How to counter without being insulting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't want to do it, say that after you had some time to think about it, you ran the numbers and it just doesn't make sense with the commute and everything. But tell her you know you said you'd do it and you don't want to leave her in the lurch, so offer to do it for 2-4 weeks so she has time to find a new sitter. Then she can decide if she wants to pay more or find someone else.

BTW, I don't know where you are in SoCal, but you are really working for cheap. Make sure you're taking care of yourself. If you're doing home care for the elderly, look into joining SEIU.

Im on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Every person I interview with here lowballs me. And it sucks because I am new to this so I am still trying to get better at sticking up for myself and counter offering. The people I currently nanny for 3 days a week first offered 10 an hour but I countered them and they upped the price to 13 (with a promised raise in 6 months). But back when I accepted I didn't know about guaranteed hours so I didn't ask for that and last week MB came home a half hour ealry 4 times which is really going to short my paycheck. Thanks to this forum now I know about things like that and will get them added to my contracts in the future. But it is still a learning process.

The average babysitting pay here is 10-15 and the average nanny pay I see on sites like care and sittercity are 10-15 SOMETIMES 20. A lot of people on sittercity are trying to pay 6-7 dollars an hour which is ridiculous since minimum wage here is 9. I think a lot of people hire illegal immigrants as child care givers under the table. At least that is how it was when I was growing up here. All my friends in this area had illegal nannies who didn't speak english. So if they grew up around the old school illegal nannies, it blows their minds to pay over 15 for a legal one.

I think in the future if I leave my main Nanny family I may try going with an agency.

What is SEIU? I don't do any health care for her although I have medical training. She is very healthy and active. I am more of a personal assistant for her to help her with her computer, datebook, and hiring things like the gardener, tree trimer repairman etc. Also we do a lot of chit chat which I think is her favorite part