliflower.
DO PEOPLE ON HERE HAVE TO BE SO RUDE.
If you can't be nice don't say anything at all.
I did read most of the posts I cannot remember every detail sorry I'm not perfect.

Op, could you look at nurseries closer to your work? They might be cheaper?

We struggled for the first 4 years as ds1 was born before 30 hours came in at 3. We also (accidentally) had ds2 21 months later.

We had no holidays or luxuries, fortunately my parents lived near the seaside and had a camper van which we borrowed.

Things might be tight for a few years but it won't be forever.

I can’t imagine your employers would be too happy about you having a fixed working from home day and having your child at home with you. Realistically you’re not going to get much work done.

You say you couldn’t leave London because your jobs don’t exist outside London but this is really unlikely to be too these days. You could find pretty much any tech job in London, there are public sector jobs in all major cities and loads of government departments are moving out of London. I know plenty of people who work in the charity sector who are not based in London.

Probably not very easy to move now that you have bought property but you really don’t need to resign yourself to living on London for the rest of your lives.

@ritzbiscuits good point about the compressed hours, we'd have to be able to work from home those days and have a close nursery to make it workable. Not sure if my employee would agree it either..

It does sound quite a slog though, increasing hours 4 days whilst looking after a baby the rest of the time. I suppose I've done part-time grad studies whilst working full time but that was in my late 20's!

*outside London

Going back 3 years or so but £40 a day was average a bit further East in Hainault / Fairlop.

Could you consider "commuting" the wrong way?

We were astonished when we moved to Buckinghamshire that childcare was MORE expensive than London!

Argh I think my post deleted. I feel your pain, OP - I don't live too far from you and I have 2 in nursery 😬😬

Which side of Bow are you? Have you looked at any in Stratford, there are quite a few around there and they tend to be cheaper than the Victoria park area ones

@DryIce near Victoria park, the 'expensive' side it seems!

@WellTidy we'll stop our 10% overpayment but it's a pretty new mortgage locked in for 5 years so probably can't go interest-only.

Sounds like we just have to get through 3 years of tight budgets and hang in for the 30 hours..

That’s a sweeping generalization @jannier. In the 80s most of my friends mums didn’t work because childcare options were extremely limited. Of a class of about 36 kids maybe about 10 of them had working mums and they were either teachers or nurses who worked nights/weekends. These were not wealthy people.

I’m in the East Midlands and my costs are £1125 per month full time but more like £900 after tax free. It’s ridiculous. I’m a single mum and after my household bills and childcare there is very little left for anything else! Role on 30 free hours!