Childcare costs, please help me understand!

It really depends on what the nursery offers and how you are allowed to split their hours so my little girl is nearly 2 and has had 15 free hours as I work but have been on maternity leave and my little boy will start nursery in September and get 30 free. So at the moment I pay 30 pound a month for my little girls meals she only goes 1 and half days. Does a full day and then half a day. Now she's in toddler room they are saying I can't use the funded hours for the hours I want for example I would prefer 0730 till 430 but because of the way the sessions run they will charge me for the hour everyday so when I go back I'll use the 30 free hours but have to pay for an hour extra everyday which is around 30 pound a week and same with my little boy ! So even though they will only do 3 days and use the funded hours I'll be still paying 200 a month and I only work 3 days a week as I do long days but if I worked more days then I'd have to pay for 2 extra days. So my nursery session is 0730 till 1830 and you pay

For the session not the hours they are there x

So my 3 year old is in 5 days full-time, 30 hours spread through the year so 22.5 a week. We pay about £600 a month. Without the hours and tax-free childcare it would be around £1300 a month.

My word this is bonkers

It depends on the nursery and whether it's a private nursery. Private nurseries are open longer hours. So 8-6 approx. Local Authority ones are open school hours. Funded hours are also limited to term time only. Local authority nurseries will also only open during term times. For this reason we had no option but to go private because there's no way we can take all school holidays off work. Our funded hours are stretched by the nursery so we get less per week but don't need to pay full fees during half term and Christmas and Easter. There is no funding available during the month of August. We use the 6hrs per day max we're allowed and does 2 full days 8-6. We pay approx 450 a month. Also there's no funding on a BH! So if you choose a Monday, they'll charge full fees but they'll be closed!!!

My 2 year old gets 15 hours funding a week. She goes 8.30-4 so school time only. 2 days a week. I pay £198.89 a month so that’s just the additional cost my nursery charges but all nurseries will charge differently

I guess the people above are quoting what they pay now tho, not what they’ll pay when the 30 hours free comes in in Sept? Then it’ll be a bit less ? (I hope 😬)

@Elle unfortunately not, it is £600 a month after the 30 hours are taken off and tax-free childcare for my 3 year old already, will cost about the same again for October baby when he starts in September.

@Elle this is what I was confused by, but general consensus is you have the free hours and then extra shit load of charges on top!? @Eve @Tanya what are all the extra charges for?

@Elle No we pay that for my four year old step son unfortunately. (I say we as his mother has refused to pay a penny since day 1). Will be paying the same for this baby when she starts with her funding in September. Unfortunately, the funding is just that. Reduces the cost but doesn't eliminate it. Because of the cost of the day for his age we can't actually afford to use all of the 30hes he's entitled to. When we initially tried, they sent us an invoice for just under a £1000 so we had to reduce to 2 full days and manage! So annoyingly, we use half of what he's entitled to because we still can't afford it.

@Bethan sorry forgive my ignorance, but I don’t understand why if you’re using the 30 hours what are they charging for? Xx

Because the funded hours are for a maximum of 6hrs a day. The nursery are open 10 hours. We pay wrap around fees to cover the extra 4hrs. Then pay for meals and snacks (they provide 3 a day for them) and we pay for any extra curricular activities too. So he has Yoga on a Tuesday. They have someone daily. They also provide nappies wipes and suncream. The government sets limitations on the hours for a start, so usually school hours and term time only. So every holiday they would usually have from school, funding isn't provided for. Unfortunately it's the only way nurseries survive and stay open. The money actually received from the government is 💩 for them.

The local authority one we found which DIDNT charge anything or very very little were only open 9-3 term time. So we'd have to somehow take time off work for every half term, BH, Easter, Christmas holidays, summer holidays etc. Not workable at all for him to go Local Authority. We'd be able to use all 30 but we'd then have no childcare for half the year anyway and still be in a constant struggle.

It's not all extra charges, she's in 5 days so 22.5 hours (as we spread ours through the year) only covers 2 days and 2 hours. So we pay 2 full days and the rest of day 5. We only pay extras on the 2 fully funded days, can't remember exactly what a day but say £10 or so which covers food. Our nursery actually say you can refuse the extra charge but then you have to send in lunch, tea & 2 snacks and I can't be dealing with that. They also provide nappies and suncream as above.

Blimey. It’s crazy, I was under the illusion you send your child for nursery for 30 hours and it was free, not a penny, that’s crazy

Yeaah I was too. We worked his hours out thinking. Well. 10 hours on this day, 10 on the next. 5 on that morning, 5 on another. Bobs your uncle. Fanny's your aunt. Then we got the invoice through on email and I nearly fell over.

@Bethan oh gosh. I didn’t know that about the 6 hours limit per day. Can you even do half a day at nursery? Would be good for when we do late shifts.. 🤔 . (@Bethan and me discovered we work in the same job & building after chatting on this app 🤣)

@Elle Awh that’s so lovely haha!!!

@Elle yeah so we could do a morning and 3 of the 5hrs is funded 🫠 I think it varies from nursery to nursery what their policies are. Our day rate is slightly cheaper for the baby until she's 2 which will be helpful. It just means it's stretched though or otherwise every half term etc we'd have to pay full fees which would wipe us out!!! My partner is in the organisation as well so we're hoping to work something out with our shift patterns and nursery. Need to do a flexi plan shortly!

@Elle my nursery lets you do half days and doesn't do the 6 hours limit a day. So I get 2 days funded then 2 hours taken off the next day's fees.