My husband and I are going to start trying to conceive next month. I have been looking into child care costs/benefits/rebates etc to prepare for the financial cost. I used the centrelink online estimator and it says that we will be eligible for basically $20/week benefit if I go back to work full time, meaning that our total childcare cost for the full week will be approximately $430 (based on $90 per day which I was told is the average around my area - Smithfield). This works out at over 23k per year and then less the rebate of 7500 (i think it was).
Basically my question is, is this right? How do mothers afford to go back to work full time when they are paying out this much money for child care? I know it is a widely debated topic but $430 per week is more than our current mortgage! Before I started researching I honestly thought it would be 2-300, not over 400! Aside from staying home or working part time does anyone have any tips or tricks on affordability/child cares/government assistance?
6 Replies
I always thought I would go back to work, I have always worked and I have done a lot of study to get the jobs I am qualified for. I haven't worked now for two years. The first by choice as my parental leave and savings played a big part in that decision and now after having my second child, Centrelink have decreased the threshold of the main earner making me qualify for zero assistance and a small bit of pocket change should I choose to put one or both in day-care. I absolutely underestimated the whole going back to work thing. Thank goodness my partner earns enough to get us through and put a roof over our heads.
Even my mother said, back when she had me and my brother it was expected that at least one wage would go nearly all towards day-care costs and that I am lucky I get to stay home (I am not putting my entire wage on daycare costs for someone else to look after my kids.)
The people I know it works for, either are under the threshold and get good assistance and good CCB CCR rebates or have family they can leave the kids with or put one wage on the care. You sound like you are in a similar situation to me with the $20, not even the Centrelink lady was sympathetic, she said to me.."plenty of people are worse off than you."
I plan on doing part-time work this year around my partners job. I also studied over the past three years to make sure there are no big gaps in my resume for when I go back. Hopefully this year sometime. I hope you have better luck than me finding assistance tricks and if you do, update us.
Is there any chance you can go back to working 4 days rather than 5? You will find that daycare costs will reduce immensely!
Try family day care. I'm an fdc educator and based on my fees, you wouldn't pay that a week even if you were to pay full fees! Every educator is different with the rates they charge, and I'd be at the lower end ( based on area etc) but an example, I have a family with 1 child in care. They get roughly 24% ccb, so after ccb and the child care rebate, they pay me roughly $200 a fn in fees.
Fdc is great in that you are charged for the hours you use, not for the full 12 hour day that centres charge for.. After you've used your 50 hours care a week, you'll pay full fees for whatever hours over the 50 you use.. Alternatively 4 days in a centre, you would pay significantly less fees.
We have a 7 year old (full time school) and 3 year old that starts kindy in Feb. Both of our sons have been in full time childcare since they were 1 and we both work full time.
At present we pay $212.50 a week for our youngest son and $95 a week for before and after school care for our eldest. This will change again when our youngest starts school and we will be paying part time childcare and part time before and after school care.
Our combined salaries are $200K so we we are only eligible for the childcare rebate. Please note the above costs are with the 50% rebate taken off. It’s a big outlay each week but it works in our favour to have me working full time.
The pluses are that my career worth increases and it’s a short time cost until they start school.
I do feel though that you need to be earning over $60K a year to make this a viable option. Can part time be something you consider?
We alternated work. My partner worked days and I worked nights, there was a crossover period of just 3-4 hours that we could cover with family that did stay at home.
Yep thats correct i managed to change my roster so i work on my partners days off so my boys go only 3 days a week and im paying $450 a week for both for 3 days its alot of money and im questioning whether its worth it as i dont get any ccb or pensions just the rebate if its more than 60% of your wage its not worth it as were struggling more now im at work than when im was at home :(