Childcare charges - does this seem right

GobbledyGook

zippybungle wrote: »

I don't think it's right for a childminder to charge a 'retainer' during the Holidays, that's just easy money to me, what she should be doing is advertising her services to parents who need childcare during the School Holidays and earning her money from that. Afterall, you don't get paid a 'retainer by your employer during the Holidays, instead your money will be pro rated over the year.

Zippy x

At the same time though your employer can't decide that they don't need you for 6 weeks in the summer so tell you that you are on holiday and not pay you.

Childminders now have to operate as businesses with the rules and regulations they have to follow. The days of a wife doing a spot of childminding for some pin money whilst her own kids are at school are long gone. They have to operate within such a lot of regulations they can't just take the summer off.

If someone wants term time only then they should be negotiating that with their childminder before they start. If you want your CM to wait for your child to return (and potentially be turning away other business during that time) then you should expect to pay a retainer imo. Childminders are like gold-dust round here and retainers have crept up to 70-75% during holidays.

dangers

I think it all depends on what age your child is. If it is a pre-schooler, then I would still charge full fees during holidays unless it was agreed right at the beginning that it was going to be term time only.
For school aged children, I generally charge half a weeks fees if the child is not with me. For example, one hold I look after is with me two afternoons per week, at a cost of just over £14 p/wk. Holiday fees are therefore £7 per week. Obviously of the child does come to me for the whole day then the parents are charged accordingly.

Hootie19

When I was childminding, I had a couple of term time only contracts, and never charged a retainer.

I also never used to charge for my own holidays, which I know some childminder did/do, nor did I charge for Bank Holidays, which I never worked.

If the minded child was sick, I used to charge 100%, but if I was ill, there was no charge.

My Ofsted inspector told me that if a retainer had been charged for school holidays or bank holidays, then I (the childminder) had to make myself available to work on those days. So theoretically, a CM who charged for bank holidays *could* have to mind a child on Christmas Day, if the parent so wished.

That was back in the early 2000s though, so things may have changed now.

To the OP, I'd see if you could re-negotiate a term time only contract with your CM, or maybe take advantage of the retained days and have a bit of "me time" during the holidays.

j.e.j.

zippybungle wrote: »

I don't think it's right for a childminder to charge a 'retainer' during the Holidays, that's just easy money to me, what she should be doing is advertising her services to parents who need childcare during the School Holidays and earning her money from that.

I agree with this ^^

I understand that it's 'common practice' but charging 40, 50 or even 100% when they're not actually looking after your child seems a bit rude to me, especially when they could potentially fill that gap in earnings by taking on another child for the school holidays (which surely would be the time of year when parents would most need a childminder).

zaksmum

My daughter's nursery childcare charges 100% of the fee as a retainer in the school holidays. She's a deputy head teacher so does have a lot of school holiday time off.

Savvy_Sue

Before negotiating a term time only contract with a different childminder, consider how happy you are with this one in general, and how reasonable the fees are.

Then consider what happens if you use a different one, who you find you're not as happy with. Or the CM take the advice here and take on one or more 'holidays only' children.

But then maybe the parents of the holidays only child decide they like this CM, and could do more hours if the CM would take their child during term time.

CM might decide they'd rather have year round income, rather than different children in holidays and term-time ...

If you love your CM, don't rock the boat. Of course you can negotiate, but if you want to keep them, don't push too hard. I'm not a CM, never have been, but I think most of them earn every penny, 10 times over!

Bluebell1000

We have just been looking at several childminders to choose one for our little boy. I did see one that offered the term time only option but you paid over 52 weeks even though she'd work 39. I don't think there was any retainer or extra fee for it, but she seemed to be the exception and I think the others would have wanted a retainer. However as we're looking for all year round cover anyway, it didn't make a difference to us! They all seemed to charge for holidays if you went away, though one gave I think 4 weeks holiday for the parents at half price, with notice. What really made the difference though was seeing how the childminder interacted with our baby. For us, a little bit of difference in the fee structure is less important than leaving him with someone who we think will look after our baby properly. Funnily enough, the one who completely ignored him will not be getting our business...