Shelly Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 I am sure I am not alone in struggling financially with childcare bills. According to the income tax - these giant bills that we pay each month are for luxury items. so my luxury item is hanging on to my job so as to pay the mortgage, etc. until the kids are old enough to go to school - interesting assessment from the Treasury! Have raised this with local MHK - nothing! Have raised this with Treasury Minister - nothing! Does the Government not want us to go back to work? If we do return to work they can then charge us income tax on the child benefit you do get which is just over £1k a year but stuff the £1k+ a month you pay to a Nursery/Childminder. It stinks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Introducing income tax relief against nursery costs could have the effect of increasing the basic cost of nursery childcare. Since, as with housing, the market charges what people can afford. And the nurseries are already doing okay AFAIK. Tax relief might simply have the effect of making nursery childcare less affordable for people on relatively lower incomes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Childcare charges have always been a rip-off. Might I suggest a simple solution i.e. that you give up work and go into the child-minding business, and then you can retire aged 30. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelly Posted October 30, 2006 Author Share Posted October 30, 2006 I don't think it can be any worse than effectively paying out 3 mortgages a month plus there must be an incentive to those who do want to go back to work - we have suffered financially 4 years of this now and gone without so much in order to hold on to good jobs. There must be other people who haven't been able to return to work. If you have your children late - who want to remploy you after kids at 40+ when they go to school. I tell you it does stink. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feelslikeitshould Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 I sometimes think we'd actually better off if we both lived off benefits, we'd get a comms. house and at least be able to spend some time with the kids....I reckon I could get the hubby to become an alcoholic too, you get the higher rate disability allowance for that. Sweet! Everything is about 'disposable' income, when you enquire about a mortgage it all goes great until they ask "So do you have any other outgoings? Childcare etc?......Oh, £900pcm....sorry, the best we can offer you would probably buy you a shed. At the bottom of someone elses garden." But, speak to the department of whoever to try and get a grant for something and they say "No, no, we don't take childcare into account, you have a 'disposable' income of £xxxx a month, we don't care if you're only left with £x after paying rent and childcare. Sorry!" Yes, you'd expect that difference between banks and the Govt but it's a similar story between different departments. You get help from the DHSS and the DoE take it back off you, it's not worth spending all your time filling in forms, hunting for payslips, proof of this and proof of that etc. because the system is full of holes and you can't do anything about it. Tax relief would be nice, but I suppose they justify it in the low rate we pay in the first place, or tell you to apply for family income support or sell the kids or something. Or, we could all hold off from breeding until we own houses and we've saved enough so we can manage perfectly well on none or one income. Pfft, if only someone told me that 7 years ago.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Jampton Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 How much is it to look after some body's child for 10 hours aday? I assume they feed it and change it's nappy regularly then listen to it crying without having much of a break from it all day. There must be some damage to carpets and furniture in the home. I think i'd want more than my current hourly rate. What do you say? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ans Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Everything is about 'disposable' income, when you enquire about a mortgage it all goes great until they ask "So do you have any other outgoings? Childcare etc?......Oh, £900pcm....sorry, the best we can offer you would probably buy you a shed. So you think they should give you a mortgage based on an income that is £900 more than you actually earn? That would be pretty stupid of them. It's an outgoing expense and it's no different than your food bill, gas bill or petrol money. I too have to pay childcare and I have a substantial mortgage that I manage to pay on my own. I make sacrifices, do without things and accept that I simply can't afford to do everything i want. I accepted these restrictions before I had kids and before I bought my house. Seriously, maybe you should have given consideration to the financial implications of having children before you popped them out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dooahhdoo Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 How much is it to look after some body's child for 10 hours aday? I assume they feed it and change it's nappy regularly then listen to it crying without having much of a break from it all day. There must be some damage to carpets and furniture in the home. I think i'd want more than my current hourly rate. What do you say? Shelley is talking about tax relief of the fees she has to pay for childcare. These fees more than cover changing nappies, listening to it crying all day without a break and the damage that children do to carpets and furniture. You dont seem to have the same perception of child minders that I have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feelslikeitshould Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 How much is it to look after some body's child for 10 hours aday? I assume they feed it and change it's nappy regularly then listen to it crying without having much of a break from it all day. There must be some damage to carpets and furniture in the home. I think i'd want more than my current hourly rate. What do you say? Yes, if you were going to look after 1 child and there a rules and regs as to how kids/adult you can have depending on the age group. If I remember rightly, it's 3 under 2s per member of staff. If you provide the nappies and food, it's about £25/day, if they do the food and nappies about £28/day. I'd £75/day is all right, the salary for nursery nurses is probably £15,000 maximum. Then you add to that all the older kids, the school drop off services, the school hols etc.....Which is how they make their money IMO. It's not too bad once they're in school but you still have to think about the 20 weeks hols they get and at over £200/wk/child, it can get bloody expensive! We had to take our hols seperately for 2 years, the only time we had off together as a family was bank holidays, so it's not your finances that take a battering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feelslikeitshould Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Everything is about 'disposable' income, when you enquire about a mortgage it all goes great until they ask "So do you have any other outgoings? Childcare etc?......Oh, £900pcm....sorry, the best we can offer you would probably buy you a shed. So you think they should give you a mortgage based on an income that is £900 more than you actually earn? That would be pretty stupid of them. It's an outgoing expense and it's no different than your food bill, gas bill or petrol money. I too have to pay childcare and I have a substantial mortgage that I manage to pay on my own. I make sacrifices, do without things and accept that I simply can't afford to do everything i want. I accepted these restrictions before I had kids and before I bought my house. Seriously, maybe you should have given consideration to the financial implications of having children before you popped them out. I was using that as an example to point out the difference between how banks and the Govt view childcare costs. But to take your point, at the time, we were paying rent on a property that was higher than that of a mortgage repayment on a 1st time buyer house over a 25year period. Some banks will give you a mortgage on what you can afford to pay, most do not. Yes, I did think about that Ans but things change, situations, circumstances, people. I expect you'd be aware of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haX0red_Account Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Everything is about 'disposable' income, when you enquire about a mortgage it all goes great until they ask "So do you have any other outgoings? Childcare etc?......Oh, £900pcm....sorry, the best we can offer you would probably buy you a shed. So you think they should give you a mortgage based on an income that is £900 more than you actually earn? That would be pretty stupid of them. It's an outgoing expense and it's no different than your food bill, gas bill or petrol money. I too have to pay childcare and I have a substantial mortgage that I manage to pay on my own. I make sacrifices, do without things and accept that I simply can't afford to do everything i want. I accepted these restrictions before I had kids and before I bought my house. Seriously, maybe you should have given consideration to the financial implications of having children before you popped them out. I was using that as an example to point out the difference between how banks and the Govt view childcare costs. But to take your point, at the time, we were paying rent on a property that was higher than that of a mortgage repayment on a 1st time buyer house over a 25year period. Some banks will give you a mortgage on what you can afford to pay, most do not. Yes, I did think about that Ans but things change, situations, circumstances, people. I expect you'd be aware of that. FATHERS 4 POMPOSITY ^^^ ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gladys Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Thankfully, I am now emerging from the financial constraint of childcare costs, only really need childcare for the long holidays. Unfortunately, it is an ongoing cost that you have to swallow. In the UK, however, there was tax relief certainly in the latter stages of my daughter's nursery care, it worked out that one month was free a year, or something similar. But I can't remember just how it worked for the second child as he was only at nursery for a few months before we left the UK. Its not so much the cost that I find difficult, but the lack of adequate after school provision for the 6+s. A few nurseries run after school facilities, but that is not quite right for bigger children and I am not aware of any after school clubs actually run in the school grounds to look after kids between the end of the schoolday and collection at the end of the normal working day. The island is very well catered for under school childcare but not so well for schoolies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoneWolf Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Thankfully, I am now emerging from the financial constraint of childcare costs, only really need childcare for the long holidays. Unfortunately, it is an ongoing cost that you have to swallow. In the UK, however, there was tax relief certainly in the latter stages of my daughter's nursery care, it worked out that one month was free a year, or something similar. But I can't remember just how it worked for the second child as he was only at nursery for a few months before we left the UK.Its not so much the cost that I find difficult, but the lack of adequate after school provision for the 6+s. A few nurseries run after school facilities, but that is not quite right for bigger children and I am not aware of any after school clubs actually run in the school grounds to look after kids between the end of the schoolday and collection at the end of the normal working day. The island is very well catered for under school childcare but not so well for schoolies! A big change from the normative white heterosexual family upon which most of the Island's Social Policy still seems to be based. Dont you realise women are supposed to stay at home and men are supposed to be bread winners? Seriously this is exactly the sort of issue which candidates for election should be addressing in their manifestos under the general title of Social Policy. The world has changed since the 1950s. Social Policy has changed as well but nowhere near as fast as it should have done. In the meantime working mothers, especially single working mothers have an unenviable struggle to face every day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gladys Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Like many other women LW, I am the breadwinner, but the way childcare is biased towards under school-age children, it would seem I should give up work when the kids go to school! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoneWolf Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Like many other women LW, I am the breadwinner, I was supporting your point of view Gladys. Social Policy hasnt kept up with changes in society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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