[Pompol]

Earlier this month, i was lamenting some struggles at work to our fdc mum. She asked me if id considered doing FDC, as I worked in child care once upon a time, have a cert 3 already, and have a fairly large new house with a dedicated kids area.

I did email our local FDC coordination people and got an info pack, today I finally read it.

I just don't understand how FDC is financially viable for anyone with kids of their own? What am I missing?

Our FDC mum is the most expensive in our town, and charges $9/hour. She pays $0.65/hour to the coordinators. Her own kids are grown up, so she has 5 fdc kids at all times and a minimum of 8/hours/day so I can see how this is worthwhile for her.

But from what I read today, from 2014 the ratio is 1:4 for under 5s. So for someone like me, I would only have 2 kids in my potential FDC above my own 2.

Say I also charged $9/hour, minus $0.65 to the coordination people, that's $16.70 per hour I can earn. Out of which I have to pay additional domestic overheads like electricity, craft supplies and toys and equipment, insurances, not to mention my own tax and super, and then do all of my own business admin stuff outside of those hours.

I really do get that it's not something you do to earn big bucks (nothing in child care is!), but how is that financially viable for anyone?

Am I missing something? Will all FDCs raise their rates when the new ratios kick in?

I always thought the scenario where a FDC mum had her own kids at home wasn't uncommon, is that not actually the case?

Thanks in advance !

[SplashingRainbow...]

Don't do fdc however some things to consider:
- you dont have to pay for cc for your own children. If you calculate the cost of working then deduct childcare you might find you can add more to the family pool of money by doing fdc over other jobs.
- you may have less travel costs than to an out of home job
- you might want to consider whether you could offer a "niche" service for shift workers by working either late hours or weekends. If your partner had your children could you have up to four in your care? Might be worth trying to think of possibilities like that?

[charlottesmum04]

For us it is financially viable. and we have 4 children but only 1 under school age. However.... Do your sums, we worked out we could work 8am-6pm with 4 under school age ( as long as DH is in the house DD doesnt count in our numbers and the school aged children dont count till oct 2014) or for the same money we could have 7 school aged children in before/after school care and work about 5 hours a day ( 7am-9am and then 3pm-6pm) so we chose to work with school aged kids only. Our biggest winner is vacation care when we can have 7 children a day for a full day of care.

I also know of carers that only work fri/sat nights for mum wanting date night/night on the town. In our town about $80 per child is pretty standard for an overnight x 7 x 2 nights.....

Alot of things are then a tax deducation too which can then help with what you receive from centrelink etc and help give you more net 'income'. Happy to chat further via pm if you want too..

[Pompol]

Thanks for your replies ladies! I hadn't considered a few of those options, esp the savings on our own day care which is $400/week out of pocket at the moment, won't rule it out just yet

[WOJAH]

You don't pay tax as all your expenses are a tax deduction, if you have the right accountant you can claim so much that everything you earn goes into your hand, which therefore also means you can get higher FTB with centrelink because it doesn't actually look like you have an income, just some of the things you can claim as expenses are:
• percentage of rent or mortgage• percentage of rates• percentage if gas & electricity• percentage of home phone and mobile bills•percentage of car expenses • toilet paper / wipes•laundry liquid• paper towel
The list is endless and I can't really think tonight but its definitely worth it.

[sparkler]

For me it wasn't, also even though it was nice to be with my DS it was hard for him to cope with me giving lots of attention to other kids.

Also the paperwork was insane and you have to do ongoing training as well.

[trishalishous]

interested too