How to work out Childcare costs fairly?

buel10

Hi all,
my wife and I earn different amounts, as you will see below. We are trying to work out how we can best split our nursery costs for our daughter. However, we are not finding this clear cut.
Please can I ask for some guidance on this.

The facts are:
Wife earns £34,442
I earn £22, 425
Nursery costs: £1000 per month

Wife pays £243 per month Childcare vouchers
I do not yet pay any (just changed jobs so am looking at this)

The confusion for me is the £243 and how it is taken - before tax? So how should we incorporate this?

We are just trying to be fair on how we do this.
Thank you in advance.

huckster

Is the Government website Childcarechoices of any help ?

I believe the childcare vouchers are deducted from salary before tax.

Are there are rules preventing each of a couple sacraficing salary to pay for £xxx value of vouchers ?

Hopefully someone who is in this situation or knows more will answer.

Edit. Seems vouchers scheme is closed to new applications

https://www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/childcare-vouchers?utm_source=childcarechoices&utm_medium=microsite

calcotti

This isn’t really a benefits question at all. The answer is whatever you and your wife can agree is fair.

You could argue that you are equally responsible for your daughter and therefore you should each pay half.

You could look at your respective take home pay, add the £243 back to your wife’s income. Use these figures to apportion the total fees between you and then treat the £243 as part of your wife’s contribution.

sheramber

You can no linger buy child care vouchers.

Either only your wife takes them or you both sign up to the tax free child care scheme
https://www.gov.uk/get-tax-free-childcare
However, your wife would need to stop her child care vouchers as you cannot be in both schemes.

Ms_Chocaholic

Are you wanting to split the childcare costs so that you pay an equal amount based on your salary? If so, you will need to factor in other household bills you each pay and how fairly that is split - Council Tax, Rent/Mortgage, Energy, Broadband etc etc

[Deleted User]

These questions always confuse me, easily done. Hubby & I are a couple our money is ours it's all in a pot and the bills are paid. Who pays more and fairness doesn't come into it.

buel10

_shel wrote: »

These questions always confuse me, easily done. Hubby & I are a couple our money is ours it's all in a pot and the bills are paid. Who pays more and fairness doesn't come into it.

This strikes me naive. We split the bills no problem. Regarding any other spending from a 'pot', I have seen so many 'why did you spend xxx on xxx for?' arguments between couples so we are keen to avoid that. Self righteous comments like yours do not help in any way.

Ms_Chocaholic

buel10 wrote: »

This strikes me naive. We split the bills no problem. Regarding any other spending from a 'pot', I have seen so many 'why did you spend xxx on xxx for?' arguments between couples so we are keen to avoid that. Self righteous comments like yours do not help in any way.

I understand that, but say you pay the rent/mortgage and your partner pays the utilities, there's no way on this earth that the amounts are equal. So in order to split the child care costs equally, I think you need to put pen to paper and work it out that way.

buel10

Ms_Chocaholic wrote: »

but say you pay the rent/mortgage and your partner pays the utilities

Apologies if I have missed this but did I say this?

calcotti

buel10 wrote: »

Apologies if I have missed this but did I say this?

No you didn’t and ms chocoholic didn’t suggest you did. She used “say” as in “for example” if . . .

You’ve asked a completely open ended question and you’re going to get a variety of approaches in response.

TELLIT01

Is an absolutely accurate split really that important? My simplistic idea would be to work on take-home pay and do the split on that basis. I know it's old fashioned but my wife and I had a joint bank account from Day1 and all expenditure came out of that. It didn't matter what is was for, or percentage contribution.