Nurseries so expensive

[samommy]

My family has just moved to the UK on a 5 ancestral visa, and we are loving it . We have no access to public funds which is understandable as we are not citizens but we find the nursery school very expensive. According to our visa's we both have to work so it is not possible for me to stay home with the kids. I have a 3yr old and an 18mth old and together their monthly fees come to more than my salary.. and I have been told that I am getting a really good salary considering it is my first job in the UK... I also prefer the nursery structure as compared to cminders and the children get to mix with many different children as well instead of only a few... but the cost is out of this world..Are all nurseries so expensive or did I (unknowingly) go for the elite..?

Without the nursery grant, ds's nursery place is well over £1k per term just for 3 mornings. Childcare is very expensive in this country.

My 13 month old is in nursery for 3 full days a week and his fees are about £500 a month. That's pretty standard for our area (Oxfordshire). I was horrified when I found out how much childcare was going to cost us - I definitely haven't gone back to work for the money!

ours is £44 per full day i think. dd only goes 2 afternoons, works out as £170 a month. we have it ok though, i work evenings, dh works days, we both earn good salaries and don't have to spend it all on childcare. is evening work an option for you?

Ds is in full time nursery - in the midlands and its about 650 a month!

I'm up north, but nurseries in this town cost between £25 and £35 per day.

((DD goes to the £25 one which is actually nicer than the £29 one she was at before )

our local nursery costs £25/30 for two sessions (full day) my friends work in a private nursery and they only get £10,000 a year some more some less dependant on hours qualifications and where they work

Ours is in SW London and more expensive than any of the other nurseries mentioned on this thread (although I have seen more expensive nurseries mentioned on Mumsnet). And it's about par for the course for the "good" nurseries in the area, I think -- the others we looked at were roughly the same, and a friend a few miles away is paying about the same as well.

Once DC2 arrives two sets of nursery fees will definitely be more than my take-home salary, and about the same as my before-tax salary. Haven't firmly decided how to handle that one yet, TBH...

Our nursery costs £28/day, East Midlands, for one child.

about to go up in November too

samommy - it might be worth looking into the nursery education grant, not sure where you stand due to your visa restrictions but we get a significant reduction for our 3 year old during school term time. Have a word with your nursery manager about it.

yes it is hard to meet the overheads, we charge £28.50 a day or £120 per week.

Does your or your husbands employer operate a nursery voucher scheme. Could you nag them a bit to see if they would consider bringing it in if not? That would save some tax.

Childcare is very expensive here, but the quality is generally high compared to some countries. (I'm not sure where you're from but my sil from Malaysia was very impressed when she saw ds's nursery as it was so much better than Malaysian nurseries.) Once your eldest starts school the cost will drop a lot, unless you are going to go private.

I'm in Cambridge and dd's nursery is 48/day. It does seem expensive but the quality seems pretty good. Jill

Message withdrawn

Can I just point out that you are talking about less than £5 per hour for someone looking after the most precious thing you have?? It always astounds me that people pay their cleaners & gardeners more than they pay their child-carers!!

Just food for thought! Only MVHO

samommy - surely a visa can't force you to work? What would happen if you lost your job and couldn't get another? I can understand that your visa gives you no access to welfare payments but if your salary is less than your childcare you might still be better off staying at home, or finding a job you can do whilst dp looks after the kids in teh evenings?

And childmindees do mix with other kids - most minders will take kids to lots of activities/groups, just as you would do if at home with them.

Regarding cost, my nursery charged over £1000 per month and that was 3 years ago

I don't know about your visa's but surely your 3 yo is entitled to 15 hours free nursery care a week as most 3-4 year olds are.

I think you might be comparing the cost of nurseries over here in UK to those in South Africa... am I right?

The health & safety restrictions and staff/child ratio are alot stricter in UK than they are in S.A. therefore meaning that the cost is higher. They are regulated in a very controlled manner which is a good thing and at least you know that all staff have had a CRB check and have some qualification in child care. Hope that makes sense?!

i am at how reasonable all your nursery fees sound - ours are £290 a week for my one year old! the good thing is that we dont pay for school holidays except 2 weeks a year - i am a teacher so am off anyway.

Can I just point out that you are talking about less than £5 per hour for someone looking after the most precious thing you have?? It always astounds me that people pay their cleaners & gardeners more than they pay their child-carers!!

I earn £3.50 per hour as a Childminder, OFSTED said I should be charging £4-5 but in the area I live people do not earn a great deal and cannot afford that. I am NVQ Level 3 (Nursery nurse) trained as Childminders will soon have to be but its not fair that we get well below minimum wage for often long hours and then have to do training without extra pay in our own time.

My nursery is £1,000 a month full time (London). Not the cheapest or the most expensive, but I'm happy with it - and although that means financially we do struggle, we've made our decision and on the whole I'm happy with it. DS loves the staff, he is really well looked after, and he is fed well. But you're right - childcare is not cheap !! Equally, kids in general aren't cheap !!

Yes, childcare is hugely expensive in this country. And it's not as if nursery workers are paid a fortune as someone pointed out!
One point I would make to Mum2Luke - yes, your hourly rate seems appallingly low, but on the other hand, if you are working as a CM because you want to be at home with your own preschool children, then you are earning without having to pay childcare costs of your own. I used a CM for my eldest DC; and her reason for going into childcare was to be able to stay at home with her own DS. She looked after my DC plus another full timer and also did some after school care for older children, and tbh, I bet she had more income per week than I did, once I'd taken out the childcare fees! So I think you need to take that into account - it may not be brilliantly paid, but it's about the only job where you can be earning without having to use care for your own kids.

I would re check your visa status about working - I would imagine that as long as you are your DH are self supporting and do not try to claim any money from the state that you would be OK.

My understanding is that you have a work visa which allows you to work, not just a tourist visa. Get it re checked .

If your spouse is a British Citizen, or has an Ancestry Visa or Right to Abode in the UK, or is sponsored to work in the UK, then you are eligible to apply for a UK Spouse Entry Visa. This also entitles you to work in the UK and should be applied for and granted prior to entry into the UK.

Above taken from this website here

Perhaps you need a different type of visa , I'm sure if it was explained about the children and cost of childcare then it may be changed.

At our WArwickshire nursery, a 2 1/2 day week costs us £530 a month. I worked it out at an hourly rate of around £5. We don't have much choice tbh - the nursery is good.

I would agree with the people that are saying '£3.50 an hour is less than people pay their gardener' but you are not getting one to one care for that price are you?

My Ds nursery is £47 per day, he goes three days per week which adds up to about £570 a month.

To be honest, I don't think that that the fees are too high and i think the staff have to work damned hard for the wages they receive. As someone else has pointed out you are paying someone to do a professional job of looking after the most precious thing imaginable.

I can understand that if you are on a low income yourself then nursery fees must seem un-realistic but my understanding in most cases you can get a hefty proportion of the fees payed by the taxcredits system. you can also get 10% off if you use a 'voucher' scheme which the nursery could advise on.

Thank you roseblade- the tax credits system is what people forget because it comes off their tax bill so they don't see the benefit directly.

If you use childcare & go back to work the hard nosed fact is you have to pay someone else to look after your LO. Now whether you spend more time choosing your childcare than your coat or your car is up to you but any decent nursery/childminder won't come cheap.

We need to re-evaluate our priorites in the UK it seems!

Mum2Luke if you are charging less than minimum wage then you need to put your fees up. There may be many parents who can't afford more in your area but they should be able to get tax credits if they are on low income, you are not a charity & you need to value yourself before others value you ( a lesson I learnt the hard way )