Trivial things you don't understand/mildly annoy you

[Batch]

Get a live in nanny 

I've tried that but didn't get far with the other half.

I suppose at 16 the youngest is old enough to look after himself.

[Ginginho]

Email through just now to tell us our nursery bills for our little lad will be going up due to the increase in the minimum and national living wage.

Looking at £1,460 per month for a full time spot, which we need due to both of us having to work full time. We are in a slightly fortunate position where we get some of that discounted but I really don't know how people do it. It's tough out there!

It's crazy, isn't it?

My kids are 9 and 6 now, but both were full time nursery, so for around 4 years solid we were paying £1100+ a month. This was pretty much my wife's wage gone, but she received good maternity benefits and her pension and holiday entitlement are also very good, so didn't want to give that up.
She's now doing school hours at the same job.

You can get some tax free benefit from the government, which saves around 20%.

[Boydy]

My brother came extremely close to having to quit his job of over 10 years when he had 2 in nursery. Both working full time and it cost something like £200 more than his take home for the kids to be in nursery.

If our mum hadn't had to take early retirement and offered to look after them once a week he'd likely be in a job he hates rather than the one he has always loved.

It's just ludicrous how much these places cost. I get when you have kids you make sacrifices etc but the idea of losing a full pay packet just so you can stay working is soul destroying to me.

[4D]

£1,500 a month or roughly £75 a day 
I wonder how much of that is admin expenses 

[horlock07]

We had that decision to make when our young 'un reached that age as basically my missus would have been working just to pay the nursery fees. Thankfully we could live on my money alone for a bit so that’s what we did and she spent more time with the small person, whilst also setting up her own work from home business.

Much as with old folks homes, nursery's are a massive cash generator, got a client who runs a franchise and they make so much cash I don't think they know what to do with it!

[Boydy]

All whilst paying the nursery staff themselves minimum wage.


And care is even worse. Minimum wage for staff who are potentially getting covered in human waste, punched, kicked, put in headlocks, thrown down stairs whilst the company get £2k per week per resident.

[Nemo]

Not sure nurseries are making a ton of cash tbh, although I'm open to being disproved. Childcare ratios here are very low - for under 2s you have to have one staff member per three children. So you have to cover 1/3 of a persons wage each before you even think about overheads.

It only goes up to 1:4 (they're looking at 1:5) at the moment once they turn 2.

Most of Europe either has much higher ratios or subsidises the shit out of nursery care or both.

[Leggett]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/feb/27/crypto-mogul-bitter-battle-bedford-town-real-bedford

Been aware of this prick for a while now, came across as an insufferable clueless arsehole in a Price of Football interview a couple of years ago. What a pity for a not one but two long-standing clubs to be eaten up by this crypto bollocks.

[Bedford Red]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/feb/27/crypto-mogul-bitter-battle-bedford-town-real-bedford

Been aware of this prick for a while now, came across as an insufferable clueless arsehole in a Price of Football interview a couple of years ago. What a pity for a not one but two long-standing clubs to be eaten up by this crypto bollocks.

Read about it a lot in our local news. Bedford Town are top of their league in tier 3, had just under 2000 turn up for their last home game against Kettering Town which they won 3-1 (Nile Ranger still playing for Kettering and played that night).

Most Bedford Town fans I know are not happy about it, but sounds like it will happen and not a lot anyone can do.

[Audrey]

When I lived in Greece my grandson went to nursery €15 per day, lunch included.

[Cookie]

My boy's nursery fees are 1700, soon to go up. The hours are good though, not sure what we'll do once school starts, will probably have to pay a childminder for pick ups and drop offs. Have no idea how you're supposed to work full time with kids and I only have one of them.

[Samdy Gray]

£1,500 a month or roughly £75 a day 
I wonder how much of that is admin expenses 

Yes it's a lot of money over a month but do you lot moaning about the cost really think that ~£10ph for childcare is unreasonable?

[Bob's Orange]

Sorry to jump over the childcare costs, and wanted to ask about water bills. Ours has jumped from £78 per month to £96 per month. That's with Anglian Water and we're not on a meter.

2 questions I suppose, does that sound high? (My dad is on a meter and apparently his bills are over half as much with Thames i think) and should I try and get onto a meter?

[jayohaitchenn]

Yes it's a lot of money over a month but do you lot moaning about the cost really think that ~£10ph for childcare is unreasonable?

Yes. Cheaper childcare is better for everyone. We have the 5th highest childcare costs in the world.

https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/07/highest-childcare-costs-by-country/

I say this as someone who never paid much as we were lucky enough to be in a position where my wife chose not to work while the children were very young so I don't have a horse in the game.

[RobertT]

Despite their financial shenanigans, Thames are generally the lowest per month water utility due to the economies of scale supporting London.  Most of the regional ones are nearly always up to double the cost.