Childcare business from home advice

ironman1 · 6 August 2018 at 9:18AM

Hi all.

My wife currently works for a nursery as an assistant and used to be a manager of one. We are both 33. We have two of our own children one age 9 and another of 4 years old. We currently pay for someone to take them to and from School/nursery and we both work full time.

My wife already has every qualification going in childcare. Our house used to be a registered childminders before we moved in 5 years ago so was already Ofsted registered despite looking terrible when we bought it! (I know we would have to register it again).

Does anyone on here have any advice or has started this from home? We earn around 50k a year combined at the moment living in London so not on major money. Would it be worth me myself gaining qualifications so we could look after more children etc? I am really interested to hear your views on this as it is something we are looking into. We also have converted some downstairs space we could use so it wouldn't feel like the we have had our home completely 'taken over.

Thanks in advance

walwyn1978 · 6 August 2018 at 1:49PM

I work for a regional training provider and we train a lot of nursery staff/people who want to be childminders in their own home long term. Even with two of you trained up and assuming you take on the older children after school, which because of their age allows bigger ratio of staff:kids, and have pre school children during school hours, I think you'll struggle to make more than the 50k you currently earn.

If you took qualifications and then as a pair opened up a larger nursery on a bigger site with staff etc you may be able to make 50k profit a year in the longer term, but you may not wish to go down that route because of initial investment needs.

Edit to say: don't forget that the 30 hours govt funding isn't actually your hourly rate, it's well below, so if you take kids with the childcare vouchers you'll have a shortfall of approx £400 per child per year...

ironman1 · 6 August 2018 at 2:14PM

Hi and thanks for the reply. We haven't even discusses me getting involved that was more of an after thought. The main point is my wife doing it. As for the 50k I wasn't even thinking about getting that amount. It's more something to think about to get away from the stress of the current job! We are doing ok with mortgage at he moment with no other debts and a bit in savings so don't need to be earning bundles. Hope that makes sense!

walwyn1978 · 6 August 2018 at 3:28PM

Fair enough, that makes more sense.

Some things to think about based on the conversations and training we do with our apprentices etc:

Childminding is a very fluid means of earning money - because unlike a nursery there's no contractual means to pay if the child is ill/away/whatever, so you can't guarantee income

The bit about having space downstairs is good, do you have plenty of outdoor space? Most of the ones we've worked with who make a success of it have plenty of outdoor play space and use it to stop the children all being enclosed together wherever possible.

Have you checked out the other childminders round you? What do they charge? What's the feedback on their provision? (go on Mumsnet/Facebook etc) Is there actually scope for you or is it a crowded market already?

What about food? Would you charge extra for that or would you package it into your fees?

This is quite a useful basic tool, although obviously quite general:
https://www.pacey.org.uk/working-in-childcare/business-smart/finance/childminding-costs-calculator/

The feedback we get from those on our courses that go on and do it as their full time gig is that it's very tiring and no two days are the same, but they (mostly) enjoy it. Good luck with it.

ironman1 · 6 August 2018 at 4:34PM

Hi. We are off road so have large outdoor space both at the back and front of the house and a security gate. We also have space for 4 cars to park and live a 10 minute walk from the train station which gets into central London in 15 minutes.

Food is something we haven't thought about yet as it is just something we were discussing overall. I don't think we would have trouble getting business as my wife already has many contacts after working in nurseries for 15 years and we have quite a few expensive nurseries in the area.

It sounds pretty tough but with the money she is earning now I can't see it being much worse! I really apprdciate your input so thank you

Smi1er · 8 August 2018 at 10:23PM

Why are you both looking to be qualified and jump straight to childminding with a client base of zero?

Let your Wife become qualified and become a childminder. Once she has built up her numbers and running at max numbers you can then join her. You will only need a DBS check and a First Aid course to become her assistant (this means you can only care for the children up to 2 hours a day without her present), but when she is present she can double her numbers.

My SIL is a Childminder and things are changing. 1/ Many Parents are now using the 30 hours funded childcare, 2/ It used to be mainly a cash business but tax free childcare is putting a stop to that.

Check the local area. Is there a demand for childminders? What do they charge?

Childcare business from home advice

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