Is an Au Pair worth it for the convenience if I am basically seeking a better work life balance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hey! I posted earlier offering more insight into the unexpected costs we found with our au pair. So here you go.

First, you mention that a nanny will cost about $25/hr in your area - around $50K/year or more. But for that money, you can expect a professional, knowledgeable about child development, engaging the child, running the household as it relates to the child, etc. You cannot expect any of that with an au pair. An au pair is more like a college student or mother's helper with some (if any) babysitting experience in the past.

So if you cobble together some babysitters (making way less than $25/hr) and are judicious with your hours, you're looking more at $30K/year. This would be for about the same quality of childcare that you'd get from an au pair.

And I've spent way more than $30K this year hosting an au pair.

I'm sure you've already read up on the expected expenses with an au pair - the stipend ($200/week), the agency fees, the phone bill, the car insurance and a slight increase in household utilities. The shockers to us were (1) car; (2) groceries; (3) eating out; (4) vacations and (5) "wear and tear" on your house.

Car - I knew insurance would go up, but our au pair caused an accident early on so our insurance is now ridiculously high. Here's the thing... you are not required to pay for their gas, you are not required to let them take your car on weekend trips, or drive around their friends. But you will hear about how other families do these things. It's push and pull of keeping your au pair happy, without burning a hole in your wallet. She will be VERY aware of what other families are offering. She will be very UNaware of how much it costs to maintain a car + insurance + how much her "oops" accidents cost you. Between insurance, gas, wear and tear, we've spent about $2K more with the au pair.

Eating Out - my husband and I get take out 2x/week. Again, there's no requirement that you get take out for your au pair. But I would feel like a dick for getting yummy take out and not offering to her (she always accepts). So that adds about $50/week, or $2,600 annually. A cost you wholly would not incur with a nanny, as he/she would not be in the house. If you don't ever get take out, this is not applicable.

Groceries - we try to eat organic, fresh, aka $$$. I underestimated how much she would eat at home - basically all her meals. (Which to be fair is smart of her, rather than burning her stipend at restaurants). She added about $500/mo to our bill, or $6,000 annually. A nanny or babysitter often just brings their own food or snacks on what the kids eat. They don't go into your fridge and legit eat your expensive cheese, steak and fancy chocolate. Your au pair will though!

Travel - again, there's no requirement for you to take your au pair on travel. This is where the "treat them like family" and "provide them a cultural experience" gets murky. Because if you take a trip to the mountains, the beach, Disney, etc... they're gonna want that "cultural experience" and be disappointed if you don't include them. And you do not want a moody, grumpy teen in your house watching your kids. So we took her, to the beach, to the mountains, to my parents' house, to a wedding. You need to pay for a flight + a separate hotel room for her + pay for the meals she eats with the family. We also paid for her ski equipment rentals. Not required, but again, it's push and pull between keeping her happy, fulfilling your obligation to "treat her like family" and not go over budget because you feel bad for excluding her. I'd say we spent about $2K on travel extras associated with the au pair. Again, I made the choice to include her, so these are costs I accepted. But it's not as easy peasy as the agency makes it seem to "leave her at home! She'll love it!" It can create some real discord and discomfort in your home to exclude her.

Wear and Tear on Your House: I'll also throw in here - you'll be providing Christmas presents, birthday presents, thoughtful gifts here and there - those can add up. You also have a person living in your home who has no clue about the costs of home ownership (like when she left her windows open in the winter, next to a heater, because she "liked the breeze"); when she thought my steam carpet cleaner was a vacuum and busted it ($280 right there); she's scraped up every Le Crueset pot I own; she will literally do a wash and dry cycle for a single clothing item, etc, etc.) It's just the cost of having a young adult in your home, but it's annoying as hell. If I added all this up, I'd say it's cost me about $2K this year.

This is an AMAZING list of the actual hidden costs. Keep this post tagged.

I would like to add the price of college courses ($500-$1000) a semester.
Cellphone with data covered by family
Gym membership covered by family
She used our visitor passes to take her friends to our pool every weekend

We treat our aupairs like family but that cannot be underestimated when comparing costs. It's not the cheapest option out there.

[Anonymous]

I say go with a part time nanny. I’m a nanny in a suburb west of Chicago, I think you wouldn’t have any problem finding a nanny willing to work part time. Look into the local list serve, that’s how I found my current job. Most nannies want consistent hours, so make sure you know exactly what you want.

[Anonymous]

OP, you run a very very very high risk you AP will rematch with the ages of your kids. Maybe you will get lucky but a huge risk. Many APs want older kids and an easy schedule. Like 20 hours a week where they drive and cook dinner basically. Especially after they see friends with this schedule.

The only time I have seen it work in the last few years is if you pay a lot more. Like double the min stipend.

[Anonymous]

I also should have mentioned they will hate having both parents at home. Yikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey! I posted earlier offering more insight into the unexpected costs we found with our au pair. So here you go.

First, you mention that a nanny will cost about $25/hr in your area - around $50K/year or more. But for that money, you can expect a professional, knowledgeable about child development, engaging the child, running the household as it relates to the child, etc. You cannot expect any of that with an au pair. An au pair is more like a college student or mother's helper with some (if any) babysitting experience in the past.

So if you cobble together some babysitters (making way less than $25/hr) and are judicious with your hours, you're looking more at $30K/year. This would be for about the same quality of childcare that you'd get from an au pair.

And I've spent way more than $30K this year hosting an au pair.

I'm sure you've already read up on the expected expenses with an au pair - the stipend ($200/week), the agency fees, the phone bill, the car insurance and a slight increase in household utilities. The shockers to us were (1) car; (2) groceries; (3) eating out; (4) vacations and (5) "wear and tear" on your house.

Car - I knew insurance would go up, but our au pair caused an accident early on so our insurance is now ridiculously high. Here's the thing... you are not required to pay for their gas, you are not required to let them take your car on weekend trips, or drive around their friends. But you will hear about how other families do these things. It's push and pull of keeping your au pair happy, without burning a hole in your wallet. She will be VERY aware of what other families are offering. She will be very UNaware of how much it costs to maintain a car + insurance + how much her "oops" accidents cost you. Between insurance, gas, wear and tear, we've spent about $2K more with the au pair.

Eating Out - my husband and I get take out 2x/week. Again, there's no requirement that you get take out for your au pair. But I would feel like a dick for getting yummy take out and not offering to her (she always accepts). So that adds about $50/week, or $2,600 annually. A cost you wholly would not incur with a nanny, as he/she would not be in the house. If you don't ever get take out, this is not applicable.

Groceries - we try to eat organic, fresh, aka $$$. I underestimated how much she would eat at home - basically all her meals. (Which to be fair is smart of her, rather than burning her stipend at restaurants). She added about $500/mo to our bill, or $6,000 annually. A nanny or babysitter often just brings their own food or snacks on what the kids eat. They don't go into your fridge and legit eat your expensive cheese, steak and fancy chocolate. Your au pair will though!

Travel - again, there's no requirement for you to take your au pair on travel. This is where the "treat them like family" and "provide them a cultural experience" gets murky. Because if you take a trip to the mountains, the beach, Disney, etc... they're gonna want that "cultural experience" and be disappointed if you don't include them. And you do not want a moody, grumpy teen in your house watching your kids. So we took her, to the beach, to the mountains, to my parents' house, to a wedding. You need to pay for a flight + a separate hotel room for her + pay for the meals she eats with the family. We also paid for her ski equipment rentals. Not required, but again, it's push and pull between keeping her happy, fulfilling your obligation to "treat her like family" and not go over budget because you feel bad for excluding her. I'd say we spent about $2K on travel extras associated with the au pair. Again, I made the choice to include her, so these are costs I accepted. But it's not as easy peasy as the agency makes it seem to "leave her at home! She'll love it!" It can create some real discord and discomfort in your home to exclude her.

Wear and Tear on Your House: I'll also throw in here - you'll be providing Christmas presents, birthday presents, thoughtful gifts here and there - those can add up. You also have a person living in your home who has no clue about the costs of home ownership (like when she left her windows open in the winter, next to a heater, because she "liked the breeze"); when she thought my steam carpet cleaner was a vacuum and busted it ($280 right there); she's scraped up every Le Crueset pot I own; she will literally do a wash and dry cycle for a single clothing item, etc, etc.) It's just the cost of having a young adult in your home, but it's annoying as hell. If I added all this up, I'd say it's cost me about $2K this year.

This is an AMAZING list of the actual hidden costs. Keep this post tagged.

I would like to add the price of college courses ($500-$1000) a semester.
Cellphone with data covered by family
Gym membership covered by family
She used our visitor passes to take her friends to our pool every weekend

We treat our aupairs like family but that cannot be underestimated when comparing costs. It's not the cheapest option out there.

100% this post is accurate.

[Anonymous]

OP, don't do it. There is a chance you'd get the perfect au pair-- one of our former au pairs is now a dear friend (she married and stayed in the US). But most au pairs are a lot of work. I'd look into better daycare options.

[Anonymous]

We prefer au pairs because our kids cannot do after care and have special needs. But our success rate has been about 50/50.

We are still in the program because our latest Au pair has a teaching degree, has experience with kids with special needs, and we all get along great. She only takes care of 1 child.

If we didn’t have special needs, we would do after care. But we just have no choice.

[Anonymous]

My vote is for adding hours at daycare. I've had a nanny and several APs since my now 8yo was born. I found the nanny to be much more challenging because she had her own life and responsibilities (ie kids) and needed more flexibility for those reasons, and it was very hard for me to adjust my schedule but i felt I had to. I've found it much easier with APs, though we are a "treat her like family" family, so it is not low cost as the PPs have accurately summarized above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey! I posted earlier offering more insight into the unexpected costs we found with our au pair. So here you go.

First, you mention that a nanny will cost about $25/hr in your area - around $50K/year or more. But for that money, you can expect a professional, knowledgeable about child development, engaging the child, running the household as it relates to the child, etc. You cannot expect any of that with an au pair. An au pair is more like a college student or mother's helper with some (if any) babysitting experience in the past.

So if you cobble together some babysitters (making way less than $25/hr) and are judicious with your hours, you're looking more at $30K/year. This would be for about the same quality of childcare that you'd get from an au pair.

And I've spent way more than $30K this year hosting an au pair.

I'm sure you've already read up on the expected expenses with an au pair - the stipend ($200/week), the agency fees, the phone bill, the car insurance and a slight increase in household utilities. The shockers to us were (1) car; (2) groceries; (3) eating out; (4) vacations and (5) "wear and tear" on your house.

Car - I knew insurance would go up, but our au pair caused an accident early on so our insurance is now ridiculously high. Here's the thing... you are not required to pay for their gas, you are not required to let them take your car on weekend trips, or drive around their friends. But you will hear about how other families do these things. It's push and pull of keeping your au pair happy, without burning a hole in your wallet. She will be VERY aware of what other families are offering. She will be very UNaware of how much it costs to maintain a car + insurance + how much her "oops" accidents cost you. Between insurance, gas, wear and tear, we've spent about $2K more with the au pair.

Eating Out - my husband and I get take out 2x/week. Again, there's no requirement that you get take out for your au pair. But I would feel like a dick for getting yummy take out and not offering to her (she always accepts). So that adds about $50/week, or $2,600 annually. A cost you wholly would not incur with a nanny, as he/she would not be in the house. If you don't ever get take out, this is not applicable.

Groceries - we try to eat organic, fresh, aka $$$. I underestimated how much she would eat at home - basically all her meals. (Which to be fair is smart of her, rather than burning her stipend at restaurants). She added about $500/mo to our bill, or $6,000 annually. A nanny or babysitter often just brings their own food or snacks on what the kids eat. They don't go into your fridge and legit eat your expensive cheese, steak and fancy chocolate. Your au pair will though!

Travel - again, there's no requirement for you to take your au pair on travel. This is where the "treat them like family" and "provide them a cultural experience" gets murky. Because if you take a trip to the mountains, the beach, Disney, etc... they're gonna want that "cultural experience" and be disappointed if you don't include them. And you do not want a moody, grumpy teen in your house watching your kids. So we took her, to the beach, to the mountains, to my parents' house, to a wedding. You need to pay for a flight + a separate hotel room for her + pay for the meals she eats with the family. We also paid for her ski equipment rentals. Not required, but again, it's push and pull between keeping her happy, fulfilling your obligation to "treat her like family" and not go over budget because you feel bad for excluding her. I'd say we spent about $2K on travel extras associated with the au pair. Again, I made the choice to include her, so these are costs I accepted. But it's not as easy peasy as the agency makes it seem to "leave her at home! She'll love it!" It can create some real discord and discomfort in your home to exclude her.

Wear and Tear on Your House: I'll also throw in here - you'll be providing Christmas presents, birthday presents, thoughtful gifts here and there - those can add up. You also have a person living in your home who has no clue about the costs of home ownership (like when she left her windows open in the winter, next to a heater, because she "liked the breeze"); when she thought my steam carpet cleaner was a vacuum and busted it ($280 right there); she's scraped up every Le Crueset pot I own; she will literally do a wash and dry cycle for a single clothing item, etc, etc.) It's just the cost of having a young adult in your home, but it's annoying as hell. If I added all this up, I'd say it's cost me about $2K this year.

This is an AMAZING list of the actual hidden costs. Keep this post tagged.

I would like to add the price of college courses ($500-$1000) a semester.
Cellphone with data covered by family
Gym membership covered by family
She used our visitor passes to take her friends to our pool every weekend

We treat our aupairs like family but that cannot be underestimated when comparing costs. It's not the cheapest option out there.

100% this post is accurate.

+1 agree. I'll add more examples on the wear and tear of your house. Fresh towels and bedding. Our au pair bleaches her hair and colors it. She's ruined multiple towels before I noticed and said something, but her response was "no, it wasn't me." BS. The kids can't reach the bleach or any bleach products.

Craft paint and glue on clothes/table/carpet. She's mediocre at cleaning. Unfinished projects may sit for days, then that glue is really hard to get off the table. It's nice that she tries to do crafts with the kids, but you will get messes that are not perfectly cleaned up.

Laundry. An AP doesn't care about stains or paint in the kids' clothes. They're going to toss the clothes in the washer, then the dryer. Permanently set stains? Oops. Shrunken or damaged clothes that should never have gone in the dryer? Oops.

Household roommate stuff--this is a big argument between host families and au pairs. Most host families expect the au pair to pitch somehow in with communal areas and family dinners. You may get the kind of au pair who comes down for dinner, washes and puts away their single dish, then ignores everything else. Same with trash. I've seen the au pair stuff their personal trash in the kitchen trash can instead of walking an extra 10 steps out the door to the garbage can inside the garage.

Sure, you may get a very mature, helpful au pair that is respectful of your things and helps out. Or you get what the majority of us get, which is a somewhat careless teenager that has no clue and figures you have enough money to buy a new one anyway.

[Anonymous]

I would totally recommend an au pair. It’s so nice to be able to change the hours as you need. Management is no different than managing an employed nanny/babysitter. Just pick a more mature au pair and screen well.

[Anonymous]

Also it sounds like you already have the perfect set up. Au pairs will be much more reliable than stringing together babysitters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP Here, thanks so much for the feedback. I guess my thought process was nannies here are $25hr for 30 hours per week would come to about $47k per year including employer taxes and a workers comp policy.

PP, I'd love to hear the breakdown of extra costs with your AP if you are willing to share. Thanks so much!

Get the au pair! Even if only for 2-3 years. It’s life changing. The convenience is invaluable for someone with your type of work/schedule.

[Anonymous]

If you happen to find an au pair that is great and fits well with your family, then it will definitely help with your needs. But that is the key - finding someone good, which is very hard especially if you have high standards. Just think about how hard it is to find a good babysitter or nanny - finding a good au pair is much harder considering your interviews are all via video-call, there is often a language barrier, checking references can be challenging, etc. If you need a driver, it is basically impossible to check if they are a good driver before they arrive and it is not uncommon to hear about au pairs getting in car accidents. I have also found that the agencies can apply a lot of pressure during matching. Also, the au pairs are all on social media and I have noticed that this can make their expectations very high.

Also keep in mind that there is basically no screening by the agency of the au pairs - you really have to scrutinize everything - this is basically 100% your responsibility. And if it turns out that once the au pair arrives, it is not a good fit, the re-match process is really terrible, drawn-out and stressful. The agencies usually have very strict refund policies, so you may be out a couple of grand. If you are going to do it, just realize that there is a lot of work that will need to go in on your end and honestly it is really not that much cheaper than a nanny. If convenience and price are your main concerns, then I would probably recommend doing more daycare - the au pair route is risky.

[Anonymous]

Dependability is a real upside of an au pair.

That said, we are wrapping up our time with an au pair and will GLADLY be going back to a nanny. I will HAPPILY pay more money and cover unexpected days off in exchange for not having to deal with a young, needy, all consuming person in my home 24-7.

[Anonymous]

OP - Aside for the cost of an AP, there's the emotional demand and cost of another person living in your home. For the most part, our AP was dependable until she had a nervous breakdown and walked away from the job AFTER my DD (9 months old) got hurt while she was with her. In theory, it's great to have an AP whose cost was much less than a nanny BUT they are emotionally immature and rather be with their "friends" when not working ( no matter what their profile states and what they say during the interview).