New to childminding, confused already

I know lots of people will do different things. I have just become registered in September, I am waiting to move into my new house in a new area so I have advertised saying I'm available from January, but I just don't get how people work out there fees. I'm my area it looks like the hourly rate is £4-£5, but then people also say £30 or £35 for a full day session. Surely if you are charging £5 an hour but £35 for a day you are loosing out on £15 a day as you are only getting 7 hrs equivalent pay rather than 10?
I was thinking of doing the session fees but not sure if I should just do hourly now or not

The area I am moving to is executive housing 400k-1 mill plus, so plenty of money about but I'm thinking they will have nannies rather than childminders, there are no childminders within a 2 mile radius (on childcare) anyway, but there is a nursery which charges £48 a day for under 2 & £44 for over 2s. They are underway with building another 600 homes reasonably priced in the part I am moving to so I'm hoping to take advantage of this. But I don't want to charge to much as they will just use the nursery, plus I'm only just starting out. I have a 2 year old myself so have to include him in my numbers to

I though all the courses and paperwork was hard, fees are totally baffling my brain

My daily fee is x 10 my hourly fee ... but I know a lot of colleagues who charge less for a day I'm not sure of the rationale...

It's important not to undervalue yourself - it's not an easy job and we deserve to be paid properly!! :D

I don't do a daily fee - parents pay for all the hours they contract me to work at my hourly rate, I can't understand why I would want to work more hours for less money but it obviously works for some people. I don't charge a day rate either as I have parents that want less hours, I only have one LO that stays after 3pm so I am able to have some extra ad-hoc after schoolers during term time. I also don't do sibling discounts either. I am full x

Sounds as though you have done thorough research already for your area which is exactly what you need to do. In terms of what the nursery charges - don't forget, you are offering a higher adult:child ratio and possibly including more if you provide everything and take children out and so in my opinion, your service is worth more than that of the nursery. However if you haven't worked in childcare before and are new to childminding too you may decide to charge similar to that at nursery and as you build up your experience you could also increase your fees?

I also only charge hourly rate for early years. I do charge sessional rate for before and after school - only as I don't want to do a school run for possibly 1 child at just hourly rate especially if they are coming for only an hour. The school children are contracted to term time only with ad hoc care offered in holidays for usual hourly rate on a first come first served basis. If I know a family are likely to need the holiday care I give them a date that I will "release" holiday hours to others and tell them they must book before that date to guarantee a space. It works for me.

Personally, I would offer a slightly reduced day rate, but... only if it is a for a minimum of 4 days a week, only if it is for full days, and only if it makes the difference between being able to fill an available space or not - better to have some income than no income ;)

If your setting is in high demand, then the chances are you would have no problem filling spaces at your full/normal rate, but there are times when work can be rather thin on the ground so being flexible with your fees becomes a necessity, however, you don't need to 'advertise' the fact that you would be prepared to reduce iygwim

I do try to keep my fees simple - the more options you offer, the more complicated it becomes.
I have 3 pricing structures:
My min hourly rate
A higher part time hourly rate
A Before and after school rate

Before and after schoolies that then also come in the school holidays, or school holiday only children, are charged at either my min hourly rate or my higher part time rate depending on the hours required.
I don't split hours - if someone wants till 5.30pm, they're charged the full hour but are contracted till 5.30pm as requested, the flip side to this is I don't charge if a parent is running late.
I don't inform them I'm not going to charge, and if it was a regular offender I would implement my late collection fee, but on the whole, I know they're paying till 6pm so can afford to be a little flexible.

HTH

Thanks everyone, given me lots to think about.
I think I'm going to go with the hourly charge and then set fee for before and after, possibly with a day rate for full timers but I will have to think about that one.

That's good to know about nursery, I didn't really see it that way I suppose if they want a nursery they are going to use it regardless of my price and vice versa.
There are new houses being built all the time so hopefully I can use this to my advantage. Im not allowed to post leaflets through people's doors but I'm going to put up my details on the village notice board & in the village shop so hopefully that will help & I already have a Facebook page (though it is pretty empty at the mo)

I am super excited to be starting but scared stiff to incase it doesn't work out

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Originally Posted by sarah707

My daily fee is x 10 my hourly fee ... but I know a lot of colleagues who charge less for a day I'm not sure of the rationale...

It's important not to undervalue yourself - it's not an easy job and we deserve to be paid properly!! :D

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I don't understand the rationale of charging less for more hours either.

I did once try to transfer the same concept to my bar tab at my local. Having drunk five pints, I tried to persuade the landlord to pull me another two and then reduce my bill in consideration of me drinking more of his ale/cider than I had done already. :idea:

I seem to recall it made perfect sense to me at the time, but the landlord was having none of it, and once I'd sobered up, it didn't make sense to me either. :p

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Originally Posted by Roxy009

Thanks everyone, given me lots to think about.
I think I'm going to go with the hourly charge and then set fee for before and after, possibly with a day rate for full timers but I will have to think about that one.

That's good to know about nursery, I didn't really see it that way I suppose if they want a nursery they are going to use it regardless of my price and vice versa.
There are new houses being built all the time so hopefully I can use this to my advantage. Im not allowed to post leaflets through people's doors but I'm going to put up my details on the village notice board & in the village shop so hopefully that will help & I already have a Facebook page (though it is pretty empty at the mo)

I am super excited to be starting but scared stiff to incase it doesn't work out

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Why are you not allowed to put leaflets through people's doors? Surely no one can stop you?

See if you can give your details to health visitors and/or put advert up in surgeries or community halls etc.

Good luck x

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Originally Posted by bunyip

I don't understand the rationale of charging less for more hours either. I did once try to transfer the same concept to my bar tab at my local. Having drunk five pints, I tried to persuade the landlord to pull me another two and then reduce my bill in consideration of me drinking more of his ale/cider than I had done already. :idea: I seem to recall it made perfect sense to me at the time, but the landlord was having none of it, and once I'd sobered up, it didn't make sense to me either. :p

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Hahahaha that's a good analogy! I agree on the not charging less for a full day. I don't understand it. My only sessional rates cost more than my hourly rate. I also charge more before 8 (and I currently have the equivalent of 6 children using half an hour before this a week) and more for after 6pm too (currently none but was 2 children twice a week) so people are happy to pay more for more hours as they understand you have core hours and then more is unsociable/ out of hours work so should cost more.