Chicken & egg childcare funding confusion

L'auteur cherche à savoir si elle peut bénéficier d'une aide financière pour la garde d'enfants en utilisant un système de sacrifice de salaire pour payer les frais de nursery.

I will return to work after maternity leave later this year, and my salary is around £105k so in the grey area. To be eligible for the 15/30 hours funding, adjusted net income needs to be <£100k. My workplace offers the Enjoy Benefits salary sacrifice scheme to pay for nursery, which would bring my taxable income under £100k, so I was hoping I’d be able to get the funding which saves a lot. However, it feels a bit chicken and egg because the nursery invoice with free hours is surely dependent on my salary, but my salary won’t go below the threshold until the nursery invoice is paid. Will I only get the hours if I salary sacrifice towards pension or something else that isn’t childcare? Or does it not actually matter? And separately while I’m here, would using the Enjoy Benefits scheme be instead of tax free childcare? Or can you separately claim that back even if you’re not paying the fees through the government website as you do to get tax free childcare? With nursery fees at £2k/month I’m really trying to ensure we make all the savings we can - it’s so confusing!