Reply to Please share au pair real life costs annually

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Reply to "Please share au pair real life costs annually"

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[quote=Anonymous]It's a lot more than you think, like a PP mentioned.  It's been a few years since we had an au pair, but we took ours on vacation, gave her an extra car (a Volvo S80 that was 2 yrs old), an in law suite to live in...that was for starters.  Then her friends were often at our house, so more food.  She was young, so ate a like a young woman with no calorie restrictions.  My kids are roughly her age now, and they eat like wolves too...but at the time I had forgotten how much that can be.  If you're on a budget, it won't work for you.  We had two, then switched to a FT nanny which actually ended up being less costly when all was said and done.  Largely because it is also less emotionally exhausting, IMO.  Many au pairs (not all, of course) have never been away from home, and are young.  you become de facto mother and boss, which you may not be quite prepared for since you have young kids.

And there is a lot of "my host family X,Y, Z" type of comparisons.  Some host families are great and others are awful.  Our au pair had a friend whose family was really not nice to hair and totally mislead her about where and how they lived--she came from a major European city thinking she'd be close to DC and she was in La Plata with no transporation.  She spent every weekend with us--so suddenly we had 2.  It's can be hard.

It's also much easier to start off with strict rules and expectations and then loosen up when they get here and you get to know each other.  It really varies.[/quote]

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