How much is it really??

[Sarahsmith12345]

How much does everyone pay for nursery, with the free 30 hours?
me & husband on 40k each. Looking at 5 days per week
Thank you

It depends on a LOT of factors. How long is the nursery open during the day? Is it a charity/preschool attached to school/for-profit nursery? What is the supplemental fee (usually for snacks and consumables, as the funding from the government nowhere near covers the cost of running the place!)?

Looking for approximately what everyone else pays so I can gauge :)

You'll be pleasantly surprised if you were expecting to pay £2pm.

Total payable costs we saw places varying from £1.6k to £2.5k per month for 1 child full time 8am - 6pm. This is before any gov help / tax relief.

If you get 15 hours free from 9months it works out at £63.54 per week for a child entitled to 15 hours funded by the Government.
Once eligible for 30 hours it doubles.

On top you get tax free childcare which is horribly named.
Its like a bamk account where for every £8 you add the gov adds £2 and you pay your childcare provider from the account.
You can get up to £2k per year (thats net) which is very helpful.

If you want to make your money go further look at CMs if you can find a good one id go for that... they are generally cheaper than nurseries.

You need to look at provider costs then deduct the government relief

No experience myself as mine are older but my mate way paying £1000 a month full time nursery care but now with free hours it's around £600 as some things are now chargeable and it's even out over the whole year, it's not 30 hours free each week but 30 hours term time.

I’m moving to 5 full days in September (from mornings only) and have calculated to expect to be invoiced approx. £1,050 a month, with the 30 hours ‘free’. I could be horribly mistaken as I haven’t been invoiced yet, despite being expected to pay it in just a couple of weeks! Brace yourself for nursery communication 😅

(Nb. That’s invoice from the nursery - can be paid using tax free childcare account, so you can knock off £2k a year with that.)

I currently pay £600-700 for half days including the current 15 funded hours. So that seems a low estimate for a full time place, even with the new hours!

(I’m in the South East - I expect that makes a difference!)

Thanks so much this is really helpful

We do 4 days a week and with the 30 funded hours pay £850, then we also get the tax free childcare which brings it down to £630 a month.

Our September invoice with the 30 hours was £1100, so very similar to this. Then with the tax free childcare it reduces it a little further. This is for full time, so five days a week, 8-6.

I get the impression our nursery is fairly average in terms of fees, from sources like our antenatal group. It’s not the most expensive but equally not the cheapest. We’re East of England.

It really depends on location. The nursery DS was at was £2.4k full time, and according to the website it’s now £1.7k after the ‘free’ hours - we’re in a pricy commuter town in the Home Counties though.

Totally depends on location & which nursery. Remember its only 30 free hours a week if you only need it term time though- if you need nursery all year round its 22 hours a week ish.

We’re not in an expensive area, up North, and our nursery for 5 days a week with both the funding & tax free childcare would be about £700.

My child's nursery charges £1,596.10 for standard (full) fees for 5 days a week, 8am-6pm, for children 6months - 2 year old.

With funding if eligible, it becomes £1010 per month.

Then, if you are eligible for funding you'll likely also be eligible for the tax-free childcare so that will reduce the bill again to about £808 per month.

The older they get the fees become a little cheaper because the required ratio of staff to children changes.

You get 30 subsidised hours from the term after they turn 9m old, so work this out as you may pay full initially depending when you go back to work/how old your baby is. It is also term time only, my friends nursery only uses them for term so she has big bills during half term/summer holidays where as ours spread them over the year: We have just got our first bill for DD2 who starts in September after she is already 9m old so will give you a breakdown:

• 30 subsidised hours (spread over the year so 22 hours per week)
• cost is £79per day inclusive
• £16.50per funded day additional charge for food/activities
• 4 days per week 0800-1800 = £439.80 billed by nursery
• Pay from childcare account which accrues 20% so the total we will personally put into the account will be £351.84 (we do always overpay to build up a buffer in there incase we ever need any adhoc days or something)

For reference we are in Cheshire.

I should also say that our DD is 18 months. So she’s in the most expensive room with high ratios atm. The fees do reduce a bit as they get older and the ratios change, as a PP mentioned.

As others have said it depends on the nursery and how they allow you to use the funded hours. Up until now at my kid's nursery you could use the 30 hours to have 3 x 10 hour days, but they've now changed it so the funding is all year round and you get 4 short days. That then means we have to pay for wrap around which works out way more expensive. We don't need 5 full days but if we did at our nursery it would cost £257 per week with funding.

As a rough guide - a full 10hr funded day would cost £10 for food and consumables.

So term time only (30hrs) 3 days would cost £10 and the other two days would be full price (approx £70 depending on age). Around £170 a week.

If it were stretched you’d get two days at £10 and three days full price although one of those days might be reduced by two hours to
allow for the 22hours funded in stretched. Approx £220 a week.

If you do less than full time the price would be less than this. Some of our parents doing stretched 9-3 and a 9-1 (4 days a week) are only paying lunch and consumables which work out at £6 per day. So around £24 a week.

We pay £367 each month, for 4 days a week, that’s after the 20% reduction. It’s stretch over 48 weeks (so I think it’s around 24 funded hours per week)