Nursery says the extras aren’t included in the funded hours but I never realised it would cost this much

[Yluna47]

My ds is 2 and has been at nursery since January. He goes 3 days a week while im at work and generally he loves it there, runs in without looking back at me most mornings so no issues with the actual nursery.

He’s eligible for the funded hours now and I thought it would make a decent difference to what we pay but honestly im a bit shocked by the latest invoice. I know its not completely free and I wasn’t expecting to pay nothing but I thought we’d be saving more than we are.

Before the funding we were paying around £610 a month for the 3 days. Now its just over £360. Which is obviously a saving but when I looked at the breakdown there’s £250 for the extra hours, £55 for meals and snacks, £35 consumables and £20 activities. I thought some of this would be included in the funded hours but apparently not.

The meals one is annoying because you have to pay it, they don’t let you send food from home. The consumables is apparently things like wipes, nappies, suncream and craft stuff. He’s potty training so doesn’t use many nappies now and I do wonder what we’re paying for some months, but I know they still have things to buy for all the children. The activities charge is for things like music sessions and other things they do during the week.

I did read the paperwork when he started but if im honest I didn’t properly understand all the funding stuff. It said there would be additional charges and I signed it, so I know I can’t really say I wasn’t told anything. I just didn’t realise it would still be this much once the funding kicked in. I think I assumed the funded hours would come off the bill and then we’d pay for whatever hours were left, but it seems to work differently.

My partner thinks we should just leave it alone because ds is settled there and we both work, so what else are we supposed to do. He’s not wrong really. I don’t want to move him somewhere else just to save money when he’s happy and knows everyone. But £360 a month is still a lot for us and I was hoping we’d be able to put some of that money away instead.

I’ve asked another mum at nursery what she pays and she said hers was cheaper but her child only goes two days and I don’t know if she’s getting the same hours as us. I don’t really want to start asking everyone what they’re paying because it feels a bit nosy.

Are these charges normal? I know nursery staff need paying and the funding doesn’t cover everything but I can’t get my head around the fact its advertised as funded hours and there’s still so much to pay. Can you ask to opt out of the extras or would they just tell you to find another nursery? Has anyone actually managed to get their bill reduced without changing childcare completely?

I got the 15 free an hour I pay lunch, bring our own nappies and wipes and then the extra is £35 a term. This is a children’s centre though.

I don’t think it would hurt you to shop around a bit. I’ve been looking at nurseries as I am currently pregnant and for 3 days after the funding it’s coming out anywhere between £250 and £480/month. I’ve signed up for a couple but the reason for the pricing differences is is because:

• some nurseries charge you all the way up to 6pm even if you won’t use it that long. Some let you pay as you go.
• some let you mix and match consumables, send your own lunch whereas others insist you must have their lunches
• one of them my husband gets a staff discount because it’s onsite at his work (we like this option it just traps him in his job and is is a long time in the car for LO every day so undecided)
• one allows you to pay termly for a 10% discount and yearly for 15%
• one doesn’t charge for consumables at all!

So they’re all different really - we’re also signed up to a childminder that we may or may not end up using.

That’s about what we pay too (stretched, 3 days a week, long days). It’s hard when you’re expecting more of a saving and the reality isn’t what you anticipated. We’re one of the last of our friends to have a child and I remember a lot of our group paying over a thousand pounds a month for nursery before the 30 hours stuff came in. It made me wonder how on earth we were expected to keep procreating haha! It’s hard but as they say the days are long but the years are short. They’ll be at school before we know! Sending love x

Because we have set up a society where people need to work and where we need people to have children in order to maintain that society? Childcare is education - it shouldn’t be free and funded by the government like school.

It’s the same in every nursery - the funded hours are bare minimum everything else is on top.

government funding is a joke. It doesn’t cover a full day , i think it covers 9am - 3pm or something useless

Yes a lot of the bill is the hours. Thr 30 hours a week is only for 38 weeks a year so in our nursery that's 22.8 hours a month when its spread out. This means just over 2 of our 4 days are covered by the hours, the others are full rate or almost full rate. Then on the days where we use the hours there are the top up charges which are similar to yours. Our bill is 615pm for 4 days before the 20% discount. This is very reasonable in comparison to some nurseries in expensive areas. But I do understand feeling as though it wasn't fully clear - its quite complicated how they apply the funding!

It doesn't sound like a lot of money to me in terms of what you get for that. To give an international perspective, my government subsidised daycare in Tokyo costs 3000 yen per 6hr session, and I can book 10 sessions a month (so about twice a week), for a total of 30,000 yen. Minimum wage here is 1200 yen an hour and in terms of purchasing power, 100 yen is about £0.90.

So I pay the equivalent of about £270 per month for 2 days a week (12 hours), and have to pack all his nappies and wipes, lunch, and a snack.

You probably need to start planning how it will all work once they start primary school, as that is 8:45-3:30, term time only etc

This is why I'm strongly team childminder! My daughter is thriving and happy with her and in a small, close group. We stretch our funded hours over the year not just term time, she goes for 30 hours a week and we just pay for the extra 3 or so hours. She doesn't provide food or nappies, we pack everything she needs and there's NO hidden costs. I've never paid over £100 per month. If they do soft play, classes, zoo etc there's extra costs for that but we pay that through the gov tax free account too and it's never very much. I could never pay that for nursery!

Every nursery is the same I'm afraid so theres really no point looking elsewhere.
We're paying about £550 a month for 3 days a week with the full funding in place. I was absolutely horrified when I got my first funded bill.
Everyone who doesnt have children (hello mum and dad) likes to wildly band about statements such as "oh at least your childcare is free' errrr no it bloody well isn't!!!
I've calculated that the extras my daughter has a day equates to about £10 at the absolute most and that is being VERY generous.
Every nursery is the same so we have to suck it up and be grateful its not the £1100 it first was before the funding 🤦‍♀️

Our nursery had no extra charges once the funding came in. We were expected to bring our own nappies, creams etc. Nursery provided wipes. No activity charge. Food was expensive (£80 a month for 3 days a week) which we opted for because I knew my son would get a good meal every day but you could bring an ‘approved’ pack lunch in!
It was a great nursery as well.

I’d think of the funding as a subsidy rather than free. If you can stave off £35 I’d shed him in with nappies and wipes as there’s no way he’ll be using that much worth a month.

I think that’s a great deal for a 2 year old. My two went before any funding before 3 year olds and it was extortionate paying for 2 with no funding for years. We paid that for a 3 year old in an all year round nursery which I think is reasonable as the funding is only term time. My youngest went to a term time only preschool and it was free apart from £20 snacks. So there’s ways round it if you don’t want to pay anything but requires more juggling.

Not sure about your kids, but when mine went, they only got the 15h funded from age 3. The sessions for these were 9-12 and 1-4 or whatever. Mine went 3 days per week and a day was 8-6, so we paid full price for half the hours and nothing for the other half.

Even back then it was a stretch for the nursery (independent not a chain) to cover but they could do it without adding on for consumables, because they were charging proper price to all children under 3 and could make it balance. Now younger kids have access to the funded hours, there’s fewer properly priced hours to go round.

To the posters asking how come some can make it work but not others - reimbursement by LA probably varies less by county than wages do, a given nursery might own its building outright or get it at a low rent from eg a church organisation keen that a nursery is placed there for the community, meal costs (either to make or buy in from a service) may also vary by area etc etc.

I’m in Scotland too and council run nurseries are neither use nor ornament if you need them for actual childcare while you work

Zero funding at all on the eldest ( born 91)

When youngest started it was 12.5 hours free for 4 year old. By the time he had reached 3 ( started at 6 months) they had rolled out the 15 hours for 3 year olds thenu

Not quite sure what it had to do with taking nappies in though

That seems a lot. Although reading other comments here apparently it’s not.
we are charged £2 per day for meals, an extra .75p if having breakfast too on an early drop off. That’s it - but we provide our own nappies, though wipes are included.
For the older children there is a £1.50 charge per activity if one falls on their day.

Ah, ok. So charging for the nappies and wipes is a “cover” to balance the books, because the funding is not enough for the market rate of the nursery hours. Like you, I sent these in also.

It’s £288 a month (with TFC) for 3 days a week, genuinely how cheap do you want it?

£70 a day for a non funded day would be a bargain now. Ours is £86 (and £10 for funded - allegedly optional but they make it extremely onerous to send in your own food so I doubt anyone bothers) and my son previously went to one which was £96 per day, with a 10% additional subsidy if you went term time only. That nursery closed for financial reasons - even at that cost (and a massive non-optional top up for funded days) they still couldn’t make it work, so 60+ kids were left with a months notice to find new childcare.

In that case prepare yourself for costs to renain quite high when your child starts school. Wraparound care before and after school plus activity clubs in the holidays can be pricey until your child is old enough to get themselves to school and back and entertain themselves at home while you work. Parents who use a year-round nursery when their child is 1-4 can find things get much more complicated and sometimes more expensive for age 4-9.

I think im definitely in the minority I think these bills are outrageous. When DD did 3 full days with the 30 hours our bill was maybe £60ish per month. Meals are billed at £3.25 and snacks 25p each.

as @ThreeRandomThings has pointed out the funded hours are for term time only. which I do feel is ridiculous for working parents.
my DD could no longer afford the nursery fees all year round because the nursery she had been using stopped stretching the hours at Easter so April bill, May with half term and July was suddenly a lot more. she had to remove the boys father had fucked off but still works full time but obviously doesn't see it as something to do with him.

So now youngest - 2.5 y is at a council run nursery which is term time only 9 - 3 5 days whereas before she had 2 x 3 mornings x 52 weeks 7.30 - 12.45.
the only extra cost now is £9 voluntary contribution for every half term snacks etc.

So you would have to pay for hours before 9 and after 3 that you need, we provide a pack lunch and nappies/wipes and you would need childcare for the holidays.

So yes this child's nursery is free now with his funded hours although we didn't really want 5 days 9 till 3 as I look after the boys when they are not at nursery so the old hours suited us best.

but what I am trying to say is the costs of covering the hours out of 9 till 3 on your 3 days and all the holidays may well be the same or more of what you are paying?
That is something to consider moving to a council run nursery. and using the money saved to pay for the holidays if you could get anybody or anywhere or both take annual leave to cover what you need! So child is happy and your work hours are covered and that's the cost or find the alternative in a council nursery and pay and organise for all the extras yourselves.

Normal but also that £360 is less if you pay through tax free each month. It’s significantly cheaper than what I paid which was about £1200 a month.