Deciding to put your fees up? Listen to this first!
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[00:00:00] Hello. And welcome to today's [00:01:00] podcast. Today's podcast is prompted by the number of posts that I am seeing on social media. Where educators are asking what they should put their fees up by now, if you've followed me for a little while. Um, and if you haven't bear with me, I'm gonna get a bit ranty. If you followed me for a little while, you'll know that I absolutely advocate for educators to charge their worth.
Now. Asking and I get why people are doing it. They're a bit unsure. They don't know. Excuse me. Uh, it's all new. A lot of us, we've never really been in business before. And this is literally being in business.
When we are setting our fees, you must set your fees based on what your expenses are. So that is going to be [00:02:00] different. Between everybody. No two educators are going to have the exact same setup. Circumstances scenario. Okay. So you have to be looking at what it costs you to open your doors every day. So. There might be a year where you have a lot of expenses to cover. But you might decide to absorb that and spread that loss over a couple of years. So it's really important that you look at. What it costs you personally to open your doors every day.
So even though you may have a lot of expenses this year, you may say, well, look, we redid the outdoor play yard. Um, we put shade sails up. We got a Fort, we put sand pit and vegetable gardens in and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We did all this stuff. Now there's no way I could put my fee up by $15 an hour to [00:03:00] cover that expense.
So I'm going to cover that over the next couple of years. So I won't be buying any other resources or main resources. I won't be making any other big purchases within my service over the next three years until I've recouped the cost of that extension or that expansion within my business. So. Therefore you would be taking that into consideration and looking at what you've invested in your family, daycare service and how long it's going to take you to recoup those expenses. You also need to take into consideration the cost of living and the expense that it. Takes now to open your doors. You know, the cost of electricity has gone up water.
I imagine I'm on rainwater, so I'd have that expense, but fire wood has gone up. So in order for me to keep my home warm in winter time, The cost of firewood has gone up. So I have to take that into consideration. If I wasn't working [00:04:00] from home, I wouldn't be having my fire on during the day. So that is legitimately a business expense.
I need to keep my house warm for the CUNY children. So things like that, you need to really take into consideration and they're going to be different. For every single educator. So getting onto Facebook and asking, and I'm by no means bagging anybody that's doing it. I get that your probably new to putting fees up and it's a bit. It can be a bit. You know, button pushing a bit activating for people to talk about money and to be asking for their worth.
I totally get that. So I am not bagging you. But I'm wanting you to shift your perspective around this and look at it from a business perspective. Okay. So I want you to really consider what your costs are to open your doors every day. I also want you to consider that you need to put money aside for tax [00:05:00] for super, for sick leave for annually. I want you to be paid for your time off. That means you have to actually plan your time off too, because if it's not put in the calendar, it will not happen. And if you put it in the calendar and you'd give your families plenty of warning. It alleviates the guilt that you may feel for taking time off. You literally cannot work. For a year without time off, even if you're working three days a week, you still need to have downtime. Literally today, it is four 30.
It's the first work thing that I'm doing today. I didn't feel very well yesterday. I canceled my visits yesterday, even though my drove two hours to get there. I can't. I got, I got halfway there and I was like, you know what? I. I just am not feeling this right now. I just am not able to hold space for my [00:06:00] team or for myself. So I took the rest of yesterday off and all of today off because I've done three weeks on the road without break.
So. This is what we need to make sure that we do that we are allowing enough time for ourselves to reenergize and fill our cups back up because we'll burn out otherwise. And it's really challenging and difficult to overcome burnout. So the question about what should I put my fees up to? It's really specifically. Up to you and your service and what you are doing within your service, how you are setting up your day.
What, what investments have you made into professional development? What investments have you made in resources? What investments have you made in your. Um, environment. Have you upgraded things? How did you purchase a car? Did you too, so [00:07:00] that you could do before and after school care runs and excursions for the children, have you invested in, um, things like little fee and her music program?
That's a weekly ongoing expense. Have you invested in a course, such as the essential elements or hint, hint. He sees play in programming, somebody coming up soon. There is a free version, but there's also a VIP version too. So. Are you investing in these sorts of things because they fill you up. They inspire you. They give you lots of information, food for thought they meet those professional development requirements.
They keep you. Up to date with industry specific things that are happening. All of that needs to be taken into consideration. What are your expenses to just open your door? What is your service levy? What is the amount of tax that you pay? What is the amount of super that you pay? How much are you putting [00:08:00] aside for sick leave and annual leave? These things all need to be taken into consideration.
What does the, um, your electricity cost. What does it cost you in water? What does it cost you in the rent of your space? So if you have, you know, rooms that you devote specifically to family daycare, what does that cost you to do that? All of these things and so much more need to come into play. And these get worked out into what your fees are.
So if your neighbor's putting her fee up by 50 cents, That might not be enough for your service. You might be needing to put your feet up by $2 an hour. And particularly if you're charging under the cap, you must charge at least per cap. This is vital for you. And if you're charging under the cap, putting your fees up to the cap, at [00:09:00] least. Your families are barely going to even notice.
It also means if you're charging under the cap, that your families are not getting the full benefit of what they're entitled to in. In terms of CCS payments. So there's so much to consider and looking at sweaty, Betty down the road who put her service fee up by 50 cents. She may have not invested anything into her business this year. Nothing. Maybe her outdoor yard has been the same as it has been since she started. Maybe she hasn't invested in professional development and she stale as a jazz cracker.
That's been sitting on the bench for four days. You know, like this is very much a subjective topic that is based specifically on what it is that you provide. We haven't even talked about your experience yet either. If you have years of [00:10:00] experience. And it's not just in family daycare, it could be in other services, like other industry that you've worked in. Maybe you came as you were a medical receptionist.
I don't know, picking stuff out of the sky here, but maybe you were a medical receptionist. So you have this incredible administrative ability, which means all of your documentation and paperwork and programming is up to date. There's a system for everything you're all over this. So those skills you weren't from your previous job, which you were in for 10 or 15 years.
So that is applicable. And. Definitely, uh, able to be looked at when it comes to the experience that you bring to your current role. So. These things are the things that you need to be considering when looking at what your hourly rate needs to be and what you're putting your rate up to. So if you've gone and invested, for example, into the essential [00:11:00] elements course, which. Runs over 12 months and you attend. Regular. Uh, masterclasses and Q and a sessions. Your investing at least two to three hours a week. That, sorry, a month into the essential elements.
That's professional development. That directly impacts the work that you do. It has a massive effect and impact on what it is that you do. It's like, uh, going to, uh, adopter. A doctor who then learns how to do, I don't know. Incredible boob jobs. I don't know why I thought that, but incredible boob jobs. Um, you go to a doctor that has learned and gone overseas and done the training and has learned from the best of the best, and then brings that back. He's not sitting here quibbling about 50 cents.
He's [00:12:00] gone. I invested X amount of dollars into this. Now my fee with these new skills that I've bought back is going to be blah, blah, blah. So, this is what we need to do. We need to take our conversation and our thinking. To a business level that we're not doing right now at this minute, some of us are. But not everybody is.
And I really want to encourage you to do that because it's beneficial for you because it's going to give you fair market value. And it's also going to help you to really value the work that you do. And to put yourself in a position where you know your value and you ask it. There is nothing wrong with that. Too many women are too embarrassed. To be earning good money. We have this idea that working [00:13:00] in early childhood education, we should be on not so great money. And it's not working for anybody. People are getting burnt out.
People are leaving our profession. People are finding that. It's not worthwhile running. Your service. And we're we're hemorrhaging educators. It's not the department. That's that's causing us to leave. It's us. It's us when we don't know what we should charge. It's asked for where we services that we're not happy with.
It's asked when we're seeing other educators who are doing things that drag out. Uh, profession down. It's us. We've got to be the ones that make the change in our profession. It's totally up to us that may start with you. Asking. For more in an hourly rate. Because you're worth it. And that's totally okay.
And if, if you need to, you work out what [00:14:00] your fees are, what it costs, sorry, what it costs you to open every day and work your fees based on that. So, if you need to earn, I don't know, $1,500 a week. You've in your hand, you've got to work backwards from that. Well, if I want to earn $1,500, then I've got to pay $300 a week tax.
And I don't know these figures, I'm just pulling numbers off the top of my head. But I work backwards from 1500. That means I've earned X amount and I have to pay 300 in tax. Then 9% of that or whatever the super payment is now is X, or I've got to put that away. Then I need to put money away each week to cover a week off every 12 weeks.
Then I need to have sick leave as well. Uh, I need to cover my insurance. I need to cover the cost of my first aid, my, uh, any working with children's checks that were renewed, like insurances, car, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, [00:15:00] whatever. Uh, the cost of joining big-hearted education, family daycare summit, which is $97 for 12 months. Access. It's nothing.
It's a no brainer. Um, or perhaps the essential elements, whatever that floats your boat. Um, then that all needs to come into your hourly rate. So if you know that you want to, and this is why I advocate for educators to have a resource budget. Because it helps you to be able to forecast what your expenses are going to be.
So this is the business decision and the business topics and themes that we need to be talking about. If you want to know more about how to do it, I do have the profitable FDC course, which is available to purchase. If you go to a big hearted education.com and at the top of the page, you'll see courses.
You can click on it. There. If [00:16:00] you are able to invest in a course, I do have the Kickstarter course, which is free. And we do talk about being that resource budgeting in that. So that could be a great place for you to start. But please don't base your fee on just when everybody else in your area is charging. If you have done and have a whole heap of experience and do wonderful things with the children. Then you should be paid that. Don't don't base yourself on 20 Betty down the road because she's, she's not setting her fees so that she can pay her super and her tax and all these sorts of things. We want family daycare to be a vocation. Something that educators get into and stay into long term because it's so worth their while to do it. So that's my little rant for today.
And, um, if you want to know more about anything, you can always shoot me a message. [00:17:00] I am very, very keen to chat with educators and share my, my knowledge. I have a huge driving passion. In seeing women be. Productive in seeing women being. Paid their worth women being professional women, being in a position where they can invest in their future. Um, very, very keen to see that happen.
And we absolutely can do that in family daycare. You just have to put things in place. So we've just scratched the surface on that today. And I hope it gives you some food for thought and I can't believe it, but I've kept this under 20 minutes. There you go friends. I think I've done it twice now. Getting good at this. Well, I hope you've had a beautiful week.
I hope that whatever you do, uh, over the weekend, you feel your cup. And that you also find time to [00:18:00] breathe and connect to yourself and do something for you instead of everybody else. Or at my beautiful friends, you have a wonderful week and I will be back. Next week with the big, how to podcast.
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