Finances

I’d look at another childcare setting. From September our childcare bill halves with the funded hours x

My lo currently does 11.5hrs a week, there nursery is open all year, so they space funding like this and you pay miscellaneous on top per day.
I increased the hours so he goes 2x full days and 2x half days from September which makes 30 hrs a week, but I know the way they space it out means we would pay extra I'm just shocked the invoice is double what we currently pay!
I didn't get a breakdown of the invoice so I have requested one to review the costs, just seems excessive at double the cost 🙃

@Yasmin have you kept the hours at 15hrs or have you used 30hrs? X

So I have just had my second in April. My first will be using 30 free hours from January as she turns 3 in Nov. Currently using 15. Baby will going to nursery around 10 months but for half a day and then 2 half days until July when they have space for 3 days. We use the 20% tax free form the government too. We had a girl and then a boy. I got loads of clothes from a friend who had a boy, and then got stuff off FB and vinted as and when I've needed it. Im using as much of my daughters stuff as I can including all her old units, cot, next to me and toys. We brought a new pram, car seat and then stuff for formula feeding to make our lives easier.

I condense my hours at work to give me a day off in the week and the grandparents have the kids so we are also using the stretched funding all year around. It is going to be more than we spend now, but not horrendously so. I put all their child benefit towards childcare. X

If your nursery fees have doubled I would be looking into that! How are they justifying it?
You make it work with 2 and you just have to do what you can!

My son goes 3 full days a week for 10 hours a day. If he went only 2 would he completely free, also goes all year. We also live in Essex and have some of the highest childcare fees in the country.

There are 100% cheaper alternatives for childcare out there - yours sounds like they’re ripping you off if it’s doubled tbh.

We were using 15 and paying £560 a month, our septmeber invoice uses 30 hours and is around £250 x

Sounds like they stretch the hours so you’ll be getting 22 hours a week plus consumable fees but if they’ve doubled sounds like something isn’t right. Bring it up with them

Yeah im waiting on an breakdown of the invoice, but I'm thinking about it and it is probably about right, im gonna have to pay £380 on top of the 20% tax allowance and free funding we get for the 30hrs, where as atm im paying £180, in the scheme of things it could be alot worse x

We spaced them out so they only had 6 months at nursery at the same time.

I never understand this, and why so many nursery charges so different. Both my children go 2 x a week 8:30-4pm and it’s completely free thanks to the funding. They even said I could do another day and it would still be free. We do provide our own nappies, wipes, formula, lunch etc but I am happy to do that if it means not paying for anything!

Yeah it is annoying, he loves nursery and I know it's really beneficial for him so I don't really want to reduce his time their and was looking forward to him being able to have more time at nursery for his own benefit really, seems the only option is work to pay for it or stay at home and don't have him go nursery which I definitely don't want as I don't have a great deal of friends with children or even friends, so i feel nursery is a must for his sake 😅

It's carnage isn't it? Maybe a babysitter rather than nursery? Or a part time nanny?

For us we simply had to make more money, not stretch what we already had.

Between babies and during my pregnancy I worked for promotion and upped my salary. My husband took on more contracts and we just hammered through. The difference was enough to save for another and is enough to make sure we can still go on holiday and have fun xx

Had our second when the first started school 😂