Returning to work

Yep I will be paying £800 a month for 3 days a week. It will just be for a few years and I prefer nursery to child minder. Won’t leave me with much money but I want to keep my career moving forward so I will pay the cost

Nursery costs are a killer 😩 I totally feel you… I’m wondering where you are though as that is super cheap compared to what we pay!We are in the Midlands and the cheapest nursery we found for our little one is going to be about £800 per month,for 4 days per week,including the funded hours.So I would be inclined to say your costs are pretty good - though I also totally appreciate it doesn’t feel like that. Don’t forget that you can also get tax free childcare that will “pay” 20% of your nursery bill. I don’t blame you for considering looking after LO yourself,but it may be the case that you lose more in salary than save in childcare (if that makes sense).In all honesty,we have moved our oldest to pre-school as it’s so much cheaper - I would have had to give up work if both of mine were in nursery as the cost for both would far outweigh my salary!

@Rebecca I'm in Nottinghamshire... that's just for 8 days every 4 weeks. I've only gone off the website and we are going to get booked in for a visit and to get proper figures etc. My partner works 7:30-6pm Monday to Friday and Saturday 8-2pm and in my job my hours change every week and I can be working as early as 7am and as late as 11pm with a 30 minute commute each way. I've been in this job since I was 17 so my head is a bit all over the place with it all. I've worked so hard to get the role I'm in now and don't want to loose it but at the same time I don't want my little girl to be constantly in nursery because neither of us are around 🤷🏻‍♀️

Ahhh I see - yes,that does sound pretty much in line with where I am in Derbyshire.It is so difficult trying to balance career and childcare,particularly when nursery is the only option (we have no family nearby to help and neither of us work jobs that are flexible hours or work from home).I could get on my soap box about childcare costs but I did that once on another site and had a whole load of people come at me about it for some strange reason 😂. Maybe if you can take the financial hit,you could drop a day just to spend with her?I did the same after I went back to work with my son so I had a nice balance of having that one day whilst also being able to carry on working. The other thing I’d recommend is looking at a few different childcare settings to get a feel for them before making a decision. Have you considered a childminder?They usually come in substantially cheaper and often are flexible with their hours.It wasn’t the right choice for us but loads of people swear by them

@Kimberley I don't even know why I'm worrying about it now when I've still got 6 months off 😂 Unfortunately working from home isn't an option ... I work in retail management 😅 if I drop down from 40 hours (always more) to a 24 hour colleague I'd be getting what I'd have left after paying childcare and could try and get the hours across 3 days but I know what they'll say trying to get those hours. I wouldn't even know where to look to see what I qualify for. I can only find the 15 hours funded when I search online

You will most likely qualify for tax free childcare too. Use the childcare choices website you can put in your earning etc and it will show what you can get. The cost sounds about right to me. We have 3 days a week booked and that will be £650 ish with the funding already deducted then with tax free it will be around £520 (ballpark figures as i can remember exactly off the top of my head)

We are going to be paying £950/month for 2 days/week 🤯🫨