Nursery bills

That seems super expensive! Where abouts do you live? Ours is £70 per day and £20 in consumables x

From September 2025 it will increase to 30 hours for 9 months old and up. If your child is September born you might have to wait till the next term to access their code. Do you use tax free childcare to pay your bills?

@Cotswoldmama it's not we also send our baby 3 days a week and it's just under £600 per month with the free hours. Day rate is £67 with a meal fee on the one day that the free hours cover.

They also could stretch funding, instead of 15 u would get 11 as this covers half terms also. Same will apply to the 30, instead u will get 22 hours per week x

We’re in a similar position we pay £560 after the 15 hours and tax free childcare for 3 days😭 30 hours come from September but stretched will be 22 a week which helps but it’s still extortionate! x

Could you look into a childminder?? We went with that over a nursery due to my son’s health condition. He goes 3 days a week and I pay £265 a month

Please also remember you get your 15 hours tax free and then you get 20% back on everything you put into your childcare account up to £500 every 3 months

It’s the same for us. With the tax free childcare we go down to 450£

He goes to a bright horizon which is one of the most expensive ones. I’m glad it increases to 30 hours. At our old nursery we paid £430 after child tax so it is a big jump but it’s also the area we live in which is why is it more expensive. Thank you for everyone’s advice xx

That seems very expensive, my son does 2 days a week, no funding and it’s usually around £360 a month sometimes a little less sometimes a little more depending on term holidays. When you get 30hrs I’d expect it to probably cost £430 for you just going off the different you have said with 15 hours.

@Shannon it depends on where abouts in the country you live. Down south and particularly close to London fees are extortionate

We pay £365 for 2 days a week once the funding etc comes off, so I think it sounds about right? It sucks that it's so much though!!!

We are in London and pay over £1k for 3 days so that sounds cheap to me!

@Becky can i ask where's best to look for a very trusting childminder please?

@Rilee we went through childcare.co.uk. You can view their OFSTED reports etc and of course chat with them before meeting. Our son absolutely loves going to our childminder and I feel at such ease leaving him with her

@Becky hey Becky!! Please may you explain the 20% back on stuff? I have a tax code for my daughter and this month that will begin.. do we pay our fees into that then and get the money back? Or do you use that account to purchase things? Sorry for the questions - it’s just a minefield!!🫠🫠🫠

@Alice oh I know! It’s taken me a while to finally get it! Have you got your childcare account set up on the government website? If not follow this link…https://www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare So for example our childcare costs after the 15 hours is £265.66 a month. I paid £250 into the account the other day and the government topped it up with £62.50. We’ve decided to just pay in the 250 each month so we build up a nest egg

Please can ask what region in the UK you’re in? My son goes to Bright Horizons in south east London and we’re paying £1000 a month for 3 days a week!!!

@Rav I’m in Hertfordshire but from west London. The cost of childcare is one of the (many!) reasons I wanted to move out of the area. I do think nursery’s seem to be more expensive than childminders personally