Have your say on childcare and school/nursery fees

MSE_Katie

We’re helping a national newspaper to look at the kinds
of costs families with children incur.

Get involved and comment below with:

- How much you spend on childcare, school fees or anything associated.
- How much these costs eat into your monthly income. Do you budget for this?
- Anything else you’d like to say about childcare/education costs.

Let us know the region you’re from as well as how many children :A you have. You may be contacted privately by me, MSE Katie, to find out a bit more.

Comms69

1: £200-250 a month for clubs and various activities.
2: Budget for it? well of course, I don't go out mugging to pay for it....
3: It's cheap for what you get.


NW England / 3 children

kingfisherblue

It's virtually impossible to get childcare for disabled children in some areas. If your child attends a mainstream school, there may be a chance of breakfast club or after school club, but if they attend a special school, there is almost no chance of these being provided, even for a cost. Even after school clubs are few - at one local special school that my son attended, there were three after school clubs available at secondary school age. Compared to a secondary school down the road, who had around 15-20 after school groups and sports clubs, you can see the difference.

There are holiday clubs in special schools. In my area they cost £3 per hour, but sessions tend to be three hours long, which isn't enough for parents who work. You also have a limited number of hours. I think the current amount is 24 hours (for the year).

When my son was younger, I was lucky to find a community nursery, based in a community centre, which would take him despite his disabilities. Each session was three hours long and at the time, you had to be taking a course in the centre to qualify for a place. This changed at a later date so that anybody could use the nursery. When my children attended, it was from age 2 upwards. That nursery has now closed down.

My granddaughter attends a private nursery one afternoon a week. It costs £20 for five hours, snack and drink included. It's modern and brightly decorated, with a small but well equipped outdoor play area. After Christmas, she will attend nursery at her local school as she will be three years old by then, and qualifies for fifteen hours childcare.

Fireflyaway

£1243 a month school fees
£750 a term for the bus
£45 a day for holiday clubs ( as and when needed).

We live in the south east. Depends what you mean by budget? I write out a budget so we know what goes where, but don't cut back on anything to pay for childcare stuff.

My main issue with childcare is finding care in the holidays. There are clubs for younger ones but my child is 11 and there isn't much for that age group.

kingfisherblue

Slightly different subject - children's clubs.

I run Rainbows, Brownies and Guides. We charge £15 per half term for Rainbows and Brownies. Guides currently pay weekly (£2.50). From that, we pay for membership fees (to Girlguiding - around £30 a year for most areas. This includes insurance), room hire, volunteer training costs (leadership training, First Aid, Safeguarding, sectional training, overnights training, etc), long term use resources such as parachute or notice board, short term resources such as paper, pens and craft items, photocopying and printing, refreshments (if the unit stops for a drink of juice), printed programme resources such as leader resources (Rainbow Roundabouts, Aim Hi!, etc), and of course, badges.

In some units, the subs also cover a piece of leader uniform (usually a polo shirt - not all leaders can afford to pay), subsidised cost of trips, travel expenses for leaders, and other costs that arise. Some units charge the membership fee separately to parents around January/February.

Volunteers undergo a fair bit of training and attend training sessions in their own time. They also deal with enquiries, shop for resources, plan meetings and activities, arrange trips and residentials, write risk assessments, fundraise, write grant applications, research activities, experiment (no use planning on making slime or armpit fudge if you don't try it out first - it might be a disaster!), attend meetings in addition to unit meetings (for district or division), do the accounts, and various other tasks - all in addition to the regular unit meeting.

Some leaders take on additional roles, such as commissioners, trainers, treasurer or adviser - and attend extra training, meetings, etc.

Guiding and Scouting are great value for money, yet some people think that we get paid, or charge too much, or should meet all year round. One dad asked me if I was paid extra when we took the Brownies away (despite the fact that I use the word volunteer quite a bit). He was serious.

Unfortunately some people do use Scouting and Guiding as cheap childcare, rather than valuing the commitment that the leaders have and the opportunities that we offer or the skills that we teach. There have been many parents who just don't bother to tell us that their child will not be returning, and this then means that leaders sometimes spend time trying to contact them - after all, the place can be offered to a child on the waiting list if we know. I had one week earlier in the year when there was an event on at a local school. I didn't know about it, and had two Guides that night. I would have cancelled if I had known - £5 taken in subs didn't cover the £10 paid out for room hire. We're changing the Guides over to half termly payments partly for this reason.

I love Guiding, and I'm lucky that we have a few parents who take the time to say thank you. One even sent a lovely text thanking our team for taking her daughter on a day out (for which I had to arrange care for my disabled son - luckily I have family who are great). I don't lead units for the thank yous, but it's lovely to receive them occasionally. Most of the time, we don't even get that.

kingfisherblue

Fireflyaway wrote: »

My main issue with childcare is finding care in the holidays. There are clubs for younger ones but my child is 11 and there isn't much for that age group.

Our local council has sports camps in the sports centres, and the theatre has a drama camp. Both are suitable for pre-teens. It might be worth looking for similar near you.

chelseablue

1. Started off paying £850 a month for 3 days a week in nursery, all covered by us as our employers didn't offer childcare vouchers.

Now my son is eligible for the 30 hours a week the bill is now £450 a month, but my employer now offers childcare vouchers so £243 is covered by those and we pay the remaining balance

2. Its a lot more manageable now we've got the 30hrs and vouchers

We are South East England with 1 child

pinkshoes

I'm a teacher and earn £10,500 after tax for working 2 days a week.

For childcare I pay £93/day (1 year old twins and a child at school).

£93 x 2 days x 39 weeks = £7254
Petrol = £300/year

Take home pay = £10500 - (£7254 + £300) = £2946/year!!!!

That is £56/week.

I dread the childcare inflation rise.

If I worked a third day my take home pay would go DOWN as I would pay tax on the full amount earned which would make it less than my childcare bill!

WorriedFriend2017

You should pay tax on the full amount earned???

Scorpio33

For childcare, the average around here is £40-£50 a day per child.

Saying that, we pay £172 a week (you get a discount for the full week) + breakfasts + lunches. It works out to be about £1000 a month just on childcare. Luckily we only have one at nursery, the other one goes to school.

We tried budgeting for this, but it is impossible to make ends meet whilst we are paying for childcare. The choice was then stay at home and this would mean no earnings for one of us and increased costs at home (gas, electricity, food etc), or to stay at work until the 30 hours kick in (April) and get more debt in the mean time.
We chose to stay at work as that would mean a foot in the door for when they go to school. Either way we would be getting into debt for a few years as it is affordable.

The only thing I would say is £40 a day is 10 hours (8am - 6pm), which works out to be £4 an hour. I couldn't employ someone at £4 an hour, so it is good value. Its just a shame the government don't do more for children younger than 3 to encourage people to stay at work, as often people have no option other than getting into debt if they want children.

Comms69

WorriedFriend2017 wrote: »

You should pay tax on the full amount earned???

Not a clue what this relates to, but if it's the teacher.


No, they earn under their personal allowance.