Childcare costs

[The Zee]

I see in the press people are complaining about the cost of child care and it is now so expensive they can't afford it.

 

Surprise, surprise, children cost money!

 

I take it these parents who are complaining do not turn down government handouts of child support.

 

Childcare professionals are doing what they need to do, which is earn a living. They to have overheads to pay, like rates, electric gas, food etc all of which are always going up.

 

Why shouldn’t childcare professionals earn a good living the same as any other profession?

 

After all they are looking after your most prized little ones.

 

My parents told me, if you can’t afford children, then don’t have them - we never did..

[Jonny5ive]

Geography plays a part in the prices charged.

When I lived just outside Stroud in Gloucestershire c.£6.00 per hour.

In Hinckley c.£3.50 per hour

[whitep]

Just a minor comment here. My wife and I had a child last may, 9 months ago, and now is the time for her to go back to work. Well, she went back in January, 3 months before maternity pay is legally supposed to stop and 6 months before you must go back to work. We both work full time, I am a Director of a business, and she has a very well paid job in fact earning more than me. Her boss has very kindly agreed to let her do 3 days a week, against his wishes, but knowing in a few years she will return to 5 days.

 

Now... both sets of grandparents have obviously agreed to take him one day a week each and they agreed to share the third... great free childcare. But then we noticed he is very comfortable with adults and old fogeys but not with other kids. a downside of not mixing him with more than the odd child of a friend. So we looked at childcare in Suffolk/Essex, they charge about £4.50 an hour which really isnt much IMHO, less than minimum wage. 8-4 means £36 a day, and £144 a 4 week month. lets round to £150 a month, for 1 day a week. We can afford it, we will pay it, and we can be sure he will mix with other young children but that is a lot of money if you have a large mortgage (or rent which is usually more unless subsidized by us tax payers). I mean £150 a month is 1 or 2 bills and that's just 1 day a week for 1 child. A low income family with the average 2 kids... they cant afford it. But on the flip side, £4.50 an hour is cheap. But you do get 16 hours a week free when they are 2 years old or something.

 

So to sum up, its expensive yet not expensive.

 

P.S. My wife was 38 and I was 34 when we had our first child, to make sure we could afford it.

[Sippo]

My gripe is that you get little help from the government. They want you to go back to work, but don't help. My wife works part-time as a nurse, and we were at one point thinking if it was worth it. We are hardly better off, so just about scrap by. 

 

We can afford to have kids, but I just feel that we there needs to be more help for people who want to work.

['daiking']

I see in the press people are complaining about the cost of child care and it is now so expensive they can't afford it.

Surprise, surprise, children cost money!

I take it these parents who are complaining do not turn down government handouts of child support.

Childcare professionals are doing what they need to do, which is earn a living. They to have overheads to pay, like rates, electric gas, food etc all of which are always going up.

Why shouldn’t childcare professionals earn a good living the same as any other profession?

After all they are looking after your most prized little ones.

My parents told me, if you can’t afford children, then don’t have them - we never did..

If only life were that simple.

If you restricted childbirth to those parents who could 'afford' it, you'd have a demographic timebomb on your hands solved only by a massive influx of immigrants.

Secondly, I don't think the cost of child care is high just because of what the practitioners earn. In fact, I understand that child care practitioners are, on average, poorly paid.

So you need children and you need parents to be able to support those children. Why can't they and what are the bariers that prevent them?

Edited 4 March, 2014 by 'daiking'

[The Zee]

Hi daiking,

 

I have no problem with anybody wanting and having as many children as they want, provided, they don't complain at the cost of them.

 

It's like buying a house you can't really afford, then complaining about the cost of running it.

[whitep]

If you restricted childbirth to those parents who cold 'afford' it, you'd have a demographic timebomb on your hands solved only by a massive influx of immigrants.

 

I do think childbirth should be licensed so to speak and limited to a planned 2 to a family. I know this sounds very totalitarian but we have had many long chats at work and decided this is the only option to control some family related issues.

 

2 3 (ahem!) example questions:

 

1. Do you have a dog that will naturally find a foot long wriggling bag of tasty meat a nice snack... yes.

 

2. Do you work... no.

 

3. Do you think a baseball cap peak points backwards... yes.

 

All cases mean no children allowed. Easy!

[whitep]

Hi daiking,

 

I have no problem with anybody wanting and having as many children as they want, provided, they don't complain at the cost of them.

 

It's like buying a house you can't really afford, then complaining about the cost of running it.

 

Or a car with a big engine and complaining of Diesel/Petrol/Road Tax prices?

[BossFox]

I have no idea what childcare costs as my Wife is very dedicated to our children and so that's her "job".

 

We are lucky she doesn't have to work and if I am honest I much rather her (as a qualified teacher) looking after and teaching them than someone doing it for the money.

['daiking']

Hi daiking,

I have no problem with anybody wanting and having as many children as they want, provided, they don't complain at the cost of them.

It's like buying a house you can't really afford, then complaining about the cost of running it.

But if you can't afford to run your house, I don't care.

If people can't afford to have children then you run into the problem I said above. You need to incentivise people (a little) to have children so that there is someone to pay your pension and wipe your bum when you get old.

That the system of incentives is broke is a fair comment but you need to do something and work from there. Additionally there are a number of artificial barriers to how you and others must look after your children, aka red tape, health and safety etc. And lastly, why do we need so much money to live in the first place? Let me take a guess? The cost of somewhere to live.

So while I'd agree with you about not just giving people money I do think there is a problem there that should be fixed some other way.

Edited 4 March, 2014 by 'daiking'

[whitep]

At the end of the day, people need to understand this:

 

A ) children cost money

 

B ) impact your life.

 

So there will be no more holidaying with friends in Portugal leaving your daughters in a room while you go to a restaurant with friends, and you need to decide how you will care for and pay for them be it a parent give up work and look after them, or the more modern approach of doing 2 or 3 days a week and using family or childcare or if you are really well off full time childcare, which IMHO is wrong... why have kids?

 

Whatever way people choose to go it needs to be thought about.

 

As for incentives... bring back married mans tax allowance and introduce a childcare tax allowance. That way marriage and childbirth is rewarded if you work!

[Slotty]

IMO It's all about making the right choices when...

 

Buying the house and getting one you can afford...When we applied for a mortgage the bank offered us £280.000 but we decided to buy a house for half of that which means we can afford it and have kids in the future

 

Buying the car you can afford...I always dreamed of Audi, Mercs and other very expensive cars but we own the ones we can afford.

 

We not earing lots and lots of money but I know that when we have the kids we will be able to cope and not complain about the costs of having them.

 

Lots of peeps spend way too much money on things they don't really need or just to show off...

[whitep]

IMO It's all about making the right choices when...

 

Buying the house and getting one you can afford...When we applied for a mortgage the bank offered us £280.000 but we decided to buy a house for half of that which means we can afford it and have kids in the future

 

Buying the car you can afford...I always dreamed of Audi, Mercs and other very expensive cars but we own the ones we can afford.

 

We not earing lots and lots of money but I know that when we have the kids we will be able to cope and not complain about the costs of having them.

 

Lots of peeps spend way too much money on things they don't really need or just to show off...

 

Agreed! I know too many people with huge mortgages and credit cards maxed out, kitchens, sofas, TV's and cars on finance and they worry about interest rates.

[Dr Zoidberg]

Part of the problem here is that there is very little state run childcare here. Most of it is run privately with the owners paying minimum wage to the staff then charging what are often quite ludicrous fees. Look at how childcare costs have risen over the last ten years and compare that to staff costs.

[whitep]

Part of the problem here is that there is very little state run childcare here. Most of it is run privately with the owners paying minimum wage to the staff then charging what are often quite ludicrous fees. Look at how childcare costs have risen over the last ten years and compare that to staff costs.

 

This bring in the minimum wage is bad argument. Which as an employer I agree with. Pay rises should be an incentive not forced on you.

[Sparkly]

1.5 year old son, Nursery 4 days a week so that me and my partner can both work, no family to hand to babysit - £7-800 a month it costs us, I did the maths meticulously on this and it was the only economic solution for us coming off the back of a financially tough maternity period. Are you going to tell me that isn't expensive? We live in Yorkshire, not known for having the highest prices of anything much house prices/general cost of living.  We found there was a big lack of state childcare facilities in the area (I wont pass comment on what we saw at those there are) and as said above pretty much only private options nearby and huge demand. Cost didn't vary much between them all.

 

We are fortunate that we both earn well, but you need to be earning far more than we to be able to take that kind of hit and not have it impact seriously on your disposable income and therefore lives. We accept it and we pay it, we do resent though that we work ourselves damn hard and end up worse off than serial benefit claimants living not that far away. I am missing a huge part of my son growing up as is my partner, so that we can pay the bills feed and clothe him and give him a future, they on the other hand are at home 24/7 with their brood.  I feel I pay my way in society and have earnt a right to bloody whinge at the cost.  I am English, Proud and I dare you to try and take away my right to grumble

 

My partner could stay at home but aside from just how difficult it would be for us financially short term, long term that hurts her career

 

At £700 a month I can well believe people can't afford it, someone on 20k has a rough maths calculated £1,100 take home a month, if they are even able to work fulltime, and plenty dont earn £20k. Gas is expensive, fuel is expensive, food is everyday more expensive.

[whitep]

Sparkly, you back up my view. Yes it is expensive, too expensive for many, but £4.50 to pay someone to look after a child for an hour isn't.

[tweenster]

My gripe is that you get little help from the government. They want you to go back to work, but don't help. My wife works part-time as a nurse, and we were at one point thinking if it was worth it. We are hardly better off, so just about scrap by. 

 

We can afford to have kids, but I just feel that we there needs to be more help for people who want to work.

 

But the government do help. You get child benefit and if you are not taking advantage of the childcare vouchers scheme then you should look into it.

 

We have had 3 kids. For the first 2 my wife was working and childcare took up almost all of her salary. We made the decision that she would stay at home for a couple of years until they were both at school and she then returned to work part time. Yes, it impacted our life massively; no fancy holidays, no new cars, no Sky TV etc etc but we enjoyed spending time with our kids as they grew up and even though they could be a complete PITA at times we wouldn't change anything.

 

As was said early on in this thread, children are expensive and do impact upon your life. 

[Girardi]

TBH, I think the current system is broke - for exactly the reasons above.

 

I can afford to have kids and am expecting in April, and very excited I am too. Pricing up the childcare at the point my wife returns to work, our cheapest option comes in at almost exactly £100 more than our mortgage every month. That's a bitter pill to swallow.

 

Now i'm happy to swallow said pill because I can afford to and that's part and parcel of having children.

 

What I cannot understand is how we make ends meet and are entitled to exactly nothing, whereas Tina up the road with four children and no man in sight has her car, house, children, fags and booze paid for by MY tax money and has never worked a day in her life. Essentially we're paying high childcare costs and taxes to enable her to not have to bother.

 

Surely in this shared responsibility everyone is equal society we supposedly live in there should be state run childcare (or kindergarten?) available, paid into by all and utilised by all. I'm left with more in my pocket to be able to contribute more to the economy in VATable expenditure and Tina has no reason not to get a job and actually contribute something back to society?

 

Also to echo Sparkly, we've spoken about my wife not returning to work and instead looking after bubs. The reality is that as soon as a woman does that her career goes down the toilet and future earnings are not as good. I know there's no discrimination for being on mat leave/looking after kids but the fact is that in the world of work you'll have had years during which you've not been working and your peers and colleagues have continued to develop and grow their career, making you a LOT less appealing a prospect for promotion/hiring.

[whitep]

You planned it all out well tweenster, i think you made the right choices

[whitep]

kiscix, yes i agree. Dont work, Dont buy a house, limp a little and get the whole world given to you for nothing. Broken system!

[Dr Zoidberg]

Sparkly, you back up my view. Yes it is expensive, too expensive for many, but £4.50 to pay someone to look after a child for an hour isn't.

You think that children should be looked after by someone earning less than £5 an hour? What kind of care do you think that will get you?

You're also deluding yourself if you think that the employers would pass the £2 an hour savings on to the customers.

[tweenster]

I am English, Proud and I dare you to try and take away my right to grumble

 

 

LOL! Love it!

[tweenster]

You planned it all out well tweenster, i think you made the right choices

 

The 3rd was unplanned and came along several years later - that really buggered things up!

[whitep]

£4.50 is the going rate here for all childcare this neck of the woods. Childcare, not babysitter. I looked at private nurseries and childminders. Both the same price.

 

As I am saying £4.50 an hour is cheap when yoou look at it from a different angle, too cheap as you are implying Dr Zoidberg.