Nursery funded hours

[Blackcat910]

I’m sending my baby to nursery in a couple of months, it’s £62 per day. He will be eligible for 15 hours per week funded. I’m reading a lot that many parents don’t really see a saving from this when meals etc are added and as the hours are funded in term time only. I’m curious to know in your experience has this reduced your bills and by how much?

I’m guessing I won’t understand the true impact until I get an invoice but I’m working out if it’s viable for us to send him 2.5 days rather than just 2. The alternative is MIL has him for 2 days per week instead of 1.5 but I’m trying to avoid this.

Surely you'll need to ask your nursery for their charges? I'd ask for the fees in advance not just wait for an invoice.

How many hours will you use?

Ours is spread out over the year so it's about 11 hours per week, so basically one day funded per week. Ours is £58 per day and the funded day is £11, so a significant saving.

You just need to ask the nursery what the daily rate is when the funded hours are applied. They should have a fee sheet

We put DD in nursery 3 days per week at £87 per day (London 🙄), so roughly 31.3hrs per week. Her 15 hours per week is stretched across 52 weeks of the year (private day nursery open all year).

How much we pay each month depends on how many days in her pattern fall into the month, but it’s either £740ish or £920ish, down from approx. £1150 per month without funding for the same number of days. So definitely a saving but not a life changer, thanks to the incidentals.

We’ve just had a second baby, and worked out that when DD turns 3 and gets her 30hrs, and DS starts in 2026 with 30hrs, we won’t be any worse off than we are now 🤷🏾‍♀️

Ask the nursery for a projection if you can’t wait for an invoice.

Ours is £80 a day (how is yours so cheap?!) it was £650 a month for 2 days with govt tax free childcare but no free hours. When we got the 15 hours free it's £304 a month. They stretch it over the full year so it's not term time only

Mine goes 3 days a week with the funding spread over 52 weeks. The full bill for 3 days a week is £860 a month, after the 15 funded hours my total bill is £363 a month, so I have seen a huge saving. The daily rate is also £62 a day.

Just to add my childs nursery does not charge for food or other consumables. We just take nappies and milk if required.

We didn't get funded hours until my daughter was 3 but we paid £64 a day for an unfunded day and £12 for a funded day. Our nursery didn't pro-rata our funded hours so we paid between £450 a month for 3 funded (30h) and 1 unfunded day for fully term time monthly and around £1000 for August the only month with no funded weeks. Most months were around £600 depending on how much term time there was in the month.

The impact will vary depending on how much they are in - 15h funded will make a bigger percentage difference if they are usually in for 3 full days so 15/30 h funded (50% funded hours) versus 5 full days 15/50 (30% funded hours) and how the nursery deals with the discrepancy between the cost of providing funding and what the funded hours covered. Our nursery did a flat fee for admin and food and didn't provide nappies or wipes.