Childcare costs are incredible, how do so many women afford to work

[Zealey]

Hi, I'm sure many people have asked this question before, but I've just seen a piece on the BBC News about how childcare costs are often thousands of pounds a month for multiple kids.
Here in London my local nursery charges £750 per child per month. Considering many return to work mums will be typically part-time and in low paid jobs, HOW does ANY make it pay? Surely not every mum in London is on £40k+ a year.
I'm sincerely curious.
Thanks.

I have made this point before, but why not share those lean unproductive years. Dh and I could 'nt afford childcare for us both to work ft when the Dcs were younger. I took the brunt of it in the early years, till dd was 2. Then he had a career break for 2 years until she went to school. Now they are at school and we both work 3 days out of the house.Why is it always assummed that one parent must SAH for years on end rather than share it out, so both careers keep going and you avoid the highest childcare costs. I think this is so much more practical than it was now that everyone can take a years maternity leave

Does anyone know if childcare tax credits are going to change in the near future? DC1 is due in July and I'd like to go back to work afterwards. Need to do some maths re vouchers versus TCs, merits of one of us being PT etc.

I know about changes in WTC and CTC, also the reduction in childcare TC for the lowest paid, but none of that affects us as far as I'm aware. All the information I can find online seems to focus on families with two children and/or only apply to the pre April 2011 regime. Can anyone shed any light?

addendum to above- have seen the calculators on the DWP page, just not sure if this is still going to apply given the upcoming changes. Its not part of universal credit is it? We're not eligible for that.

Flangelina - childcare costs you used to be able to claim 80% but now it will be 70% from april

onelittlebabygirl - it depends on the area they put you above others if you attended the pre school at dds school and it does give you an advantage and it is stated in the lea guide. Its not like that for all pre schools though

Molly, is that 70% for everyone, or just the lowest earners? I didn't think it was that much for people whose income is too high for WTC.

What I mean is, there's the DWP table here:

www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/TaxCredits/peoplewhohelpothers/Entitlementtablesfortaxcredits/Youworkandalsohavechildren/DG_174789

But not sure if this will still hold true after April 2012.

I pay £800pm, but get the vouchers and 15hrs free childcare places. So my £800 bill actually costs me more like £550. It is expensive, but my view is that is is for a short time. If I stepped off the career ladder now I would not go back to earning what I currently do. It does not leave much afterwards, but somehow I manage. Also, i enjoy my job, I'm good at it and it helps me. Each to their own though - there are days I'd rather stay at home!

We pay £500 per month for DD (3yrs) to attend nursery for 3 full days. It was higher when she was a baby and before we could claim the 15 free hours.

In fact the 15 free hours doesn't work out how it sounds. the government give our nursery an amount of funding towards 15 hours of care. The nursery's hourly rate is higher than that so we still have to pay a top-up on the 15 hours.

We both use childcare vouchers but aren't entitled to tax credits.

Its a struggle. But the benefits for us are worth it. As I have maintained my career, I am in a good position to ask for flexibility when DD is at school (working round the school run during term time and doing some juggling during school hols).

As others have mentioned above, by the time we've stopped paying nursery fees, we'll be putting the money aside (less a sum for holiday clubs) for further education/house deposit/car insurance etc. I have never received any financial assistance (or childcare) from family, which I am very proud of. I don't like the thought of giving DD a handout to help her on the uni/house/car ladder, but I don't think she will stand a chance if we don't help her financially.

I would have loved another child but can't medically. But even if there were no fertility issues for us, the costs issue would have been a factor when deciding if/when to have a second child.

For those saying that there were no child care vouchers when their children were young, what percentage of your salary did the childcare cost at that time? I'm interested in the lowest earner so the mother or the father. I would make about £10/day after paying for travel and tax if I had to pay for childcare for the two days that I work.

I don't think that anybody owes me anything, but it is hard.

DS2 is in nursery 4 days a week. I get the salary sacrifice vouchers and we get the child care element of CTC. We will get our 15 free hours from April this year. We knew it would be hard for a few years. We've had to dip into savings for large unexpected expenses (boiler fixing), but out of our whole working life it's a small period. We have 10 years between our children. Having two in childcare would certainly have been very difficult.

LestKat in 1984 (baby 1) the cost of the nanny gross cost including tax was just about identical to one our salaries after tax - earned £7500 each. I was in a career though where you start at £x (and I was 22/23 and just starting) and earn a lot more as you go through so it was a dead easy decision to work full time if you think I will bke working for 40+ more years.

Then the salary of the daily nanny stayed much the same and mine went up so it got easier. I think my salary went up to £10,500 the next year (1985). Thta baby is now in the same line of work and she had the same hike in pay - £40k last year £60k although she doesn't have children yet or childcare costs.
In fact I suspect she would be better off now than I was in 1985 as tax rates were about 33% basic rate and interest rates much higher. If she was paying a nanny out of her £40k I think she's have some over thus things may be easier now (if you pick that type of career rather than say call centre work) than they used to be.

Flangelina, sorry if this isn't what you meant or much help, but we had a letter from HMRC to say our child tax credits are being stopped from April, and the impression I have is that anyone with an income over £26,000 with 1 DC will not get them any more.

I pay nearly £40 per day for daycare at the moment, It virtually wipes out my part time freelance job wages....but we do get 15 hours free so it does help a lot. I still think childcare should be alot cheaper in this Country, they are loosing huge amounts of tax from working mums who can't afford to work as the fees are too high r the can't get children into state run Nurseries...

We pay £650 for 3 days for 2 children (We receive the 15 hours funded as well). It doesn't leave a lot but I enjoy working and we are still better off with me in employment.

The thing about it being a joint responsibility though, while true, is slightly moot I think.

The fees come direct from 'my' wages but that doesn't make it 'my' responsibility as it is all one family income. DH could physically hand over half the costs...and then I would hand it back to cover whatever bills that has come from. It's not like he has a spare £325 kicking about, if he was to give me the money I would then have to cover a shortfall somewhere else. (All bills come from his account as it was easier when i was on mat leave). So WE as a family have bills etc to pay...just because the mortgage comes from 'his' account doesn't make it 'his' responsibility. We pay towards everything according to what we have.

Does that make any sense..?

(Oh and we don't have a joint account as a: when we tried to set one up they buggered it up and didn't do the DDs properly. And b: I don't want one. I like ahving my own account).

*having

Once again Xenia bangs on about out-earning our husbands. So we should all tell our daughters that nursing, teaching, admin, social work, basically anythin gin the public sector and a whole lot more is a waste of time for them, but they should all find a husband doing something along those lines...bonkers!

Gin would be nice, but not what I meant to type!

RatherBeACyborg, Yep, I'm with you. The family pot is exactly how we do it, its important though as you suggest to have your own account. Child care bit doesn't apply to us but if it did it would be another family pot bill.

Thanks Xenia. I was just curious really. I earn £110 per day and I was paying £55/day for the childminder, I was originally paying £65. Most of the remainder goes on tax and travel as it is works out cheaper to by a monthly travel card.

I'd rather work though. Saves having a massive gap on the CV and it's good for DD to mix with people other than DP and me.

I'm so thankful for my parents. they love having her and she will always have a great relationship with them.

Wow. The basic rate of tax was very high back then. It doesn't help that I'm being over taxed and I have to wait until April to claim it back. I know it will be nice to have a bonus, but I need the money NOW.

My two only have 18 months gap, so it would have been too expensive to have two at nursery. I stopped working after second baby. If I'd taken part time, it would have been other benefits going - a much smaller pension, no health insurance, pro-rata holidays (I had 20 days to start with, so I would have ended up with 16 days holiday a year) my compamy refused to give me bank holidays in lieu if the bank hol would be on my non-working day, and any day taken off because of child being ill would have been taken out of my holiday allowance. I am now a childminder!

To those who are worse off now but are holding on in the hope they will be better once their kids are at school a warning

As mentioned above my sister in law had twins is a lawyer but was basically coming come with less that £50 a month after child care and also thought she would hang on she was told by a colleague of her hers who had 4 children and left last year but was more up the food chain that sil

That now she has children their would be virtually no chance of promation as the hours required are not really child care friendly the lady whom she was speaking in the last 3. Months before she left had been asked to travel to France, Frankfurt and Canada which of course with four children could not do and had to come back from canada early when her 9 year old broke his leg whilest falling down a disused well in Wales

My sil job requires her to travel to France a lot most of the employees including herself before she had the twins were putting in 70 hour weeks and working weekends and were able to travel with a few hours notice

Non of which my sil is now able to do and far for getting easier any one with teens or tweens for from worry about child care you then have to juggle school plays, getting set home early from school, sickness, snowdays,inset days

And school hoildays

My sil now has left her job knowing that their are 20 year olds with no kids and virtually no over heads who don't require time off to take their kids for their bcg or time off because their kids have the squirts
And that can travel to France with 2 hours notice and work all weekend and into the night because they are single depending on your job and wether your willing to never see your children and plam them off on a nanny usually you can have a job and a family but not a high powered career and a family

On the other side of the rather dismal coin from Mrbo, I am so glad I held on in there, as my H left me - 9 years ago. The early years were tough, but it has only got better & better.
I now have a great job that I really enjoy, a good work home life balance & happy children too.
Yes, there is some juggling to be done from time to time but I'd rather be safe in the knowledge that I can support myself & my children than relying on state benefits or a partner who could leave me!

I find that we are slightly better off now with Hubby getting childcare vouchers through his work, saves a little bit in tax etc...

Really glad DD is off to school in Sept, it will be one less money worry.Although I do worry about her only being just over 4 when she goes!!!

cremeeggthief - are you talking about tcs or ones to cover childcare?I amsure you definitely still get them on 26k as we are close to that and we get quite a bit

It's a shame for those like in Mrbo's sil example, but I think there are a lot of us who fortunately are in less extreme positions.

My experience having 2 at school and 2 at nursery at the moment, is that school is a lot easier to manage - first of all they don't get ill as often, second they don't mind being left occasionally at childminders/after school clubs, in fact a lot of them love to go as most of their friends attend these sorts of places. Also, and most importantly, the guilt one carries of leaving babies/young tots is not there anymore as they would be at school anyway whilst one is at work, and that to me makes a huge difference.

School plays, school activities where parents are required are maybe 5 days a year including school plays (x2), parent's evening and a couple of assemblies. Often it is possible for us at least to just leave work early and make up the time the next day. We haven't found it a problem so far, and we are 3 years in, our DD1 being in Y2.

All this without the cost, which does get a lot cheaper, even with the holidays. There are a lot of solution for school holidays which do not have to cost and arm and a leg - where we are at least.

Of course travelling all over the world does not suit, but frankly I don't think it suits anyone with a young family, man or woman, generally speaking. I know that my DH would hate to be in a job like that even without a family - it's not much fun living out of a hotel constantly, the novelty soon wears out.