I have a possible part-time (about 25 hours a week or 3 days) childcare job available to me from some close friends. She wants to go back to work (they both have very lucritive jobs) but she will NOT put the kids in a day-care center (for fear of weirdos or worse) and she doesn’t trust that her mother-in-law will be reliable. They suggested that I may be just the person they’re looking for.
Since I am unemployed and about to start school for my bachelors (from home), this would be a great thing for me. Here are the stats:
Two kids (both girls). One 2 1/2, one 8 mos. Very good kids, parents both nice people. Relatively low maintainence kinds of kids- 2 1/2 year old likes quick crafts, movies, and stories. They are on a very regimented schedule which included daily naps (that they both actually take)
My stats: 30 years old, extremely responsible. First Aid and CPR trained. Loves kids, kids love me. Enjoy milk and cookies, reading stories, and nap-time. Very reliable- only death or serious illness would prompt me to not show up. Former employment includes multiple computer positions and pharmacy technician in both retail and hospital settings.
I am obviously a very trusted person to these folks, or they would never have asked me (they don’t trust many people with their kids).
My problem is I’ve watched lots of kids over the years, but not for real money. (Not since I was very young). What is the going rate for this? This would be in thier home (I would show up when they are leaving for work). I would provide my own transportation, presumably fix meals and snacks, and provide care and entertainment.
Any ideas? For what it’s worth, I’m in a middle-sized upstate NY town.
Around here, day-cares charge around $20/day for the first child and $14-19/day for the second. I’d say call three local day care centers, pretend you are in the mother’s situation, and ask what the rates would be.
If you want to cut them some slack, that’s up to you. Be sure that you and they are in agreement on how to cover FICA and IRS obligations.
We have 3 kids. I paid 5 bux an hour when they were younger. Our oldest is 12 now, when he babysits for his younger brother and sister, I pay him 3 bux an hour.
Are you going to their house? If you can, try and do it at your place. You can deduct all sorts of expenses from a portion of your mortgage, utilities, to food and other costs.
As someone who helped a friend out with childcare (and wound up getting taken advantage of), make sure all of your duties are spelled out CLEARLY.
If you’re at their house - do they expect you to clean it? Or just wash the dishes the kids use, clean up after messy crafts, hang up towels after a bath kind of thing?
DON’T be tempted to undercharge them. IME then they will NOT take you seriously. Charge a fair going rate - check with home daycares as well as centers. There might also be a daycare association in your town, and they might be willing to give you the rates for your area.
Spell out the times you are working. Make sure they are aware of these!! Are you going to watch the kids at night if the parents want to go out as well? That probably should be over and above the day rates.
I’m not saying you have to act like an ass to your friends, but childcare is an area where people seem to frequently get taken advantage of. Spelling the requirements out ahead of time can avoid a lot of problems down the road.
–tygre, who has two kids and knows of what she speaks…
Zette - cool on going to school! I envy you, kiddo!
As for what to charge for watching the kids, all I can tell you is what I paid the sitter who watched my son when he was in school but out of day care - on the days he didn’t have school and had to be at her house all day, she got $25 per day. That included meals. No baths, or anything - it was only during my regular job hours - like 7:30 till 5 or so. Which I personally considered really reasonable. Keep in mind he was a bit older (7 or 8 - something like that) and could go out and play, her kids were friends with mine, and it wasn’t an all the week long kind of thing either - it was only on days that MrM2U was working and couldn’t either bring MiniM2U with him or stay home.
Don’t know if that helps at all, but hey - it killed a few minutes before I go to lunch, right?
We pay five an hour for two kids (3 yrs and 16 mos.) I provide lunches, drinks, diapers and wipes.
This is in a home-care where there is one other child. The rates are about the same in the local daycare.
I don’t know how it is in your area, but where we are, home daycare people are supposed to be licensed. You already have CPR training, but you might also have to make some modifications to your home.
Sorry, didn’t read the OP very carefully. I don’t think there are requirements for childcare in the children’s own home.
You sound like a great catch to me. Since you are going out of your own place, you can probably charge more–I think around 8 an hour is the in-home care rate around here.
Last semester, I paid $600 a month for two girls (at the time, 3-6 months old and two and a half years old) for them to be cared for from 12-5 in a dayhome. She provides all of the food, with the exception of baby food and formula. She didn’t charge me at all for the boys to go there after school, or for the days when they were out of school.
This semester, I’ve only needed sporadic child care, and I’ve been charged a flat $5 an hour.
If you’re babysitting for a friend, please spell everything out clearly before you begin. I almost lost my best friend when I was babysitting for her. I wound up babysitting 6 days a week, 10-14 hours a day for $400 a month. I provided all of the food, which wound up being considerable because one of her kids ate constantly, and I was providing 3 meals a day plus snacks. Between late payments and being guilted into babysitting on my one day off (or at least having her TRY to guilt me into babysitting), it wound up not going well.
Thanks for the advice, all! I’m not too worried about being taken advantage of, as these are not “buddy” friends, they are more like co-worker friends. They have plenty of money, so I don’t have to worry about late pays, either. I’m not sure if it will go through or not, but I just wanted to get a poll of what all people pay.
I appreciate it!
Zette
My wife and looked into daycare in the Northern Virginia area. We were quoted rates from $175 - $220 a week, which was for care 5 days a week during our working hours. That works out to about $5/hr. But of course, they made up for it with volume. (1 adult per 4 babies)
I’d say $6-7/hr, or $150-175/week. It’s just you with two kids, so you’ll be able to give them more attention, which should be worth more.
Also: I know you said they were friends, but make sure they’re on the same track with the wages. If they want to pay you “under the table” so that they don’t have to hassle with withholding, FICA, and such, make sure they don’t also claim your wage (fee) as a tax write-off. If they’re audited, they’ll have to mention you. Then you’ll have to answer to $7500 in unreported income.
I don’t know what it’s like in NY, but in Maryland, any child care arrangements like this are considered “In-home daycare” or “Nanny” positions, and you MUST be licensed.
You should first check out the laws in your county about whether or not you need to be licensed.
Find out what would happen if something got damaged or worse, one of the kids got hurt. Could they sue you? Could they sue your homeowner’s insurance? Woiuld they need some sort of liability waiver on their homeowner’s policy?
This is a sticky situation, kinda like selling a used car to a friend. Get everything in writing: payment, hours, etc. I have done in-home daycare and have several friends who have done it, and when you sit for friend’s kids, it always ends badly.
As AWB said, make sure your arrangements about payment and taxes are all out in the open before you start. They might want to take the tax write-off for child care (and they are stupid not to), but you may not want to claim the income.
Considering that one child is an infant, I would charge at least $7-$8 an hour. A toddler and a baby? That’s a lot of work, Zette. When you are there all day, it’s not all “Sesame Street” and bounce the ball; it’s WORK.
Find out exactly what is expected of you. Taking the older one to pre-school? Play dates? Cleaning? Cooking? Are they going to ask you to throw in some laundry “while you’re there”? “Gee, could you start dinner for us?” “Hey, could you run some errands for me?”
I would definately get paid by the hour, rather than by the week. You never know when Mom or Dad might decide to stop at the store occasionaly, adding 30-40 minutes to the day.
As for hours, I would go so far as to write it all out.
“Zette will be here from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm on Mondays and 8:30 am to 4:00 pm on Tuesdays”, or whatever.
Anything later and you might want to charge overtime. You would be surprised at how often people will want to take advantage of a babysitter at home and try to stretch out their free time.
Sorry to be such a wet blanket, but I’ve been there.
My 2 kiddies go to Kindercare here in Minnesota…great facility with lots of supervision and no television…
I started out paying about $250 a week for the two of them (most providers charge more for infants, then drop down once they are toddlers). My wife now works there, and her employee discount has us down to under $150 a week. I consider the facility we use to be about as top tier as you can get at a public day care center, though. YMMV
Standard here (Western suburbs of Chicago) is about $150 per week. I’ve seen it as low as $120, but not often. The woman I’m using now to watch my son charges $150/wk, but it’s more accurate to say that she charges $30 a day. In other words, I pay her the Monday after the week she’s watched him and only pay her for the actual days she was doing so. Previous to this, I was paying $150/wk regardless of whether or not Simon was sick two of those days, there was a holiday in there or whatever else.
The sole downside to the current sitter is that she’s not paying taxes, so I pay her cash which means I can’t declare the deduction on my taxes either. But the way I see it, it doesn’t take many sick days and holidays, saving $30 a pop, to make up for whatever return I’d get from the government on it. Thanksgiving alone saved me $60 for the two day holiday. Added to that is that she feeds him meals, isn’t a stickler on times and has several children of her own close to his age (very important to me that he gets interaction with other young children) and I can’t tell you how much I love this woman. Best thing to happen to me in a long time.
I’ve heard of as high as $220 a week, for full time care for an infant, but that was in a big city. Around here, the going rate is between $200-$450 a month per child, but the Army subsidizes it, so I’m not sure how much it really costs to take care of the children.
I watch my niece for 2.5 hours a week, plus about 20 extra hours scattered throughout the month, and get paid $300 a month. Then again, it’s my mom paying me, so I don’t know if there is pity money in there or not.
FWIW, a day care worker here (just starting out, not a room leader) makes about $7.50 an hour.
And yes, get everything in writing…we have a lot of home day care providers around here, and I’ve heard horror stories. I dunno, it seems like many parents, even nice ones, seem to think as daycare as something you do out of love (which it is, but…) and not a business. If having the children picked up on time is important to you (esp. if you have to go to class, ect.) make sure you have a late-fee. I think around here they charge a dollar a minute. I know that sounds like a lot, but you could always waive it for extenuating circumstances, ect.
I go to a Kindercare in Minnesota as well. Two kids, one in infants one in “twos”. Total cost $411 a week, full time (center available from 6:30 to 6:30, I only have my kids in from 8 to 5). A nanny would have similar costs (but I prefer a center - no need to worry about the nanny quitting). My center doesn’t accept part timers (or, rather, you can send your kids part time, but you pay for a full week).
Being home with a baby and a toddler is VERY hard work. Don’t underestimate how much this job is worth. Even low maintenance kids are pretty high maitenance (and the baby isn’t even at the point where you can tell).
BTW, I pay a housekeeper $25 an hour for 4 hours a week to clean for me. So cleaning is more expensive than daycare.
And don’t assume that since they have plenty of cash, you’ll get paid on time. People who have lots of cash are often pretty casual about paying bills (ask my housekeeper, about 25% of the time, I forget to leave her a check, fortunately, she is by twice a week). And kids can be very distracting when it comes to doing little things like writing a check. I’d ask for one week in advance that you can use as a cushion in case they don’t pay, and then write in a penalty for late payment (my daycare is $5 a day after Wednesday, payment due on Monday).
The advice to call around is a good one. Most centers will probably give you rates over the phone. Also, in my area there is a nanny service on the web that lists rates - try a search.
We pay $75 a week for babyjesus’s daycare. We had to provide formula, wipes and diapers back when. They started providing lunch when he started eating at the table. They provide him with a lesson every morning and an activity every afternoon before nap time.
If you do it at home, Brother Nipples is right about the deductions. It’s become easier over the past year or so to claim home office expenses, but definately keep track of your expenses such as food, trasportation (keep a log book of mileage), supplies, etc. Give them receipts, too.
Unfortunately, tatertot, that ain’t just the big city. $220 a week is on the high end around here, but not unheard of. We pay $190 a week, one child, full-time. We supply diapers, she supplies food. It all takes place in her home, but she is licensed.
I think it’s important to get local quotes, as you’ve intended, because it really DOES vary. We do periodic daycare cost surveys on a moms email list I am on, and the differences are staggering.
