Finding affordable childcare with childcare.co.uk

As a Mum of three, I know just how expensive children can be. In some ways, I’ve been very lucky to be able to work from home for the last 11 years. Whilst it has its tricky moments, we do save a fortune on childcare costs! But, I know that not every parent has that option. Childcare fees are notoriously expensive, and whilst we obviously want the very best childcare for our children, we also need to make sure that it’s affordable.

When I first started working from home, I ran my own childminding business. It meant I was able to work from home whilst still looking over my own children. It was the perfect solution for around five years until I became pregnant with our third child. It was at that point that I decided to stop childminding. As a childminder, I advertised my services on a childcare website called childcare.co.uk. The site allows you to search for a specific type of childcare provider within your area. It worked really well for me as a childminder and I found the vast majority of my clients through this website.

What are your options?

When you first start looking for somebody to take care of your children, you need to know exactly what kind of childcare you need. You might be surprised at all the options available on the childcare.co.uk site!

The main options are nanny, childminder, nursery or holiday club. But you can also find all of these too:

If you’ve got a young child, then you’ll probably be looking for a childminder or nursery. Childminders tend to be cheaper than nurseries but you’ll need to think about the kind of environment you want your child to be in. Would you prefer them to be in a home-from-home setting where they spend time with one carer and a small number of other children? Or would you prefer them to mix with a larger group of children in a nursery setting. There are positives to both types of setting so it really boils down to personal choice.

Important things to think about

Location

You need to make sure that the location suits your needs. Is it on your way to work or fairly easy to divert to? You’re going to be doing this journey a lot so it needs to work!

Hours

If you need flexible hours then you need to be sure that the setting is OK with that. Childminders tend to be open earlier in the morning and stay open later into the evening, whereas as most nurseries will have fixed opening times. You can easily see opening times on the childcare providers profile.

Cost

If you’re anything like me, then money is probably the very first thing you worry about when it comes to childcare. It is notoriously expensive! When my eldest child was in nursery full time back in 2007, it was costing us nearly £700 every month. I know that is just a drop in the ocean now for many parents as costs have increased and we live in the North which is generally far cheaper than the South. But, this was a huge chunk of our income and we really did struggle to make ends meet. This was one of the reasons I eventually turned to working from home.

As I mentioned earlier, childminders are generally cheaper than nurseries but you’ll need to get a few quotes when you start doing your research.

Childminder Fees

Nursery Fees

These sets of prices were both taken from a nursery and childminder in the same area – you can see that overall a childminder would work out cheaper for an 8 hour day with the childminder working out at £28/day or £140/week.

You also need to know about any charges that apply if your child doesn’t attend. Most providers will still charge if your child is off sick or on holiday but some will agree a 50% fee to hold their space. Just be sure you know exactly what you’ll need to pay.

Reviews

You should always make your own mind up about any childcare provider but you can get a good idea about them by the reviews. The childcare.co.uk site allows users to leave reviews and they’re really handy! You can often get little snippets of really useful information. For example, this one tells me that the nursery uses an app to share photos and updates with parents, I really love that!

Contacting Childcare Providers

You’ll want to go and see a few providers before you make a decision about the best place for your child. You can do this through the childcare.co.uk website. You can create a free account and then just click the “send a message” button to send a message directly to the childcare provider. It makes the whole process really simple.

If you’re currently looking for childcare then I really recommend making use of childcare.co.uk. It’s completely free to use and you can quickly see lots of providers within a given radius of your postcode.