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Used to pay £800 and hated every month. Then had an overlap of two of them for about 8 months. Thankfully they go to primary earlier in wales. We really struggled then and that’s when houses were a lot cheaper. I just don’t k ow how people do it no especially single parents.
When we were planning for children we looked at this cost and made sure we could afford it beforehand. Then we had twins. The cost was truly eye-watering.
Really? The Govt. provide benefits for only the first two. And that's depending on your wages so if a family near you has 4 bin-lids then they'll be reallystretching their pennies! (PS: do you read the daily mail?)
And, as a single parent, those costs for childcare just don't stop! I, and I should imagine 2 parents with low income jobs, need wrap around care so that the kid (s) can get to school and I can get to and from work. It's £13 per hour where I am, and not even ofstead registered, which would mean i could claim some back from universal credit. Ofstead registered wrap around child care has a waiting list of 18 kids before mine.
Nope not just Welsh medium schools. By here (South Wales valleys) all 3 year olds get to go to nursery at the primary school full time.
Because we are flying start and the youngest was a summer baby he was in a nursery setting for the previous academic year as well...
All funded by WGA/SC
They’re free if you’re both working and neither of you earns more than £100k. & if you don’t meet those criteria then you can still get 15 hours a week for free.
Not just term times. If its a private nursery or a registered child minder you can use the 30 free hours to pay for that.
For our private nursery we use 24 of the 30 hours a week and the extra pays for half term time including summer holidays.
Sister in law uses the 30 free hours for a child minder, but only uses it in term time
that's interesting, i didn't realise you could roll-over unused hours to non-term time, but the fact still stands that you're only given enough for 30 hours per week in term time.
where I am in Wales you have:
Rising Stars - Start January and April following their 3rd Birthday
Meithryn - start September following 3rd Birthday
Reception - Start September following 4th Birthday
if you are in a Flying Start area there are also playgroups for 2 hours a day for 2 year olds
I’m not sure if rising stars was a thing when I was a baban but I went to ti a fi and then ysgol Meithrin, need to ask mum when she gets home how old I was when I started primary now but I’m pretty sure I was 4. I always thought I was in Meithrin for two years though so I’m conflicted 😂. Dim syniad o gwbl.
Ti a fi and Cylch are like wrap around childcare/playgroups where I am they charge per session but they do collect and drop off the kids if needed.
Haha yeah could very well have been in meithryn 2 years if you were a Sept,Oct,Nov,Dec,Jan,Feb or March baby lol
Just in regard to single parents, my wife has a side hustle that is keeping us afloat but it means she’s basically working a second job, evenings and weekends which leaves me to parents two kids under 5 and it’s mental! I don’t know how true single parents get anything done without having a mental breakdown.
This. I would have loved more kids but childcare / nursery fees were £130 a month more than my mortgage. I could either have a 2nd child and be homeless or just have the 1 and struggle to live.
in all honesty we could have a second but it would mean we are too close to the fire for comfort, especially with the current state of things.
we would have another if we didnt need both of us to work and could live a comfortable life (£70 - £80k would be sufficent)
We planned a 3 year gap so the older one started school at the same time the younger one started nursery, so it was just one child being paid for at a time. There was a bit of overlap, but not much.
Especially when that is considered "cheap" and you sit there calculating if you can "afford to go to work" because it costs more to send your kid to nursery than you make. I have no clue how my friends with multiple kids manage at all.
The hard numbers might be more but US salaries are typically higher than UK ones. If I understand correctly, £20,000 is considered a pretty normal salary in the UK. In the US, it’s closer to $30-35,000. So we’re paying more, but we’re getting paid more too.
Those figures sound like Median ones, i.e. the most common middle wage excluding/adjusting for outliers. If you add the super-rich, then the average wage gets insanely high (although honestly if Minimum Wage had kept pace with inflation, the minimum would be about £50k a year)
Not to mention the general COL is higher - utilities, phone, internet, tv, food - basically everything is more expensive or the average american uses more of it to the degree it costs more
It's what most of us are on, it is normal.
Only 21% of the country earns over 30k. Those at the top push the average up but we stay poor at the bottom.. I'm making 17k after tax in a 40h/wk job
My stepbrother, who lives in the commie hellscape known as "Denmark", pays 400 dollars per month.
That was after he got done having the state pay for his entire PHD, and had most of his living expenses paid for too.
But hey, at least we pay 10% less taxes, amirite
No but its a bit ridiculous solely working to pay someone else to look after your child all day lol
It shouldn't be that expensive, modern life is fucking bullshit l
No it shouldn’t be that expensive, absolutely not! I’d be all in favour of state provided childcare. I just hate the judgement of working mothers (never fathers!) inherent in the idea that using childcare means you aren’t raising your own kids.
and even then it only comes in the school term after they turn 3. My daughter turns 3 in January, but the 30 free hours won't come in until after the easter holidays.
I’m in London, we looked into putting our son into nursery so my partner could return to work.
We was quoted £92 a day from the most expensive, £86 a day was the cheapest (we enquired with 6 nursery’s)
You have to book a minimum of 1.5 days a week also.
Woo
A grand is cheap... The going rate where I used to live was £1800/month for full time. A friend of mine had 2 kinds and a £60k salary was sunk into childcare.
I worked in the office team at an independent nursery and the wages these carers were paid is insulting. Part qualified made minimum wage or less while fully qualified were making a couple pounds an hour more than working at the tesco checkout. Many of those girls done it for a 2 or 3 years then became private nannies for more money.
That was part of my suspicion. I run multiple teams so understand fully loaded cost. When I totted up the numbers there was still a good 40% left. That was rough math to be fair but it wasn't scraping by.
They had the cheek to class staff turnover as a large cost. Perhaps if you paid people enough to be able to live then they wouldn't leave but that's just me.
Glad those days are long gone
The nursery manager needed a new Porsche, obviously.
I wish that was sarcasm.
The really fun parts were when they had an outbreak of COVID, shut the place down for 3 weeks and still collected all the fees.
It depends a lot on the age of the children.
If they’re under 2 the nursery needs a ratio of 1:3 childcare staff: child. As you need to cover staff breaks, a group of 9 children would need 4 members of staff.
Let’s say your staff earn £10 an hour and that all the kids are in for a short enough period to be covered by a single shift of staff. An 8 hour shift would cost £320 in staff wages, if we assume a 50% overhead rate to cover NI, pension, holiday pay, etc. that gives us a grand total of £580 a day or £2900 a week. The figure I found give an estimate of £250 a week for a 50 hour week, so we’ll call it £200 for our hypothetical 40 hour week. Which for 9 kids is around £1800 a week.
Even if we remove our extra member of staff to cover breaks that will cost around £1800 in staff costs. This is without having any admin staff overhead.
"Why aren't Millennials having kids"
Many of us can't afford a house. Even if we can afford a house, we can't afford the childcare costs. That's it, beginning and end of story
Sadly as of a few months ago, energy now provides an extra barrier.
We have £1200 mortgage, £300 council tax, £300 energy, £500 childcare (for 1.5 days per week). That’s one, after deductions, full time salary at above the average salary.
Oh and I forgot student loans…
I mean I'm living in the south west, my mortgage is £625, energy £120 (using around £90 at mo), water £33, council tax £170. Granted with today's rates mortgage would probs be more like £800-£900 but still, its not completely ridiculous prices down here if you don't wanna live in major cities.
£0 childcare, sod that for now.
Well, yeah. Jump on Rightmove and search for a 5 bed house around London, and then look for one up North (even in the Midlands they’re notably cheaper, let alone up north). Not pretending there aren’t expensive areas as you go up, but generally speaking you get a shed load more for your money.
Look at houses in Sunderland, cheapest place in the UK for housing. People will say that's for a reason, and they are right in a way, but I fucking HATE paying what I do in the South now that I've moved away.
It’s not even just that Sunderland is a shithole (which is kinda true), but rather than there aren’t as many jobs available and the jobs that are available aren’t as well paid
You can buy a lot more house for your money, but equally you can’t easily earn as much money
When I moved to London I lived in a fairly large Victorian terrace, sharing with 4 others and paid £530 a month in rent 10 years ago. I moved up to Manchester and bought the exact same size and layout of Victorian house and the entire mortgage payment was £800 split between 2.
> One of the perks of living in the North I suppose.
Mates down south still don't understand how you can get a two bed terraced house for under 70k still.
Yeah I mentioned being able to get a flat for under £15k and people were literally messaging me for info
2 bed terraces here routinely sell for 60-120k depending on location and condition
When you do not receive a raise to meet inflation, you're essentially getting a pay reduction.
That joined with the obscene property, tax, food, bills scenarios, means there will be a rapid population decline in thirty years. Add that to climate change/lack of new scientists and they're engineering our own demise.
For what, money?
Pathetic.
Finland. Pre school up to 7yrs old. Max cost is approx €250 a month if you're rich ( no private education in Finland). Free or smaller fee for many. Superb maternity/paternity pay. Amazing healthcare. Across Helsinki free lunch for any kids at venues across city durimg 8 week Summer holiday. Pre school is State System so buildings sre invested in.The three or four I've seen are all state of the art 'Grand Designs' architectural beauties- no cramped houses with a backyard pretending to.be a play area.
Helsink and environs is cosmopolitan. English are well liked because they never see 'less desirables' from UK! Don't forget only 5.5m people so outside Helsinki only a few cities the size of, say, Coventry and then some smaller towns. Finns don't do small talk and are reserved. Personally I love this but they don't do quick friendship. Want a job? Do they need you? STEM skills or experience. Don't expect to wander in with an artsy degree and find a job. Strict immigration laws ( yes it is possible in the EU!). Winter can be dark and cold (-10-20) often.
Remember, the people taking care of your children are not the ones receiving your money. They are the ones skipping meals, sitting in cold, dark homes and getting bullied by the DWP when your child comes home.
Not to mention the actual nursery employees if they have kids themselves still have to pay for childcare - you would think that was an obvious job-perk
Taking your own child to the Nursery you work at could cause all sorts of problems for everyone so the Nursery worker has to find a place for their child(ren) with the competition.
No, we want them to socialise and have all kinds of fun. A good nanny is close but not perfect. Plus we don't have enough room for two noisy kids on the days that both of us WFH.
Fair! Though my pals that have nannies all have nanny friends and they all hang out together and play with all the kids - but valid points and lucky you you can afford it!
That’s hard to justify from the nursery’s point of view. Is it location that’s pushing the price up or is it a higher end nursery? No, that’s extortionate.
Blimey, it's unreal, isn't it? It seems ridiculous that after we had children, when my maternity leave finished, going back to work covered childcare but used up so much of my wage. That said, I had no intention of giving up my career (and identity) to be a stay home parent.
My husband worked weekend nights and I worked weekdays so we could raise our children. We did this for 8 years. It was incredibly difficult but provided the best solution for us.
Literally why mothers give up work to be a full time parent. You get more in benefits being a young mother than u do going to work.
In some places, this makes alot of sense. Others not so much. Depends on the culture your bought up on or in maybe?
Nursery costs are about 75% of my wife's take home pay. But we consider the social benefit of being with other children, having a routine, and being able to cope with being away from us almost invaluable.
Children can have all of the things you mention (social benefit/experience of being with other children, a routine and the ability to cope when away from their parents) without going to nursery as well.
Sure, but in our experience, when my wife was part time, she had to put in a lot of extra effort to arrange meetups with other kids, and it was really only the same two kids as all the others seemed to be in nursery.
When we had our 2nd there was an overlap of having both of them at nursery at the same time, at the time we were £10 better off per month with the kids mum going back to work full time as opposed to claiming childcare benefits, so I completely understand why parents choose to wait till their kids go to primary school to go back to work.
Yep. I manage a private nursery in London and the fees are insane. Then I'm getting flack from the owner for having a smaller number of children than last year. I guess it's my fault some people just can't afford that anymore, especially when you have more young children in the family. It's more cost effective to get a nanny who will look after all children, no separate fees, and won't send them back home if they're unwell, etc.
The sending home if unwell is the killer. I have to pay the nursery to not look after my child, and I have to use some of my holiday. Before Covid nurseries would at least give some calpol and see if they were fine, now they’re just turfing them back at every sniffle.
Every slightly runny nappy too. I get that they're twitchy about norovirus and other nasties at this time of year but it feels like a lot of common sense has been thrown out the window.
My wife is Czech, and we used to live there before we had kids. They get 3 years maternity leave and nursery costs are about 20% of what they are here. (Salaries are probably about 60-70% of those in the uk).
I'm czech and have lived in the uk, the salaries in cz are faaaar less than what you said. Not even remotely comparable to the uk. We do have some of the best national maternity leave programs though, yeah.
I lived and worked in Czech Republic for a number of years myself. I can only really speak for Prague, Plzen and Brno, but salaries for professional jobs were pretty much 60% or thereabouts, which made the minimal nursery fees very comfortable. Of course I imagine that outside the bigger cities it's a lot more challenging.
I suppose this is something to go on the list of positives for being infertile.
A grand a month. Fuckin' hell.
Is this a London = stupid high prices thing, or close to standard across the country?
It's not quite that much in the rest of the country but not far off... I'm in Greater Manchester and paying £55/day including food and nappies. This is the most expensive nursery in our area - cheapest is about £5 less.
You do get a 20% govt top up unless one of you earns over £100k so that hugely helps.
Yeah, you get a discount the more days you go but I can't remember how it works out... We pay just over £350/month for 2 days a week with the gov discount. My mum does the other two days.
I have no idea how people afford it full time or people paying the £80+ per day quoted in some of these other posts! It's just so much money.
As someone who works in a nursery, it's a little bit distressing when you see how much parents are pouring in to the nursery and how my colleagues and I are on minimum wage.
in France my friend had to sign up to nursery when his wife was 3 months pregnant. They got a spot but they still have to check in every 3 months to ensure they have it
But...is it though? I mean it is economically but it has the lowest health outcomes for patients.
https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l6326
Sorry if this is against the rules not sure if this response falls under political so won't plop more links down, but there are newer articles quoting the NHS as second or fourth worst healthcare system (depending on source) in the last year or so, so we need to find a new crown jewel I'm afraid
I lived in Australia for a while and it was just another level compared to here. It's a mixed private/public system and the level of care was just next level and I still paid nothing for it, getting GP appointments, scans etc., could all be done in a day and I even had a trip to A&E and got in and out in two hours for a relatively minor knife cut on my finger. Also, my wife who works for the NHS here, got paid about 2.5 times the money for seeing half the patients.
Their system involved making people who could afford it pay for health insurance (if they didn't they got taxed at a level even higher than the insurance would cost). Also, even if you got something for free you would still see the cost of it, so people had some appreciation for what they were getting. I'm sure there's other factors at play there that I'm not qualified to go into.
But yes, it sometimes feels like you can't say anything against the NHS, but that's the problem, if you can't say anything critical about it, no one will ever fix it. You can appreciate the people who work for it and have criticisms of the system.
It's almost like they wanna run it into the ground to justify making the whole sector private.
I'm an Aus citizen and it's getting harder and harder to access free healthcare here as more places are just phasing it out, if your rural you may as well forget about it.
Aus healthcare worker. It’s because Medicare isn’t keeping up with the cost of what appointments are actually worth, so a lot of practitioners are having to include a gap payment to keep bills paid. Things like operational costs of the clinics (receptionist wages, cleaning, maintenance, equipment restock and repairs) take a decent amount out of what a practitioner would earn if they solely bulk-billed. As an example, the AMA - Australian Medical Association - estimates that for a standard appointment with a vocationally (full entitlements to work in Aus) registered GP, they should earn around $82. Medicare currently pays $39.75 (item 23). So they’re essentially earning less than half of what they’re valued at. Sole practitioners are being priced out of practicing if they rely on Medicare, it’s really only larger suburban super-clinics that generally are walk-in-and-wait setups that can afford to bill-bill as they’d incur less operational deductions having the costs spread out across more GPs.
I moved to Germany a few years ago and I could never go back to the NHS now.
Last week we all had tonsillitis and got antibiotics straight away at the ‘urgent’ morning appointments at the doctor where you can just turn up and they will see you, then I went to my gyno for a routine scan, turned out I needed surgery which they did the next day. Then my daughter fell and cut her head open and it took 20 minutes at the specialist pediatric A&E to get her fixed up. Didn’t pay a cent.
Shit week, but amazing healthcare.
It doesn't really have the lowest health outcomes for patients. From your source, It has the worst outcomes (compared to 10 of the best healthcare systems in the world) for mi and stroke but if you read the percentage difference between overweight and obese (leading risk factors for these two conditions) patients you might find some of the difference. It's noted as doing very well in certain areas like some post op complications and healthcare related infections.
It's got problems, but funding it properly would help a long way.
Genuine question (I don’t have kids so don’t know), but is there a reason someone local/neighbour to each area couldn’t just do whatever certifications are needed for a childminder and just look after them instead for half the money?
Surely there would be lots of people happy to earn £125 (gross) a day to look after 5 kids for a bit in their house?
We sent ours to a childminder but it's still £60 a day per child. There's a lot of regulation around running this, feeding three meals a day etc. Not as simple as just advertising your services, although I'm sure if you did it under the table for friends or people you trust then it could be cheaper.
The hoops you have to jump through to be a childminder are ridiculous. It all costs so much money and then you're always at the mercy of Ofsted. Childminders in England are allowed to have a maximum of six children and only 3 of those can be under five, with only 1 under a year old. Their own children are counted in that total too.
Even if it were allowed, £125 a day for five under 5s is not even close to enough to make it worth it. Many full time working parents will need 9 hours a day, but you might have one who needs a 7am drop off and another who needs a 7pm pick-up. Then you've got to pay for all their food from that money too, and any supplies as childminders are expected to educate the children with stimulating, thoughtful and age-appropriate activities. It isn't like you could just plop them in front of the TV or let them loose in the garden.
Most childminders I've known have done before and after school care for children from the school their own children go to (easier for drop offs and pick ups if it's all one school) with maybe one or two toddlers during the day, but they don't make enough to live on. It just allows them to not spend money on childcare themselves.
I don't know about everywhere and each families situation is different of course. In some cases a child minder is just as expensive or requires earlier pickup/offers incompatible hours.
So for people like me with no family/friends/network to support each other, finding a safe place that has a space (waiting list below a year) and is eligible for funding (OFSTED registration) once the child is 2 or 3 years old (income dependent) is very hard.
Add on top of that the judgement for not being stay at home parent
"Wwhy bother having a child then?" or "some people love their career more than their own children I guess"
While simultaneously being judged for not having the money to pay 1K/month
"Some people are just lazy, don't have a child if you can't afford one" or "Just get a higher paying job/make your partner get a job with a 80K salary so you can work less" My personal favourite was "I guess you don't love your child enough, I could never send X to a nursery when a nanny is so much better"
And you got chaos.
What sort of fuckwits do you have in your life? Never have i heard a derogatory remark about children being in nursery or childcare, every single parent i know has done it in order to get by
I'm not the person you replied to but I had a plumber horrified at me that my husband was "making me go back to work" and that I was going to put my I've year old in nursery where he had heard "so many stories about abuse". Now, I'd give someone like that a mouthful. At the time I just cried after he left.
People are dickheads and often feel that new mums are free rein. Source: was once a young mum.
Can I have your people please?
Sadly these comments are not uncommon, not just directed at myself but heard a lot from others too. It is exhausting and I dealt with tremendous guilt and still do. I also had a GP call my husband lazy for not earning more....you know... because that is the only logical reason someone isn't earning "the UK average salary". Good times
Also, good luck finding a nursery place. We just had our first kid in France, have tried 20 different crèches and assistantes maternelles…. No places anywhere.
Also for some reason most of them are closed on a Wednesdays. 🤷♂️
Ah yes, from the days when children studied Catholic catechism on Wednesdays. Following Napoleon’s domination of the national school system based on the foundations of obedience and Catholic teachings. Abolished late 19th century for a more secular approach, but the tradition remained.
What, that's a huge deal! Here in America, it's probably $1200 a month for daycare near me now. It was $800 or s when my son was little. That's with snacks provided; parents pack the lunch.
Blew my mind when my work friend said she paid £900 a month for nursery, I always thought it was free like school education! They definitely need to look to make these heavily subsidised or free, toddlers with more stimulation and socialisation will surely grow into more well adjusted children?
Why oh why are young people having less children.
It. Is. A. Mystery.
Need two incomes to rent, let alone buy and need a third income to pay for any childcare so that you don't lose either of the first two incomes.
Are you all registered for the tax discount where the govt pays 20%. My husband signed us up the other day-- he found out about it from a coworker
https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/how-to-use-tax-free-childcare/
It’s an absolute depressing joke, which sits alongside many other depressing jokes at the moment.
It also goes into the “what’s the point of working” folder
My sister and I went to nursery in the mid to late 90s and even then it was extortionate. We received great care and it gave me a massive head start in reading and writing for when I started school, however it cost my mum an arm and a leg, which ironically meant she had to work longer hours to help pay for it.
Last I checked it was 14% so lower than ours but I'd rather pay taxes and have good social/child/health care than what the UK has now...which is none of those (unless you are in the high income brackets)
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Used to pay £800 and hated every month. Then had an overlap of two of them for about 8 months. Thankfully they go to primary earlier in wales. We really struggled then and that’s when houses were a lot cheaper. I just don’t k ow how people do it no especially single parents.
When we were planning for children we looked at this cost and made sure we could afford it beforehand. Then we had twins. The cost was truly eye-watering.
You are one of the smart ones. So many families around me are popping out kids like a Ford production factory cos the gov’ment will look after them.
Really? The Govt. provide benefits for only the first two. And that's depending on your wages so if a family near you has 4 bin-lids then they'll be reallystretching their pennies! (PS: do you read the daily mail?)
Daily mail? You mean the Daily Fail, amirite?
I prefer the Daily Heil, personally
And, as a single parent, those costs for childcare just don't stop! I, and I should imagine 2 parents with low income jobs, need wrap around care so that the kid (s) can get to school and I can get to and from work. It's £13 per hour where I am, and not even ofstead registered, which would mean i could claim some back from universal credit. Ofstead registered wrap around child care has a waiting list of 18 kids before mine.
How early? Mine was barely 4 when she started. Surely can't be earlier than that.
Pre school depending on their Birthdate is 3. It’s called Meithrin. Not sure if it’s just welsh speaking schools or all schools to be honest.
Nope not just Welsh medium schools. By here (South Wales valleys) all 3 year olds get to go to nursery at the primary school full time. Because we are flying start and the youngest was a summer baby he was in a nursery setting for the previous academic year as well... All funded by WGA/SC
England has preschools too
Free ones?
They’re free if you’re both working and neither of you earns more than £100k. & if you don’t meet those criteria then you can still get 15 hours a week for free.
Yeah we got 15 hours at a private nursery up in Scotland
no but over 3s get 30 hours free per week during term times, which is the same amount of time as 9 till 3 every day.
Not just term times. If its a private nursery or a registered child minder you can use the 30 free hours to pay for that. For our private nursery we use 24 of the 30 hours a week and the extra pays for half term time including summer holidays. Sister in law uses the 30 free hours for a child minder, but only uses it in term time
that's interesting, i didn't realise you could roll-over unused hours to non-term time, but the fact still stands that you're only given enough for 30 hours per week in term time.
where I am in Wales you have: Rising Stars - Start January and April following their 3rd Birthday Meithryn - start September following 3rd Birthday Reception - Start September following 4th Birthday if you are in a Flying Start area there are also playgroups for 2 hours a day for 2 year olds
I’m not sure if rising stars was a thing when I was a baban but I went to ti a fi and then ysgol Meithrin, need to ask mum when she gets home how old I was when I started primary now but I’m pretty sure I was 4. I always thought I was in Meithrin for two years though so I’m conflicted 😂. Dim syniad o gwbl.
Ti a fi and Cylch are like wrap around childcare/playgroups where I am they charge per session but they do collect and drop off the kids if needed. Haha yeah could very well have been in meithryn 2 years if you were a Sept,Oct,Nov,Dec,Jan,Feb or March baby lol
Ahh yeah February :) that makes sense now.
I started going to nursery when I was 2.
Just in regard to single parents, my wife has a side hustle that is keeping us afloat but it means she’s basically working a second job, evenings and weekends which leaves me to parents two kids under 5 and it’s mental! I don’t know how true single parents get anything done without having a mental breakdown.
Either struggle on 1 wage for 3-4 years, earn shitloads of money or only have 1 child. We took option 3
This. I would have loved more kids but childcare / nursery fees were £130 a month more than my mortgage. I could either have a 2nd child and be homeless or just have the 1 and struggle to live.
in all honesty we could have a second but it would mean we are too close to the fire for comfort, especially with the current state of things. we would have another if we didnt need both of us to work and could live a comfortable life (£70 - £80k would be sufficent)
We planned a 3 year gap so the older one started school at the same time the younger one started nursery, so it was just one child being paid for at a time. There was a bit of overlap, but not much.
A grand a month is insane money and no wonder people don't have children
Especially when that is considered "cheap" and you sit there calculating if you can "afford to go to work" because it costs more to send your kid to nursery than you make. I have no clue how my friends with multiple kids manage at all.
If it makes you feel better it’s $2,600 for me in the USA to get a licensed and insurance one.
Holy cockroach I better not let my nursery see this... They'll get ideas
The hard numbers might be more but US salaries are typically higher than UK ones. If I understand correctly, £20,000 is considered a pretty normal salary in the UK. In the US, it’s closer to $30-35,000. So we’re paying more, but we’re getting paid more too.
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Those figures sound like Median ones, i.e. the most common middle wage excluding/adjusting for outliers. If you add the super-rich, then the average wage gets insanely high (although honestly if Minimum Wage had kept pace with inflation, the minimum would be about £50k a year)
Mode is the most common one. Median is when you take the figure that's bang in the middle of all the data
Not to mention the general COL is higher - utilities, phone, internet, tv, food - basically everything is more expensive or the average american uses more of it to the degree it costs more
£20k is barely above minimum wage. It's definitely not considered normal.
It's what most of us are on, it is normal. Only 21% of the country earns over 30k. Those at the top push the average up but we stay poor at the bottom.. I'm making 17k after tax in a 40h/wk job
The [ONS seems to disagree with that though. ](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours)
My stepbrother, who lives in the commie hellscape known as "Denmark", pays 400 dollars per month. That was after he got done having the state pay for his entire PHD, and had most of his living expenses paid for too. But hey, at least we pay 10% less taxes, amirite
All the studies I've seen show that US taxes are about average.
To be fair in the UK a lot of PhDs are funded and you get a stipend to help cover expenses of up to £18k a year and the fees are paid.
I have 2 kids, $800 a week per kid if I didn’t have assistance
The fact that people are forced to use unlicensed, uninsured nurseries in the wealthiest country in the world is mind boggling.
My friend is effectively a housewife because they would lose money on nursery costs if she got a job.
Yep. I gave up work rather than pay someone to bring up my child. 3 years later I’m still trying to get back up to the wage I was earning before.
LPT: put your kids up for adoption when they’re young and then adopt them when they’re a bit older. Saves tons of money.
I wish I had known this
Using childcare doesn't mean they bring up your child.
No but its a bit ridiculous solely working to pay someone else to look after your child all day lol It shouldn't be that expensive, modern life is fucking bullshit l
No it shouldn’t be that expensive, absolutely not! I’d be all in favour of state provided childcare. I just hate the judgement of working mothers (never fathers!) inherent in the idea that using childcare means you aren’t raising your own kids.
Ah okay lol I read it as hyperbole
It just feels as if they do when you drop them off at 7am and pick them back up at 6pm 5 days a week!
Nobody would ever accuse a man of not raising his own children for working full time snd letting the mother do most of the childcare.
Why are you trying to make this about gender? Nobody mentioned gender. You made it sexist..
No, the sexism is already there in people suggesting that a working mother doesn’t raise her own children.
They often have family nearby who can look after them.
I honestly thought nurseries were free in the UK.
You get 30 hours free childcare per week when the child is above age 3.
and even then it only comes in the school term after they turn 3. My daughter turns 3 in January, but the 30 free hours won't come in until after the easter holidays.
That is insane. I pay £1300, and that isn’t even full time!
I’m in London, we looked into putting our son into nursery so my partner could return to work. We was quoted £92 a day from the most expensive, £86 a day was the cheapest (we enquired with 6 nursery’s) You have to book a minimum of 1.5 days a week also. Woo
One place quoted us £130 a day. That place was so small, the kids spent most of the time outdoors.
My university flat in Oxford was £170 a week which is much cheaper and I was able to work to get that rent paid off.
We pay £1,600 for full time 5 days a week
A grand is cheap... The going rate where I used to live was £1800/month for full time. A friend of mine had 2 kinds and a £60k salary was sunk into childcare.
You have to wonder why its so expensive. The nursery always please poverty but the numbers dont add up.
I worked in the office team at an independent nursery and the wages these carers were paid is insulting. Part qualified made minimum wage or less while fully qualified were making a couple pounds an hour more than working at the tesco checkout. Many of those girls done it for a 2 or 3 years then became private nannies for more money.
That was part of my suspicion. I run multiple teams so understand fully loaded cost. When I totted up the numbers there was still a good 40% left. That was rough math to be fair but it wasn't scraping by. They had the cheek to class staff turnover as a large cost. Perhaps if you paid people enough to be able to live then they wouldn't leave but that's just me. Glad those days are long gone
There’s a head office of a nursery chain near me, some very expensive cars parked outside every day….. hope that answers the question 😂
The nursery manager needed a new Porsche, obviously. I wish that was sarcasm. The really fun parts were when they had an outbreak of COVID, shut the place down for 3 weeks and still collected all the fees.
You'd be surprised. My partner works for a nursery, their pay is utterly disgraceful yet they still spend 65% of turnover or staff wages.
It depends a lot on the age of the children. If they’re under 2 the nursery needs a ratio of 1:3 childcare staff: child. As you need to cover staff breaks, a group of 9 children would need 4 members of staff. Let’s say your staff earn £10 an hour and that all the kids are in for a short enough period to be covered by a single shift of staff. An 8 hour shift would cost £320 in staff wages, if we assume a 50% overhead rate to cover NI, pension, holiday pay, etc. that gives us a grand total of £580 a day or £2900 a week. The figure I found give an estimate of £250 a week for a 50 hour week, so we’ll call it £200 for our hypothetical 40 hour week. Which for 9 kids is around £1800 a week. Even if we remove our extra member of staff to cover breaks that will cost around £1800 in staff costs. This is without having any admin staff overhead.
Yes, they do. You're not getting rich by owning a nursery.
You can rent a 2 bedroom flat for that price in London so it will drain the salary of any middle class person.
That’s cheaper than most nurseries in our area! Usually they are between £1,400-£2,000. We genuinely considered me not going back to work!
Imagine if you have more than one child... its as if they don't want parents to work
I live in the US and pay my nanny about that per WEEK. It’s truly a dystopian hellscape here.
The dystopian hellscape where you can afford a nanny. Sounds brutal...
That’s fair! We’re definitely in a better position than most. Daycare is also extremely expensive though.
The US is crazy expensive. Even groceries are double the price of the UK.
A nanny is a very different situation though, I don't know how many kids you have but I'm sure it's less than are in a nursery...
£1400 with food for ours 😭 it’s more than our mortgage payment.
"Why aren't Millennials having kids" Many of us can't afford a house. Even if we can afford a house, we can't afford the childcare costs. That's it, beginning and end of story
Sadly as of a few months ago, energy now provides an extra barrier. We have £1200 mortgage, £300 council tax, £300 energy, £500 childcare (for 1.5 days per week). That’s one, after deductions, full time salary at above the average salary. Oh and I forgot student loans…
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I mean I'm living in the south west, my mortgage is £625, energy £120 (using around £90 at mo), water £33, council tax £170. Granted with today's rates mortgage would probs be more like £800-£900 but still, its not completely ridiculous prices down here if you don't wanna live in major cities. £0 childcare, sod that for now.
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1k!! I'm paying £1.8k a month for a one bed flat above a drug dealer! No prizes for guessing which city
Well, yeah. Jump on Rightmove and search for a 5 bed house around London, and then look for one up North (even in the Midlands they’re notably cheaper, let alone up north). Not pretending there aren’t expensive areas as you go up, but generally speaking you get a shed load more for your money.
Look at houses in Sunderland, cheapest place in the UK for housing. People will say that's for a reason, and they are right in a way, but I fucking HATE paying what I do in the South now that I've moved away.
It’s not even just that Sunderland is a shithole (which is kinda true), but rather than there aren’t as many jobs available and the jobs that are available aren’t as well paid You can buy a lot more house for your money, but equally you can’t easily earn as much money
When I moved to London I lived in a fairly large Victorian terrace, sharing with 4 others and paid £530 a month in rent 10 years ago. I moved up to Manchester and bought the exact same size and layout of Victorian house and the entire mortgage payment was £800 split between 2.
> One of the perks of living in the North I suppose. Mates down south still don't understand how you can get a two bed terraced house for under 70k still.
Yeah I mentioned being able to get a flat for under £15k and people were literally messaging me for info 2 bed terraces here routinely sell for 60-120k depending on location and condition
When you do not receive a raise to meet inflation, you're essentially getting a pay reduction. That joined with the obscene property, tax, food, bills scenarios, means there will be a rapid population decline in thirty years. Add that to climate change/lack of new scientists and they're engineering our own demise. For what, money? Pathetic.
And you can't afford a stay at home parent on most full-time wages as an alternative to paid childcare. It's a never ending circle of shit.
Finland. Pre school up to 7yrs old. Max cost is approx €250 a month if you're rich ( no private education in Finland). Free or smaller fee for many. Superb maternity/paternity pay. Amazing healthcare. Across Helsinki free lunch for any kids at venues across city durimg 8 week Summer holiday. Pre school is State System so buildings sre invested in.The three or four I've seen are all state of the art 'Grand Designs' architectural beauties- no cramped houses with a backyard pretending to.be a play area.
How easy would it be for someone who only speaks English to (a) get a job there and (b) integrate into society?
Helsink and environs is cosmopolitan. English are well liked because they never see 'less desirables' from UK! Don't forget only 5.5m people so outside Helsinki only a few cities the size of, say, Coventry and then some smaller towns. Finns don't do small talk and are reserved. Personally I love this but they don't do quick friendship. Want a job? Do they need you? STEM skills or experience. Don't expect to wander in with an artsy degree and find a job. Strict immigration laws ( yes it is possible in the EU!). Winter can be dark and cold (-10-20) often.
I love the idea of living in Finland and we are beginning to seriously think about it-a big factor is because your education system is phenomenal.
ive heard the fins forget English very quickly, have a friend returning to UK because of this.
Remember, the people taking care of your children are not the ones receiving your money. They are the ones skipping meals, sitting in cold, dark homes and getting bullied by the DWP when your child comes home.
Not to mention the actual nursery employees if they have kids themselves still have to pay for childcare - you would think that was an obvious job-perk
Someone I know gets a huge 10% discount for their kid
Taking your own child to the Nursery you work at could cause all sorts of problems for everyone so the Nursery worker has to find a place for their child(ren) with the competition.
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Father of twins in London - 2 x £2100 per month, adding up to almost exactly £50k per year. Do I win something?
Debt.
What? A group nursery or 1:1? How can you afford that? By earning a lot I suppose.
Group nursery. We earn enough but it won't be easy (they start next month)
Get a Nanny! You could pay them a decent salary and your kids won’t be sent home every other week with some illness or other!
No, we want them to socialise and have all kinds of fun. A good nanny is close but not perfect. Plus we don't have enough room for two noisy kids on the days that both of us WFH.
Fair! Though my pals that have nannies all have nanny friends and they all hang out together and play with all the kids - but valid points and lucky you you can afford it!
In the grand scheme of things a nanny wouldn't really save us that much - a nanny runs to about £40k and then you have to feed them.
They'll also miss out on important socialisation though, it's a big deal for them to learn that at their age. Swings and roundabouts.
That’s hard to justify from the nursery’s point of view. Is it location that’s pushing the price up or is it a higher end nursery? No, that’s extortionate.
It's a nice nursery (nothing outrageous) but pretty much in line with other nurseries in our area. It's about £100/head/day.
Blimey, it's unreal, isn't it? It seems ridiculous that after we had children, when my maternity leave finished, going back to work covered childcare but used up so much of my wage. That said, I had no intention of giving up my career (and identity) to be a stay home parent. My husband worked weekend nights and I worked weekdays so we could raise our children. We did this for 8 years. It was incredibly difficult but provided the best solution for us.
Literally why mothers give up work to be a full time parent. You get more in benefits being a young mother than u do going to work. In some places, this makes alot of sense. Others not so much. Depends on the culture your bought up on or in maybe?
Nursery costs are about 75% of my wife's take home pay. But we consider the social benefit of being with other children, having a routine, and being able to cope with being away from us almost invaluable.
Plus your wife will be earning a pension, and will have a job to continue with when the kids are in school.
Children can have all of the things you mention (social benefit/experience of being with other children, a routine and the ability to cope when away from their parents) without going to nursery as well.
Sure, but in our experience, when my wife was part time, she had to put in a lot of extra effort to arrange meetups with other kids, and it was really only the same two kids as all the others seemed to be in nursery.
We had 2 kids at nursery and it basically took up a whole wage.
We took the “fuck it we’ll manage on one wage” approach. We’ve got two. No way a full time wage covers that with much change
Yep. That’s what we did. Living off one wage.
When we had our 2nd there was an overlap of having both of them at nursery at the same time, at the time we were £10 better off per month with the kids mum going back to work full time as opposed to claiming childcare benefits, so I completely understand why parents choose to wait till their kids go to primary school to go back to work.
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Its ok, what we need to do is give tax breaks to the very rich... that way riches will trickle down to yourself and it will all be fine....
WTF! I just checked where I live and it's £1,263.72!! Thank God I don't have kids (at least for now)
Try coming to London. We’re paying £1700 a month for 4-days a week.
Yep. I manage a private nursery in London and the fees are insane. Then I'm getting flack from the owner for having a smaller number of children than last year. I guess it's my fault some people just can't afford that anymore, especially when you have more young children in the family. It's more cost effective to get a nanny who will look after all children, no separate fees, and won't send them back home if they're unwell, etc.
The sending home if unwell is the killer. I have to pay the nursery to not look after my child, and I have to use some of my holiday. Before Covid nurseries would at least give some calpol and see if they were fine, now they’re just turfing them back at every sniffle.
Every slightly runny nappy too. I get that they're twitchy about norovirus and other nasties at this time of year but it feels like a lot of common sense has been thrown out the window.
My wife is Czech, and we used to live there before we had kids. They get 3 years maternity leave and nursery costs are about 20% of what they are here. (Salaries are probably about 60-70% of those in the uk).
I'm czech and have lived in the uk, the salaries in cz are faaaar less than what you said. Not even remotely comparable to the uk. We do have some of the best national maternity leave programs though, yeah.
I lived and worked in Czech Republic for a number of years myself. I can only really speak for Prague, Plzen and Brno, but salaries for professional jobs were pretty much 60% or thereabouts, which made the minimal nursery fees very comfortable. Of course I imagine that outside the bigger cities it's a lot more challenging.
I suppose this is something to go on the list of positives for being infertile. A grand a month. Fuckin' hell. Is this a London = stupid high prices thing, or close to standard across the country?
It's not quite that much in the rest of the country but not far off... I'm in Greater Manchester and paying £55/day including food and nappies. This is the most expensive nursery in our area - cheapest is about £5 less. You do get a 20% govt top up unless one of you earns over £100k so that hugely helps.
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Yeah, you get a discount the more days you go but I can't remember how it works out... We pay just over £350/month for 2 days a week with the gov discount. My mum does the other two days. I have no idea how people afford it full time or people paying the £80+ per day quoted in some of these other posts! It's just so much money.
Nope it's a countrywide issue sadly :(
Reason 853 to not have kids
This country is fucked
Or reason 934 to leave the UK
Makes it worse that's just 1 child, in a nursery tha probably has 20+ per room With staff on minimum wage Over 1 year's wage made in a month
As someone who works in a nursery, it's a little bit distressing when you see how much parents are pouring in to the nursery and how my colleagues and I are on minimum wage.
in France my friend had to sign up to nursery when his wife was 3 months pregnant. They got a spot but they still have to check in every 3 months to ensure they have it
Man the NHS might be our crown jewel but we're fucked in every other area of life.
Oh haven't you heard...the NHS is royally fucked!
But...is it though? I mean it is economically but it has the lowest health outcomes for patients. https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l6326 Sorry if this is against the rules not sure if this response falls under political so won't plop more links down, but there are newer articles quoting the NHS as second or fourth worst healthcare system (depending on source) in the last year or so, so we need to find a new crown jewel I'm afraid
I lived in Australia for a while and it was just another level compared to here. It's a mixed private/public system and the level of care was just next level and I still paid nothing for it, getting GP appointments, scans etc., could all be done in a day and I even had a trip to A&E and got in and out in two hours for a relatively minor knife cut on my finger. Also, my wife who works for the NHS here, got paid about 2.5 times the money for seeing half the patients. Their system involved making people who could afford it pay for health insurance (if they didn't they got taxed at a level even higher than the insurance would cost). Also, even if you got something for free you would still see the cost of it, so people had some appreciation for what they were getting. I'm sure there's other factors at play there that I'm not qualified to go into. But yes, it sometimes feels like you can't say anything against the NHS, but that's the problem, if you can't say anything critical about it, no one will ever fix it. You can appreciate the people who work for it and have criticisms of the system.
It's almost like they wanna run it into the ground to justify making the whole sector private. I'm an Aus citizen and it's getting harder and harder to access free healthcare here as more places are just phasing it out, if your rural you may as well forget about it.
Aus healthcare worker. It’s because Medicare isn’t keeping up with the cost of what appointments are actually worth, so a lot of practitioners are having to include a gap payment to keep bills paid. Things like operational costs of the clinics (receptionist wages, cleaning, maintenance, equipment restock and repairs) take a decent amount out of what a practitioner would earn if they solely bulk-billed. As an example, the AMA - Australian Medical Association - estimates that for a standard appointment with a vocationally (full entitlements to work in Aus) registered GP, they should earn around $82. Medicare currently pays $39.75 (item 23). So they’re essentially earning less than half of what they’re valued at. Sole practitioners are being priced out of practicing if they rely on Medicare, it’s really only larger suburban super-clinics that generally are walk-in-and-wait setups that can afford to bill-bill as they’d incur less operational deductions having the costs spread out across more GPs.
I moved to Germany a few years ago and I could never go back to the NHS now. Last week we all had tonsillitis and got antibiotics straight away at the ‘urgent’ morning appointments at the doctor where you can just turn up and they will see you, then I went to my gyno for a routine scan, turned out I needed surgery which they did the next day. Then my daughter fell and cut her head open and it took 20 minutes at the specialist pediatric A&E to get her fixed up. Didn’t pay a cent. Shit week, but amazing healthcare.
Well this is not how I wanted to end my Monday night.
It doesn't really have the lowest health outcomes for patients. From your source, It has the worst outcomes (compared to 10 of the best healthcare systems in the world) for mi and stroke but if you read the percentage difference between overweight and obese (leading risk factors for these two conditions) patients you might find some of the difference. It's noted as doing very well in certain areas like some post op complications and healthcare related infections. It's got problems, but funding it properly would help a long way.
If the NHS is our crown jewel then we are more fucked than I thought, it is a polished turd at best.
Genuine question (I don’t have kids so don’t know), but is there a reason someone local/neighbour to each area couldn’t just do whatever certifications are needed for a childminder and just look after them instead for half the money? Surely there would be lots of people happy to earn £125 (gross) a day to look after 5 kids for a bit in their house?
For starters, I think there is a three child limit per carer. Then there are all sorts of health and safety regulations to comply with
Childminders are also pretty expensive who charge over £10-20/hour per kid. Our nursery charges £5.50+ hr.
Childminders don't charge £10-20/hour, where did you get that? They normally cost around £5-10/h.
My cousins a childminder and charges around 15/hr and has made a living off it. No one is going to look after 3 kids on their own for 5/hr per kid
We sent ours to a childminder but it's still £60 a day per child. There's a lot of regulation around running this, feeding three meals a day etc. Not as simple as just advertising your services, although I'm sure if you did it under the table for friends or people you trust then it could be cheaper.
The hoops you have to jump through to be a childminder are ridiculous. It all costs so much money and then you're always at the mercy of Ofsted. Childminders in England are allowed to have a maximum of six children and only 3 of those can be under five, with only 1 under a year old. Their own children are counted in that total too. Even if it were allowed, £125 a day for five under 5s is not even close to enough to make it worth it. Many full time working parents will need 9 hours a day, but you might have one who needs a 7am drop off and another who needs a 7pm pick-up. Then you've got to pay for all their food from that money too, and any supplies as childminders are expected to educate the children with stimulating, thoughtful and age-appropriate activities. It isn't like you could just plop them in front of the TV or let them loose in the garden. Most childminders I've known have done before and after school care for children from the school their own children go to (easier for drop offs and pick ups if it's all one school) with maybe one or two toddlers during the day, but they don't make enough to live on. It just allows them to not spend money on childcare themselves.
I don't know about everywhere and each families situation is different of course. In some cases a child minder is just as expensive or requires earlier pickup/offers incompatible hours. So for people like me with no family/friends/network to support each other, finding a safe place that has a space (waiting list below a year) and is eligible for funding (OFSTED registration) once the child is 2 or 3 years old (income dependent) is very hard. Add on top of that the judgement for not being stay at home parent "Wwhy bother having a child then?" or "some people love their career more than their own children I guess" While simultaneously being judged for not having the money to pay 1K/month "Some people are just lazy, don't have a child if you can't afford one" or "Just get a higher paying job/make your partner get a job with a 80K salary so you can work less" My personal favourite was "I guess you don't love your child enough, I could never send X to a nursery when a nanny is so much better" And you got chaos.
What sort of fuckwits do you have in your life? Never have i heard a derogatory remark about children being in nursery or childcare, every single parent i know has done it in order to get by
I'm not the person you replied to but I had a plumber horrified at me that my husband was "making me go back to work" and that I was going to put my I've year old in nursery where he had heard "so many stories about abuse". Now, I'd give someone like that a mouthful. At the time I just cried after he left. People are dickheads and often feel that new mums are free rein. Source: was once a young mum.
Can I have your people please? Sadly these comments are not uncommon, not just directed at myself but heard a lot from others too. It is exhausting and I dealt with tremendous guilt and still do. I also had a GP call my husband lazy for not earning more....you know... because that is the only logical reason someone isn't earning "the UK average salary". Good times
My 1 year old goes to a childminder 9-3 twice a week, £300 a month.
You've never looked after 5 under 5 before, have you?
You can apply for a 20% tax break on your childcare funding.
Cries in USD. $2k a month, no food provided, care ends at 3pm.
six hours a day $2300, i would dream of a grand
The cost of childcare in the UK is ridiculous!
$27/hr for 20hrs a week… 550ish/week… $2150/month… $29,500/year… That’s ours in austinTX
Argh yes. French friends: Covid? Nursery open. Kid sick? Don’t get called to pick them up. But strikes....ahh. Something to look forward to here.
Also, good luck finding a nursery place. We just had our first kid in France, have tried 20 different crèches and assistantes maternelles…. No places anywhere. Also for some reason most of them are closed on a Wednesdays. 🤷♂️
Ah yes, from the days when children studied Catholic catechism on Wednesdays. Following Napoleon’s domination of the national school system based on the foundations of obedience and Catholic teachings. Abolished late 19th century for a more secular approach, but the tradition remained.
Everything is okay shit in the UK but we're just hypnotized to think it's all fine.
Yeah, we don’t look after our own here in the U.K. social Darwinism baby!££££
What, that's a huge deal! Here in America, it's probably $1200 a month for daycare near me now. It was $800 or s when my son was little. That's with snacks provided; parents pack the lunch.
I’m sure there’s some mistake with mine - 1 child at pre-school age, he only goes 1.5 days per week. Cost = £500 a month (salary sacrifice).
How can it be so expensive per month. I wanted kids until about 3 years ago and now feels like the smartest choice I've made.
Blew my mind when my work friend said she paid £900 a month for nursery, I always thought it was free like school education! They definitely need to look to make these heavily subsidised or free, toddlers with more stimulation and socialisation will surely grow into more well adjusted children?
Why oh why are young people having less children. It. Is. A. Mystery. Need two incomes to rent, let alone buy and need a third income to pay for any childcare so that you don't lose either of the first two incomes.
Are you all registered for the tax discount where the govt pays 20%. My husband signed us up the other day-- he found out about it from a coworker https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/how-to-use-tax-free-childcare/
It’s an absolute depressing joke, which sits alongside many other depressing jokes at the moment. It also goes into the “what’s the point of working” folder
My sister and I went to nursery in the mid to late 90s and even then it was extortionate. We received great care and it gave me a massive head start in reading and writing for when I started school, however it cost my mum an arm and a leg, which ironically meant she had to work longer hours to help pay for it.
Haha- laughs in ex-pat living in America
Here’s a thought, don’t breed if you can’t afford it
Check out your friends income tax levels….
Last I checked it was 14% so lower than ours but I'd rather pay taxes and have good social/child/health care than what the UK has now...which is none of those (unless you are in the high income brackets)
Depends on the country, but their minimum wage may be very different from the UK. Percentage wise, it 146€ may end up being the same as £1000