Honestly, how much can you earn?

I have been fighting with hubby as he thinks I can't earn enough money to cover my wage if i was to quit my full time job and move to childminding so I can spend more time with our girl.

I currently earn £326 per week (after tax) working 36 hours. We have one 3.5 year old. We currently have to have her go to nursery 3 afternoons a week which is free during term time and around £67 in school holidays.

Am I dreaming that I could even earn close to that being a childminder? Around here childminders range from £3.50-£5 per hour.

Oh I feel for you , and there isnt a definite answer.
When I first started i made much much less than you earn now - but as my business grew I now earn a substantial amount more. I do also work a 60 +hr week though!
Like you I had my own 3 yr old when I started , so my spaces / earnings were limited .
If you have fill your ey spaces you will take a similar amount to your current earnings - but remember you will have expenses to come off this. You can also take on older children before and after school or in holidays to supplement your income.
Like any self employment it's a risk - buinesses and reputations take a time to build , and things change so fast - you can be full one minute and then frantically advertising the next.

It is difficult to equate what you can earn working and what you can earn childminding because some of our expenses we pay anyway. If you work 40 hours it is 10% of total cost of rent, water and Council tax which you would be paying anyway, and 33% of gas/elec/oil/wood (heating fuel) which you would use more of childminding. 10% of income as wear and tear. I was better off childminding than working when I started with a 3 & 7 year old but I have had quiet times sometimes lasting a few months with little income as it is not secure, I have taken part-time work during these times in a pub and family centre, but when busy I can make more money minding than I can working but I do work longer hours than working, but on paper I earn little for the hours and work I put in.

I'm going to offer a different way for you to approach things, because they way I started was different lol. We had nothing to begin with!

I had a very well paid job before becoming unemployed.
As a result, I had no choice but to make some serious cutbacks, as we had no money coming in.
Electric and gas suppliers were the first to change (uswitch is a good comparison site to check) saving over £100 per month!
Mobile phone was next, then broadband, with car insurance after that.
We didn't have a virgin or sky package, but if you do, it may be worth looking at that and seeing if you really do use what you're paying for or if it'd be worth looking around for a better deal (nowtv maybe?) or cancelling it completely.

Once I'd sorted my regular outgoings, I looked at my food bill and omg, was that a massive surprise!
I checked my 3 previous months bank statements and I swear I'd kept the local shop in business single-handedly!
From that point I made a weekly food menu, checked the cupboards/freezer for things I already had, and made a shopping list, so if it wasn't on the list, we didn't need it lol
I admit it probably took me a few weeks to get myself into that frame of mind, and doing online shopping definitely helped to recondition my spending habits too, but now it's second nature, as I carried it on when I started minding.

It's only when you actually sit down and go through your spending habits you realise how much you actually 'need' versus how much you think you spend/need.

Moving on.....
When I looked into childminding again (I'd done it before but not with my heart and soul like now), I worked out I needed just one before and after schooler to make it worth my while.

My first year was hard - I had no one for nearly 7 months, but then I signed a schoolie, followed by a 3 half days per week shift worker.
We thought we'd won the lottery haha
These were followed a few months later with a part timer and 2 more for school holidays.

So a year after starting, I was bringing in more than you're asking to cover, far less than I'd earnt being employed, but financially we were, and have been so far to date, much better off than we had been for a very very long time.


So, my advice would be to cutback at home first and get used to living on a tight budget - it's good training for any lean times whilst being self employed ;-)
Find out what local minders are charging, and what they're including in their fees - some, like me, include everything, like nappies, wipes, food, trips etc, some charge extra for food, some ask parents to provide everything.
Once you work out the route you want to take with fees, you can work out what your costs are likely to be.
From there you can guesstimate what your income is likely to be worst case, and all variations from there.

'Average' costs can be anything from a third, to half, to 60% or more which makes it hard to have an average lol
A minder that provides food using only organic food from waitrose will have higher costs than one that doesn't.

Good luck

I also came to childminding from a slightly different angle which hopefully will help.

I went back to work 3 days per week commuting to London so childcare and train ticket took £75 per day from my wages and I was left with about £400 per month (if I remember correctly!)...quite a drop from my 35k per year full time pre-child career...

So all j needed was 2 children 1 day per week and no childcare costs myself to be better off...I had to give 3 months notice so as soon as I was registered (which took a good 4 months I handed in my notice and started advertising.
I was lucky to get 2 children (brother and sister) needing one day per week just when I finished my job. They'd looked at my childcare.co.uk profile but by chance saw me at a birthday party my son was at and got in touch after chatting to me and our mutual friend there (I didn't know at the time!).

It took me a good 6-8 months to fill my mon-Thursday spaces, but I did slowly with part time children, and did a tax return of about 20k last year - take so much off in expenses but I feel I would be taking my own son these places anyway and gain so much from being off with him. He's about to start school and I'm dropping to mon-wed now I can fill his space so we can have more time in school hols together and I don't drop income.

And what j didn't expect was to love the job as much as I do, far better than what I used to do, as every day is different. Don't get me wrong some days I'm tearing my hair out and others I feel I'll go mad as I have answered a million 'why' questions, but I don't know if I'd return to 'normal' work for quite a while.

I also did a similar financial check to the previous poster when I started and used moneysavingexpert to help! Saved loads!

If you're prepared to work full time and there is demand n your Es no reason it can't be a very viable income source

Great replies in this interesting thread