My littlest started child care last Friday. I had mixed emotions but by lunch I felt rejected. I called in at lunch time to see how she was going and they said "She is perfectly fine". She didn't even ask about me. She ate all her lunch and sang songs to herself on her bed during sleep time. My baby didn't need me anymore. She was loving her child care centre.
I wanted to get an estimate of the percentage of CCB to give to the director when I went in next. She can give me an estimate of what the fee's will be like using her computer. When I logged into Centrelink and did the estimate percentage I noticed that I could find out right there how much the long day care fee I would pay. It would also tell me how much CCR I will get.
If your child is in school and is attending before and after school care you can also use this to get an estimate of how much fee's you will pay. Also works for Occasional care, Family day care, In home care and Vacation care.
Saves you from having to call the centre you want to send your child to to get a full price of how much you will pay after CCB and CCR.
* Log into your online centrelink account (on the computer not a mobile device). Or
click here
* To the left hand side hover your mouse over "Family assistance" and click on "Combined rate estimator"
* Scroll down and click "Estimate Child care benefit and Child care rebate only". Then click on continue.
* It will then take you to a page where you have to scroll down and click on "Start now".
* Fill in all these details
- Partner
- Income support
- Work/Training/ Study test. Both you and your partner must be doing at least one of these so you can qualify for CCR. You must be doing one of these for more than 15 hours a week or 30 hours a fortnight.
* Fill in your child's details
- Name
- DOB
- Schooling- Select "Not attending school" for child care, family day care, occasional care etc.
- Select "Attending school" for before and after school care etc.
- Click "Add another child" if you have more than one child attending care.
- Continue when you're ready.
* In this screen select the:
- Care type
- Session- Do they charge a daily rate or hourly? Most if not all long day care child care centres are daily rates.
- Cost
- Hours a day you will be using it. Less hours the more you pay.
- Days per week.
If your child attends more than one centre you can click on "Add care details" and you can add another set.
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For the purpose of this tutorial I selected for both my children:
- Long day care
- Daily
- $65.00
- 12 hours per day
- 2 days a week
Once all filled in click continue.
* Fill in your family income Estimate and any other details you have.
Results
The results will show your Estimate Child Care Benefit (CCB) and Estimate Child Care Rebate (CCR).
Here are my mock results.
It shows me everything even my CCB percentage (which I have blocked out for privacy reasons). The thing you are wanting to know is the "Out of pocket expenses" right at the end. It has calculated everything with the CCB percentage.
I would pay $42.96 per week for each of my children according to
my percentage. So I will be paying $85.92 every week. Not bad really. But I did put in a low fee of $65 per day.
Scroll down and you will come across your Child Care Benefit Rebate (CCR) Estimate looking like this.
So if I was to be getting CCR I would be entitled to $42.96 per week. This is automatically paid to your child care centre so that you will pay less out of pocket. Or you can opt to have it paid to you quarterly or annually. You can change this online too instead of having to call centrelink and wait for hours.
You can now calculate how much money will come out of your pocket after CCR is paid.
According to my mock child care fee's my weekly out of expenses are $85.92. My CCR weekly estimate is $42.96. Subtract $42.96 from $85.92 and practically I will get one child free every week.
If I was not entitled to CCR my weekly fee's will be $85.92.
I hope this is a helpful tutorial and I didn't confuse you at the end.
Try it out yourself and see how much fee's you will be entitled to. If you need to know how much fee's a centre charges it's great to look up the
Mychild.gov.au website to find a centre near you. This website will give you the vacancy available and some have their fee's on the site too. You can also check out their quality. There are contact details as well so if there isn't any fee information just give them a ring and ask for their fee. You can then go and use that and calculate how much you will pay.
As for how I went on Friday well I got over it. Hubz was at home from work. He worked the night before. We made the most of it so we had a nap then went out for lunch. Total bliss. I will definitely get used to this.
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