I'm trying to find out what to charge for taking care of two kids (12 and 14) for 3 weeks while the parents are out of the country. Any clues? |
What range do you have in mind? |
24 hour care has been discussed at depth and you will find many old threads with lots of heated discussion. Some nannies on here will tell you to charge your normal rate ($15/hr?) for all awake hours, with time and a half for OT and an additional overnight rate.
At 14 awake hours a day, this works out to $1905 / wk for awake hours at $15/hr $700 / wk for sleeping hours at $100/night $7815 total for 3 weeks In real life, I think most people charge much less than this. These are school age kids, and you will be responsible for them but not interacting with them 24/7. I think around $2000-$2500 would be reasonable. Ask the parents what they have in mind and see if it works for you and what you can negotiate. |
^^Are you serious? how greedy and crazy. You guys really want people to tell nannies to eff off. Don't worry- its starting to happen. |
It isn't greedy for nannies to set hourly rates for their services, nor for them to charge those rates when they work. The fact is, 24-hour care is expensive. Something tells me you're a nanny and not a parent or you'd already know that. |
Yes, nannies will say that because legally you need to pay OT rates for all hours over 40. Now, some nannies will accept a smaller hourly rate for 24-hour jobs and some would accept no payment for 8 hours of sleep because your children are old enough to sleep through the night (and legally this is allowed). However, $2000 for three weeks is crazy cheap (depending on location). I charge that for ONE week of 24-hour care. |
I wouldn't do 24 hour care for 3 weeks for less than $5,000. I think $2000 a week is realistic and fair though. Obviously the parents can afford to pay since they are going away for 3 weeks and using a nanny instead of a relative to watch their children.
Have you asked the parents what they are comfortable paying? I'd work out a flat rate per day. $100 for every overnight is $2100. Examples: $6000 divided by 21 days = $285 per day $285-$100 overnight charge= $185 per day $185 divided by 14 (with the remaining 8 hours as sleeping hours) = $11.50 and that's a flat hourly rate, not factoring in overtime. If you you charged $75 per overnight, that's still $1575. 14 hours awake at a rate of $11.50 is $161 per day. That's $236 a day. $236 for 21 days is $4956. OP, you should make at least $5000 for the 3 weeks. Any nanny out there who would do this for $2000-2500 for the 3 weeks is not a professional. Call some agencies and see what their 24 hour rates are. You would be surprised how expensive it is. I'd love to know what the family agrees to if you end up watching the kids for 3 weeks. Good luck. |
Are you only going to be watching out for the kids, or will you be in charge of managing the household during those 3 weeks? IOW, are you truly the de facto parent and homeowner, or is there someone else who will be available to help take care of things if the dishwasher floods the place, or one of the kids gets ill at 3 am?
Is this happening when the kids will be in school or out of school? What sort of school activities/outside activities will the kids be doing? If you are sole charge, don't accept less than 3K a week, especially if you and the kids don't know each other well - the limit testing will be draining. ![]() If you will have someone "on-call" to help in case of emergency, I would say anything from 1,500 - 2,000/week is reasonable. I'm presuming here that you are in a major metro area, and not a small town. |
Are you calling the pp greedy for saying they would do it for $2000-2500? Because that is what most could ask for as a rate for ONE week, and this would be for 3. Would anyone else who was not working a SALARY position go to work for that many days without ANY time off on their own, and not ask to be paid their usual rate for the whole time (and some kind of basic cheap rate for the whole night that they are still "working" as well? Don't even compare it to traveling for a professional work position either. Traveling you still get some down time and get to go out and do some things on your own, get to sleep in a hotel without being in charge of anything etc. I've never known anyone that traveled and was constantly working non-stop for 3 weeks straight and not getting compensated for it fully. They would be getting some kind of bonus and all food and travel and hotel costs would be paid for by their work. |
OP is talking about round the clock care for 3 weeks. That's a long time. Of course it's going to be expensive!
Btw who leaves their kids for 3 weeks?! |
They aren't infants! They're 12 and 14!
I worked at a summer camp and there were kids there as young as 10 for three weeks at a time. Some stayed the entire 9 week summer! NannyDeb asked some fantastic questions. I agree with her pricing as well. |
Yes, what horrible parents for leaving their teenage kids for three weeks with a capable adult.....
I think these rates are high, but I'm not in the D.C. Area. I would personally be fine with $1,000-1,500 per week for this setup as the kids are older so no personal care(feeding, baths, diaper changes, etc) and you could probably leave them home for a couple hours to run your own errands, obviously if parents okay it. |
I don't think there's any way a parent will pay 3k per week. Are they multimillionaires?
1k-1500 per week. |
+1 |
1500 a week is low. You're talking about at least 12 hours actively on duty + 12 sleeping/quiet hours on duty.
At least 2k |