Early childcare costs: A small price to pay?

Katey Pigden muses on returning to work and the costs and investments she’s had to make in her son’s childcare.

I feel a celebration may be in order. My son’s nursery fees have now dropped below the £1,000 per month mark. 

He’s in full time – five days a week. The invoice for September came in at £995.87. It’s the small things in life, right?

The celebration will probably be short lived. Come January the fees will most likely go up again. But I may as well enjoy it for now. 

I won’t lie, when he first started nursery – shortly after turning one – the monthly cost did make me wince. 

For the first six months he was in four days a week. The invoice was around £1,200 per month.

I was officially back at work full time but had so much annual leave to use up, I booked every Friday off for the rest of the year.

Having been used to each other’s company every day for the first 12 months of his life, it was quite the adjustment for both of us. So we made the most of having a day to enjoy together ahead of family time at the weekend. 

Of course I had to complicate matters and change jobs before the year was out, which meant Fridays were no longer available to me. My husband took the opportunity to use some of his annual leave and they made it their fun day instead. 

When January rolled around our little one started going in the full five days. We had to adopt the brace position for the £1,500+ monthly invoice.

It remained that until the 15 hours a week funded childcare kicked in. Well, 570 hours stretched over the year, so it worked out around 11 hours a week free for us. 

And now, we’re benefitting from 30-hours funding – 1,140 hours a year so roughly 22 hours a week. I do take a bit of an issue with the childcare support being marketed as 15 hours and 30 hours free a week, when it doesn’t really equate to that. Not for our family, at least. I know it’s based on term-times but that doesn’t apply to all nursery or childcare settings. 

I remember watching the Budget in 2023 from home while I was on maternity leave (don’t get me started on statutory mat pay – or at least let’s save that for another day). I know how to have a good time!

It was the first time in more than a decade I wasn’t tuning into a Budget for work reasons. Old habits die hard.

My ears pricked up when the topic of additional childcare support featured as part of the chancellor’s speech and the then government’s plan to get people back to work. 

Once I was confronted with nursery fees, I could see why it may factor in as one of the reasons many parents may choose not to return to employment. 

Best kept secret?

I do take advantage of the government’s ‘tax free’ childcare account – it may be confusingly named and a mild inconvenience to have to reconfirm every few months but it does make a difference. 

For every 80p I pay in, the government tops up 20p – up to a maximum of £2,000 per yer (£500 every three months).

It seems one of those best kept secrets with reports of around 800,000 families who are eligible not taking the benefit. 

If you have any clients this may be of use to, it’s certainly worth flagging just in case. 

Do I begrudge paying nursery fees? Absolutely not. My son is thriving. He loves nursery and is doing incredibly well. 

The staff are amazing. It’s not easy looking after one child, let alone several. I have no idea how they do it. He’s well cared for and well fed. He’s learning, interacting with his friends, feels safe, secure and content. I couldn’t ask for more.

He comes out smiling and enjoys telling us all about his day. It’s lovely to see. 

I can’t help but wonder though how much of the fees filter down to those doing all the work. I very much doubt those who work in childcare are the best paid people on the planet. I think they are worth every penny they do earn and probably more besides it. 

That doesn’t mean it’s been easy to fork out so much each month. As I spend a lot of my time writing or talking about financial advice, pensions, planning for retirement and the like, it’s got me thinking more about the competing financial goals and priorities people face. 

Is it really that surprising we have a stark advice gap or that pension engagement is lower than we’d like it to be? 

For those with more immediate financial commitments to focus on, it’s no wonder they may think their financial future is a problem for another day or even another decade. 

And yet the earlier we start, the better chance we have of achieving a comfortable retirement. 

Like many parents, I couldn’t help but feel guilty when the time came to return to work. It was something I wanted to do though. It’s been good for me, as much as nursery has been for my son. I may even teach him a thing or two eventually about working hard to achieve things, who knows?

Early childhood costs – a small price to pay? Not exactly in terms of money going out but it has been an investment of sorts. 

Can I believe I need to start thinking about primary schools for next year? No, I’m in complete denial. Will I miss paying the nursery invoices? I reckon I’ll get over it.