Wow £50 a week worse off from today

shaftola

Alter_ego wrote: »

What's keeping you then?

Lets take about £50 pounds a week of hard working people and go give 3 billion to Portugal,
Might decide to stay at home now and bring my bring my lads up, It wont be worth working for about a tenner a week now!

chonorla

I have also had recent experience with trying to find childcare for a 1 and a 2 year old so I can return to work - absolute nightmare! Out of the 12 nurseries in the area (within half hour walking distance because my mum has to pick them up one day for us) - only one nursery had 2 spaces available so I could send them together. It is a half hour walk for my mum but it saves her 2 different journeys by foot as she does not drive.

We are not significantly better off with both of us working (we now have to run a second car, nursey fees, petrol etc) but I am trying o see it as a long term plan (two youngest will be in school in 2-3 years full time, my mum is hoping to cut down her hours at work so will look after them etc) so that in the next couple of years I can up my hours as committments allow and get further up the career ladder! It does worry me how the benefit system is going and what will happen next.

Not everyone gets free 15 hours childcare for their 3 year olds, do they. My daughters 3rd birthday is the end of April which means she will miss out as she is entitled to the 15 free hours from September - but she will be at school half days then. I am guessing it cannot be used to pay for other childcare outside of her half days at school?

mrsspendalot

chonorla wrote: »

Not everyone gets free 15 hours childcare for their 3 year olds, do they. My daughters 3rd birthday is the end of April which means she will miss out as she is entitled to the 15 free hours from September - but she will be at school half days then. I am guessing it cannot be used to pay for other childcare outside of her half days at school?

As I have always understood it, all 3 and 4 year olds are entitled to 15 hours a week free childcare until they start school, which is the academic year in which they turn 5 (so depending on where in the year your child is born, they can be just 4 or almost 5 when they start). One of my sons is an August birthday, so he got free funding from the September following his 3rd birthday until the August he turned 4. then he started school the following month.

The free funding normally starts from the term after they turn 3, so if your child has a February birthday for example, they get their free entitlement from the summer term (after Easter hols).

I've never had to use out-of-school-hours childcare so I don't know what the rules are on it.

ETA: This seems to be explain it better http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Preschooldevelopmentandlearning/NurseriesPlaygroupsReceptionClasses/DG_10016103

liam8282

chonorla wrote: »

Not everyone gets free 15 hours childcare for their 3 year olds, do they. My daughters 3rd birthday is the end of April which means she will miss out as she is entitled to the 15 free hours from September - but she will be at school half days then. I am guessing it cannot be used to pay for other childcare outside of her half days at school?

The half days at "school" are free and your child is being looked after, so in effect this is the free 15 hours per week childcare. As I said it is called education, but it is still childcare too.

Nursery = 3 year old
Reception = 4 year old
School Y1 = 5 year old

mrsspendalot

liam8282 wrote: »

The half days at "school" are free and your child is being looked after, so in effect this is the free 15 hours per week childcare. As I said it is called education, but it is still childcare too.

Nursery = 3 year old
Reception = 4 year old
School Y1 = 5 year old

Yes, as Liam says, if your local primary school has a nursery attached to it, then that is where your 'free' childcare comes from. Our school doesn't have one, so it didn't register straight away what you meant by your 3 year old going to school in September. They're not going to school, they're attending an attached nursery which feeds into the school, so they are your free early years childcare provider. My kids had to go to an external childcare provider before starting Reception Year as we don't have an attached nursery. They got their 15hrs free through them, and if I wanted them to stay longer than 15hrs, I had to pay a top-up. I did this for DS2 so he could experience having a packed lunch before he started school - it cost me about 50p a day or something like that to have him stay and do that. If I wanted him to stay all day, I would have had to pay the going rate for the afternoon.

chonorla

Aah I see, my eldest lad is a lot older that my two littlies so this was not around then, and he was in a nursey full time while I worked so have got no idea how this works sorry!

Sadly, I will still have to pay a full day at private nursery for them to take my daughter and fetch her, so will not make any difference to our childcare arrangements and costs. Maybe (if the free entiltlement is still around???) it will be of use when my son reaches 3 years and hopefully my mum will be around to help etc and will need less private nursery.

Thanks for the replies!

DaisyFlower

eyeinthesky wrote: »

I think tax credits should be scrapped * ducks and runs, lol*. If tax levels weren't so high, then people wouldn't need them. What is the point in taking tax and NI off relatively low earners, then giving it back in the form of tax credits? It is this sort of thing that has made the public sector so huge and unwieldy.

I also agree tax credits shoulld be taxed. Too many people now work the bare min and let others pay for the rest - working less shouldnt be a lifestyle choice unless you can self support. Lots also turn down payrises or the chance to move jobs etc as they dont see the point in working when they wont gain any extra from it as thier tax credits will drop.

How many people have had children based on claiming benefits be it IS or tax credits - if you cant afford children without state assistance then you should wait until you can.

Higher the tax threashold and then its cuts the need for tax credits altogether - less mess, less paperwork and no room for errors or fraudulant claims. Perhaps also make childcare tax deductible or heavily subsidised where both parents work over 25 hours a week each.

dtaylor21184

We earn very little and Ive just had my second child I have a 2yo and a 3 month old, I really have no idea how tax credits get calculated so me and my partner decided if we could afford two child on our low income and decided we could as we had no idea how much if any would get on tax credits so our decision was based on us working to support them. Even though we may be better off quitting work and living solely on benefits I like to think we are doing the morally right thing by working as we have always worked and can't imagine us not working.

I wish they could create a better system as this one doesn't seem to work in the way it was intended it's not helping struggling families it's offering people a get out of work card to get paid the same as working but for not working surely people working even on minimum wage should be better off than those families that don't work but that doesn't seem the case at all

dtaylor21184

There should be more incentives to work like

free childcare
being on more money than people on benefits

Nitha

Tax credits should go but obviously the dependency is there at the moment. However the cuts are having an impact on the retailers - look at the Asda/Tesco price wars, food is getting more and more reasonable. In turn we should 'need' less money. People paying childcare are hit the worst but remember it's five years max (4 for most who take full mat leave).

We are lucky people really - think of the 30s recession in the USA. At least we've a roof over our heads.