Chapter 99 · Month 43 · Starting a Family

The Good News

The cost of childcare, in actual numbers

Oldest line first — the newest line is at the bottom.

      
            Algy
            designer
            02:14
          
The childcare quote is sitting on the table — $870 a month, and my hand's actually shaking holding the calculator. Run me through it again, because I keep getting a worse number than you do.

            Penny
            teacher
            02:15
          
Where's the extra hurt coming from — is it the $870 flat, or the term-time-only months where we pay for weeks she's not there? Because one of those numbers I can live with and the other I can't.

            Algy
            designer
            02:16
          
The term-time one, easy — we'd be paying $870 for August with the poor kid at her gran's. So say yes to the flat $870 and budget for it every month, or we start asking nurseries what they actually charge in the holidays.

            Penny
            teacher
            02:17
          
Flat $870, and I'll ring two nurseries Monday for their holiday rate so we're not guessing. Write it on the list in pen — and that's who we tell first Saturday: Chloe at eleven, then your mum.

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What the audience made of it

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The next chapter opens with these numbers on the table. The character with fewer votes is expected to demand a recount.

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