Full time childcare more than mortgage

Carl31

This always rears its head every so often, 'childcare is expensive'

Is it? £5 an hour for someone to look after your (assumed) most prized thing in your life? I'd say thats a bargain

Obviously, nursery staff are fairly under skilled, so its probably high risk, but as long as you can afford a holiday and flash car, its all gravy

kathrynha

wotsthat wrote: »

£600/ month for the average mortgage - is that all?

It's an average. My small mortgage is balancing out someone elses £1000pm mortgage.

When my daughter was a baby me and the hubby considered him giving up work, as more than 90% of his take home pay would of gone on childcare fees. Thankfully grandparents stepped in to do the majority of the childcare which over the years has saved us a fortune.

Quick calculation tells me that what we would of paid out in the last 7 years, if we had needed full time childcare for pre school, before and after school, and school holidays, is more than the value of our mortgage :eek:

noodle_doodle

Carl31 wrote: »

This always rears its head every so often, 'childcare is expensive'

Is it? £5 an hour for someone to look after your (assumed) most prized thing in your life? I'd say thats a bargain

Obviously, nursery staff are fairly under skilled, so its probably high risk, but as long as you can afford a holiday and flash car, its all gravy

Damn straight :-)

My own gripe is the goodfellas attitude. One nursery we went to had a policy of not taking in kids that had been sick in the previous 72 hours. You still had to pay though obvs. So someone in full-time care was forking out £150 for care they weren't getting, and having to take 3 days off work themselves to look after the kid. And with under-5s this was about once a month

Of course the solution was to lie through your teeth, which just spread whatever lurgies were about like wildfire. Hoho.

It was another factor in deciding to cut the amount my wife work back to a minimum, basically enough time away from the little monsters, i mean the lights of our life, to keep her sane.

grizzly1911

dryhat wrote: »

Of course, the REAL problem is the high cost of housing.

But never mind, it will soon get to the point where the kids are put straight to work to contribute to the mortgage/rent - so childcare won't be needed.

That and the fact that two fullish incomes are needed to live these days and afford those those expensive houses.

We really have progressed.

When ours were young, nearly 20 years ago, the cost of child care, for two, would have virtually wiped out our second professional income. Luckily we only needed to do it for one day.

Never mind the government can subsidise that too.

wotsthat

noodle_doodle wrote: »

That'll include mortgages that were started 15/20 years ago on 25-year repayments. £600 a month was probably loads in 1994 when they started it :-)

Maybe it includes interest-only too

I bet figures for FTB'ers are a good bit higher

Halifax reckon that 27% of disposable income services the mortgage and therefore, according to the OP, 27% also services the childcare of the kids in the example. This seems like a more credible comparison to make rather than comparing against the mortgage or just nominally. I'm sure using this measure will still show increasing childcare costs but won't create the same headline.

I know that childcare costs are punitive but I was paying more on childcare than the mortgage in 1995 so this is nothing new.

The family and childcare trust have turned it into news by comparing childcare costs to something which is at a historic low.

onlyroz

The article actually states that *part time* nursery fees are more expensive than the average mortage. When my daughter was in nursery a year ago the full time fees were £12k a year.

The childcare ratios are also ludicrous. My daughter is in reception and attends the after school club - the mandatory staff/child ratios at the after school club are actually lower than when she's at school (I forget the figures but I think it's something like 1 member of staff to 8 children) - she's at a club !!!!!!. I just want her to have a bit of fun for a few hours after school, but technically as she's still in reception the club has to follow the Early Years curriculum. Pure madness.

My current childcare fees are for two children in the after school club (£9 each per day for three days a week, so £200-£250 a month during term time) plus £23 each per day for the holiday club. Nowhere near as high as it was when the kids were at nursery, but it's still a hefty chunk of the monthly bills.

grizzly1911

noodle_doodle wrote: »

Damn straight :-)

My own gripe is the goodfellas attitude. One nursery we went to had a policy of not taking in kids that had been sick in the previous 72 hours. You still had to pay though obvs. So someone in full-time care was forking out £150 for care they weren't getting, and having to take 3 days off work themselves to look after the kid. And with under-5s this was about once a month

Of course the solution was to lie through your teeth, which just spread whatever lurgies were about like wildfire. Hoho.

It was another factor in deciding to cut the amount my wife work back to a minimum, basically enough time away from the little monsters, i mean the lights of our life, to keep her sane.

A friend of ours is a a pre school helper, private and when she recently had D&V she wasn't allowed to go back to work for 72 hours either.

CLAPTON

Carl31 wrote: »

This always rears its head every so often, 'childcare is expensive'

Is it? £5 an hour for someone to look after your (assumed) most prized thing in your life? I'd say thats a bargain

Obviously, nursery staff are fairly under skilled, so its probably high risk, but as long as you can afford a holiday and flash car, its all gravy

assuming the childcare is just covering your working hours and the £5 per hour comes out of taxed income, then you need to earn at normal marginal tax rates at least £7.35 per hour yourself

whether or not that's a bargain depends whether or not you can afford it.

wotsthat

kathrynha wrote: »

When my daughter was a baby me and the hubby considered him giving up work, as more than 90% of his take home pay would of gone on childcare fees. Thankfully grandparents stepped in to do the majority of the childcare which over the years has saved us a fortune.

Most of my wife's wages went on the childcare bill and there were no grandparents to step in.

There was little choice as we needed the small amount of money that was left over. Trying to be positive we told ourselves that we'd be able to at least afford a holiday as a result (camping in France) and that no job would mean, no pay rises, no bonus and no promotions.

I fully understand where people are coming from because we moaned and complained about the unfairness of it all better than anyone. It was worth it though.

Moto2

Don't relatives and friends help out any more?

We're going to do 2 days/week for our grand daughter and her other grandparents are doing 2 days.
I realise some people don't have relatives but surely most do and some arrangement can be made?