Daycare cost.. anyone know?

[RileyTheLittleMonster]

It's my 4000 post this week sorry!!

I'm only 5 weeks, but wondering how much it would cost weekly? I'm in college about 20 hours a week any ideas?

Thank you

Hi Riley! Really depends on the area and the nursery. My area (Lincolnshire) it's about £42 a day. I expect its lots more round London but its worth enquiring if there's a college nursery they may do a discount/child care vouchers.

I live in Derbyshire, I hope I get some help with it as my boyfriend won't earn enough to pay for it. £42 is costly!

I'm a childminder and have a student who pays me from money she gets from Student finance but I'm not sure what makes one qualify for this, you'd have to speak to someone at your college or maybe benefits office?

That sounds about right for a nursery. Child minders charge by the hour, about 4-5£ around here.

Worth checking if your boyfriend can do salary sacrifice with his employer. I think it is up to £230 before tax that can go towards childcare, which saves some money.

Childcare is expensive. Is there any childcare attached to your college?

I've checked and most daycares are around £4 which would be about £80 a week.

I'm only 5 weeks so not telling anyone yet, do you think I should start telling tutors and ask about support after 12 week scan?

Ontop of extra appointments, gynacologist appointments, over active tyroid and distinctioning assignments I'm trying to get cosy out of the way. Thought it would be the sensible thing.

My boyfriend is currently unemployed due to being fired because of illness but is find jobs.

I'm not aware of childcare attachments I no there is one which is 2 minutes away which is brilliant.

What's salary sacrifice?

salary sacrifice is when your employer takes an agreed amount out of your salary for childcare THEN deducts tax and national insurance so you pay a bit less tax and NI. You then transfer the credit to your childcare provider to cover all or part of the amount of the childcare costs.

Do you get a student loan or grant? You might get an additional amount for dependants or childcare with that.

Also check out tax credits to see if that can help.

The only problem with that is he is wanting to set up his own Joinery business next year. So he may be self employed!

I get a bursary fund which is about £700 a college year. It's payed in two parts from September-febuary around £440 then febuary-May £250

I'm in Derbyshire too.

DS's nursery is just into Nottinghamshire and it costs £32 a day including breakfast, snack, lunch and tea. When we were looking at nurseries a year ago there were definitely some near us that were £35 a day.

I don't know the part-day costs though as I work full days, so on working days DS is in nursery 8am-6:15pm.

And congratulations on your pregnancy!

You need to be careful with Salary Sacrifice schemes, don't get me wrong they are a good thing and you basically pay less tax. However, if your partner is employed for more than 16 hrs per week you may qualify for the childcare element of the working tax credits. This can sometimes be worth more to you than salary sacrifice.

For example, you can only salary sacrifice £253 per month per person, but you may find that if you are employed more than 16 hrs per week and earn less than £17k (irrelevant of it being a single claim or joint claim) then the government may give you more than the £253 per person in tax credits. However you can still put in an application for tax credits as well as salary sacrifice, but you must tell them if you salary sacrifice and how much as this is deducted from what they'll give you in tax credits (effectively, you can't claim the full amount of both the salary sacrifice and tax credits).

Hope this makes sense. Xx

Has your college got a nursery at all? My DS goes to a nursery within a high school/ college which is run by the LA and I pay 30 pounds per day, they do have earlier closing times than most nurseries but it works well for us. Also look into surestart nurseries too, I've heard good things about them.

Congratulations on your pregnancy.

Riley it would be more than £80 a week you can't just use the nursery when you are in college you have to do full or half days

Because my baby is due August 6th, ill have a new college timetable in September so cant plan anything until I get it. Also when i start college my baby will only be 1month, so im going to have to take 2 months off. Can't plan much until i know my timetable! Very early days though so it can all still go wrong.. thank you everyone if I get to 30 weeks ill start visiting nurseries and quotes.

I don't think my college has a daycare, when i tell college I'm going ask them.

Thank you everyone atleast we have a rough estimate