Discontent #9 food, energy, transport, cost of living, society etc

[heretoreaditall2019]

How on earth do they charge you days they don't have the child?! I never stop to be amazed reading here.

I get that it’s annoying but a nursery couldn’t operate without doing this. They have fixed overheads and staff are rotaed well in advance to keep child:adult ratios and by their nature illnesses are unexpected and sudden so not possible to provide enough notice to change this. It really sucks and is yet another hurdle for working parents but it’s not as if the nursery are profiteering from it as they still have to pay their staff and overheads.

(Profit is another problem and why we deserve a nationalised/universal provision but hey ho).

 

[Romy]

Your nurseries are all private?

 

[Thank(space)you]

Your nurseries are all private?

In the UK - yes AFAIK

 

[Jc456]

Your nurseries are all private?

I just had a look, there's 2 local authority nursery's in Devon. They only take 2-4 year olds and open term time (38 weeks) 9am-3pm. There's also 2 all through schools that take on from 2 and the other age 3 right through to age 19

 

[smellsofbiscuits]

How on earth do they charge you days they don't have the child?! I never stop to be amazed reading here.

I can't expand much more on @heretoreaditall2019 comment. However I do use a childminder so I do feel a bit better in that respect. I'd likely resent it more if it was going to a nursery paying low wages (although the hourly rate for childminders doesn't add up much more).

 

[Brigitjonesbuttcheek]

My daughter goes to a preschool, it's only open term time. They take babies from 18 months and they don't provide lunch. They charge only £30 per day. But most kids are there on the free funded hours. They are reliant on charity donation and local authority funding to keep running. They are very good though. But not really practical if you work.

 

[smellsofbiscuits]

Your nurseries are all private?

Yes if you want to place your child(ren) in one before they turn 3 and qualify for 30 hours funding. I'm in Scotland and every child qualifies for this regardless of their parents' income. In some cases children qualify before they're 2 but that's usually due to underlying issues rather than allowing parents (usually mums because let's be honest it's rarely dads) to return to work.

 

[Elle Woods]

For anyone who has dogs - download the "biscuit" app and use it to track your dog walks. You earn biscuits each walk which you can then exchange for various rewards. I've only been using it for a couple of weeks and this morning I have exchanged 850 biscuits for a £10 Asda voucher which I'll use towards some of my Christmas food shop - only a small amount but it will help The app is free and there's loads of rewards to choose from, I saw Tesco/Morrisons/M&S vouchers available on there too. You do have to walk regularly to earn good amounts of biscuits, but I figured I'd be walking my dog 2x a day anyway so I might as well be earning some rewards for doing so

 

[Chickenandgravy]

Me and my partner have to work opposite shifts with me going part time over 4 days, so we can avoid childcare costs. We barely see each other and at the weekends we have his kids from a previous relationship, so it's a bit tit but If I put her in nursery it would cost me £1000 a month so I would have barely anything left over .
I can't see anything changing though

 

[sasbeep]

How on earth do they charge you days they don't have the child?! I never stop to be amazed reading here.

They can’t just fill a nursery space for a day or two.
When you sign your child to a nursery you agree to pay £X for X days a month. It’s not the nurseries fault the child is sick. And I say this as someone who’s child spent probably 5 full days in nursery in November. I obviously had to pay the full month. It’s just part of it.

 

[pixxyy]

Me and my partner have to work opposite shifts with me going part time over 4 days, so we can avoid childcare costs. We barely see each other and at the weekends we have his kids from a previous relationship, so it's a bit tit but If I put her in nursery it would cost me £1000 a month so I would have barely anything left over .
I can't see anything changing though

My Mum & Dad did that when I was growing up, Mum worked on the 999 lines for BT so worked crazy hours through the night. Then she moved to Parcel Force & did 5-10. Hardly saw my Dad but great for me as all inset days/holidays & if I was ill she was there.

 

[mummy_3]

work wise, I used to do 8pm-1am in a supermarket for 18 months then changed departments and did 5pm-10pm. Now im on the same department but long weekend shifts. Im home during the week for the kids (2 have special needs and 1 of them has alot of meltdowns about going to school so manages 3 days a week at best) means Im not here friday evening or saturday/sunday but its how we have to do it to manage!

 

[bowtiesarecool]

I get that it’s annoying but a nursery couldn’t operate without doing this. They have fixed overheads and staff are rotaed well in advance to keep child:adult ratios and by their nature illnesses are unexpected and sudden so not possible to provide enough notice to change this. It really sucks and is yet another hurdle for working parents but it’s not as if the nursery are profiteering from it as they still have to pay their staff and overheads.

(Profit is another problem and why we deserve a nationalised/universal provision but hey ho).

This is all true, but nurseries have also been known to send staff home unpaid if too many children are off and they're technically not needed. So whilst we sometimes worked more than our rota hours, many times we didn't. And they get away with it on the basis that as long as it balances out over the month, it doesn't matter. This is what the one I worked at did on a regular basis.

 

[IfTheCapFits]

Finally gave in & turned our heating on yesterday. All electric with under floor (very poor installation on a new build & nothing further can be done to improve how it runs), on how it's running over 8 hours per day/night, just worked out it's going to cost £800‐£950± per month bloody wonderful!

 

[Yel]

I wish just once you'd hear "housing is too expensive" rather than the issues being blamed exclusively on people not being paid enough.

You fix housing and so many other issues are fixed. But neither labour or the Tories did anything other than keep it rolling out of control. The benefactors are the financial institutions and speculators. As much as people like the idea of how much their house "earns" each year as it makes them feel rich with paper gains, it does so much damage to the whole of society.

 

[Folkevermore]

I wish just once you'd hear "housing is too expensive" rather than the issues being blamed exclusively on people not being paid enough.

You fix housing and so many other issues are fixed. But neither labour or the Tory's did anything other than keep it rolling out of control. The benefactors are the financial institutions and speculators. As much as people like the idea of how much their house "earns" each year as it makes them feel rich with paper gains, it does so much damage to the whole of society.

I earn what is considered a good salary by many, and it should be, but my disposable income is crippled by rent costs (soon to be mortgage costs). Housing prices are definitely the issue

 

[Yel]

I'll never stop saying the housing crisis is the everything crisis. Average house price down £7'000 last month. It was inevitable with how out of control they are. The sooner they fall and bottom out the better IMO. Not that I want anyone to face any hardship, but there has been untold misery over the last 20 years with them out of control, and this was largely ignored.

 

[Codiaeum]

I'm in a new job since September and part of contract was a "work from home allowance" to cover the extra costs people have from working in this mode. They specifically hired for people working from home and there's no office I could actually go to.
Well, today they announced that that allowance likely will be taken away Don't get me wrong, the salary is still very nice and I didn't sign because of that allowance, but taking it away seems like a bad move. Especially as it was phrased as help for extra costs and those extra costs will only be kicking off further now.

 

[DameKitty]

I'm in a new job since September and part of contract was a "work from home allowance" to cover the extra costs people have from working in this mode. They specifically hired for people working from home and there's no office I could actually go to.
Well, today they announced that that allowance likely will be taken away Don't get me wrong, the salary is still very nice and I didn't sign because of that allowance, but taking it away seems like a bad move. Especially as it was phrased as help for extra costs and those extra costs will only be kicking off further now.

Is that not them just covering the government allowance/tax break you get or is it more? I get around £26 a month working from home allowance which is now paid for by my company and they claim it back but before they set that up we claimed it individually through the government? If its more than that then it sounds like a benefit they were giving you separately.

 

[Anne1448]

I'll never stop saying the housing crisis is the everything crisis. Average house price down £7'000 last month. It was inevitable with how out of control they are. The sooner they fall and bottom out the better IMO. Not that I want anyone to face any hardship, but there has been untold misery over the last 20 years with them out of control, and this was largely ignored.

The housing crisis is at the core of so many issues in Ireland :

- low fertility rate because parents cannot afford to buy family homes
- drastic staff shortages because rents are too high
- low disposable income to inject in the economy because rent eats it all