Working to pay for childcare

bossymoo

mincepiemonster wrote: »

As long as she is truly happy with the arrangement then good for her. I'd find it very demoralising to effectively work for no pay. I wouldn't do it. They should be able to get tax credits which pay up to 70% of childcare costs, up to a family income of around £40,000 I think. It might be worth investigating.

I don't think they are anywhere near that generous any more. I work 3 days per week, have a 5yr old and a 3yr old and don't qualify for tax credits (definitely don't earn £40k in those 3 days! I wish!).

I might be financially better off now giving up work, however when my youngest starts school I'd have to start over, and who knows how hard that would be! (I'm on my own with the kids so its important to me to keep my "good" job).

But some families would actually be worse off with both parents working - yes maybe it is better in the long run but that doesn't help you make the ends meet today.

ema_o

With regards to the last part of your question, my partner got his employer to join a scheme so he could get childcare vouchers. He did all the research and they agreed, I have a feeling it also benefits the employer and wasn't much hassle for them to sort.

mincepiemonster

Without wishing to hijack the thread, the tax credits rules are really confusing but I'm pretty sure you do get childcare help through working tax credits up to a pretty high household income. I was Just suggesting jetplanes friend looks into it. It's always worth double checking.

ETA: these entitlement tables suggest that with one kid and childcare costs of £90 per week, some
Level of help is available up to household income of £30,000. With 3 kids and £300 per week in costs you can get help up to £60,000 household income. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tax-credits-entitlement-tables-working-at-least-16-hours-and-paying-childcare/tax-credits-entitlement-tables-working-at-least-16-hours-and-paying-childcare

onlyroz

Families should do whatever works best for them. For some this might involve one parent staying at home. For others it might involve both parents working full time while using various forms of childcare. Many families will fall somewhere in-between. It is also not uncommon for childcare to cost more than the income of the lower-earning partner, but this can be worthwhile if it keeps you on the career ladder and you lack opportunities for your child to mix with other children.

There are many factors to consider - career progression and earning potential of both parents is important, as is providing social opportunities for the children. You also have to consider the sort of lifestyle you wish to maintain - for example there might be a trade-off between spending more time with the children while having less disposable income vs. spending less time with the children but being able to afford a larger house and more exotic holidays and cultural experiences.

Too many people are far too quick to judge other peoples' situations - as long as parents aren't neglecting their kids and can afford them without having to live off the state then it's no business of mine how they arrange their affairs.

BigAunty

To the OP- is the lady you are referring to a lone parent?

The reason I ask is that I am a frequent visitor to the benefits forum and many lone parents on low incomes intentionally work 16 hours per week (and often not an hour more) to maximise their benefits, such as housing benefit and council tax discount.

The incentive is that they continue to get child tax credit but also get working tax credits while not hitting any major taxation. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if they also qualify for subsidised child care but I expect so.

Lone parents who work 16 hours per week (the minimum qualifying criteria for tax credits) get a good blend of employment income which has little impact on their benefits and will always be better off than their non-working peers, plus they get that good life/work balance, spending the majority of their time with their kids.

There are lots of posts on the benefit forum who indicate that anything over 16 hours per week employment doesn't make them any better off because that's when the steep withdrawal of benefits and entry into taxation can start to impact disposable income.

Two parent households can also get clobbered that way, especially if they rely on tax credits with HB to make up a sizeable part of their income. When a second parent, such as a former stay at home mum, goes back into work, they can find that the loss of benefits, plus the cost of child care, means the second adult does end up feeling as if they are working for free.

Tax credits and child care subsidy has changed since 2009 when the data below was published but it does show you how families who are propped up by benefits cannot necessarily make themselves much better off by working considerably longer/earning significantly more employment income. (text below is from a poster called 1nn1Ton the Guardian website).

http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/tbm/tbmt_2009.pdf


Basically, for a household with three children with earnings
under about 25k, what you earn makes almost no difference at
all to the money left in your hand after housing costs. Benefits
reductions remove everything you earn.
eg Table 1.7a on p100
Couple with 3 children: 2 under 11, 1 aged 11-15 Rent £69.00
pw Council tax £27.00 pw
Earn 100pw have 320pw in hand
Earn 200pw have 326pw in hand
Earn 300pw have 339pw in hand
Earn 400pw have 366pw in hand
Earn 500pw have 396pw in hand
So the couple who go to work four or five days a week get no
more money than someone who does sixteen hours a week. The
withdrawal is equally harsh if one of the parents moves into
employment - earning an extra 400pw of results in benefit
withdrawal on nearly all that is earned. Indeed the only way a
working parent can gain from obtaining employment is by leaving
the household.
There are two classes of household with children in this country:
* Those whose prosperity is largely determined by what they
earn.
* Those whose prosperity is largely determined by what they can
claim as in-work benefits.
Labour refers to the second group as 'The Poor', but they include
almost every two/three child family in the country on the median
household income or less.

Janepig

Counting_Pennies wrote: »

After number 2 came along, we took the decision I would be a full-time mother. My husband earns the money, we take nothing from the state, child benefit is paid back under the tax rules. Yet parents at school are regularly heard talking about stay at home mothers as scroungers. They scrounge off their husband etc. This is something I find very distasteful. At no point are we harming the government, obtaining any benefits.

While working is a good arrangement for many people, I would like to think the traditional mum at home with kids and dad earning to also be a good thing. Each to their own. But each arrangement needs to be recognised for their merits and harmoniously agreed it is beneficial to the country.

You became a "stay at home mother" (or a variation on that title), not a "full time mother". That term implies that if you are working or otherwise not around all day that you are somehow a "part time mother" which is clearly not the case. If there's one thing that denigrates working mothers (even if it's unintentional) it's the use of the title "full time mother" for someone who stays at home with their children instead of going out to work. I don't stop being a mother when I go to work you know, if the kids are ill at school or have an accident or it's an inset day or whatever, I'm still their mother, FULL TIME!!! It's a huge bugbear of mine (can you tell?!! :D) and I could bang on for hours about it.

I can't say that in my experience I hear working mums criticise non working mums for their choices either, I know it's certainly not something I, or my circle of friends do. I've got friends who work and those who don't, each to their own. If anything, it's the working parents who I feel tend to be criticised, but maybe it's the case that you perhaps latch on to the criticism levelled at the choices you make and maybe don't notice what's said about what you don't do!

I went back to work part time after having DD (and then DS), mainly because it's a fact that I wouldn't have been able to return to the same sort of employment if I left. The joining criteria are much stricter now, the world and his wife have got degrees, even our receptionists have degrees, and I wouldn't have got a look in. Child care was quite expensive, not cripplingly so in our case but a big dent nonetheless. I guess the nice bit was that when DS started school it seemed like I'd had an enormous pay rise!

Jx

FBaby

As others have said, if you do manage to return to work full-time it must be a bit of a kick in the teeth knowing that you're working all those hours and paying out an enormous percentage of your wages to help care for your child, to facilitate your job, which you're doing to bring home money!

But it is then an incentive if you enjoy your job, maybe are a little isolated outside of work, like your colleagues. Maybe you do a job where you feel rewarded for the service you provide, and knowing that in some years, you will in addition to this be better off financially when your child start school can be enough to see going to work as positive.

I've had colleagues who didn't need to go to work financially, but they do purely because they need the mental challenge and enjoy the buzz of it. There is such a huge variation between going to work to a job you really love and a job you hate.

jetplane

No Big Aunty she had a partner, so was working to pay the nursery fees. She certainly felt that her daughter enjoyed the two days in nursery and said for two days she could have conversations that did not include nappies and breast feeding and had a whole lunch break to do as she pleased The rest of the week she was back on mummy duties.

I know tax credits are not as generous as they used to be so I suppose their joint income must be somewhere over £30k I don't know her well enough to know to ask questions and make suggestions. ema-o its good to hear that it is an option to approach your employer for the vouchers

Ultimately she must have had the choice as her family finances are no better for her working so could have stayed at home.

vroombroom

Up until Nov last year we were paying around £500pm in nursery fees (no help), which was pretty much near my whole wage.

We, as a family, made the decision I would look for evening/weekend/nights in order to save money in nursery fees and save towards a house. I found a nightshift job and by March we'd bought our house:D

Now after 7 months doing nightshift, I've got a new job within the same company doing evenings and weekends. I don't 'need' to work as OH has a decent wage but I enjoy interacting with other adults and also contributing to the family finances. I don't need to rely on OH to give me pennies if I need it either. No childcare fees woohoo!

jackyann

Having spent all of my working life in childcare / midwifery / health visiting, a lot of my work conversations were about nappies & breastfeeding.
Those parts of work were lot less boring to me than meetings about the latest management idea foisted upon us; but each to their own. I understand there are people who find writing reports more interesting than playing with children.