How much should I pay my cousin?

[Anonymous]

15 year old (2nd) cousin is going to babysit 8.5 month old DS while DH and I head out from about 7pm - 2am. She will then sleep over our house and we will drive her home the next day (she lives about 45 min away). I used to do this for them when they were babies and was paid about $50 for the night. I have 3 second cousins and they've babysat DS before, but usually all 3 want to come down with their parents and it has been for a family event so we've only been gone a couple of hours. In this situation, they get about $10 an hour. I was thinking of paying my cousin $100 for the night. Obviously she is off duty the second we walk in the house. My brother is also living with us for the moment, so he will be there for some of the time if she needs any help. Is this enough? Too much?

As far as babysitting goes, both our parents live close by so we've only had to pay for a babysitter twice before.

[Anonymous]

Since your baby will (hopefully!) be sleeping most of the night I think $100 is fair, possibly even more than fair! If you can afford to pay that and this won't be a frequent thing, then go for it, a 15 y/o will probably be thrilled at making that much!

[Anonymous]

$100 seems like a lot. I'd say $10/hour and leave it at that.

[Anonymous]

It is impossible for us to say, because with family:
- lots of things are done for free / as a favor etc
- adults sometimes overpay kids to contribute to spending money etc

It is not a free market economy! However, if it was my cousin, I would say $100/night sounds about right.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, 100 is more than enough.

[Anonymous]

$100 does seem like a lot, but not outrageously so. $10/hr is probably good enough.

[Anonymous]

Ask her if $100. would be agreeable and hope the baby sleeps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ask her if $100. would be agreeable and hope the baby sleeps.

I did. Her response was "you don't have to pay me. I just really want to babysit X". So I asked her mom who said that she usually gets about $10 an hour for babysitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask her if $100. would be agreeable and hope the baby sleeps.

I did. Her response was "you don't have to pay me. I just really want to babysit X". So I asked her mom who said that she usually gets about $10 an hour for babysitting.

Aww, sounds like my 16 year old sister who sits for pay but never for my nephew, even when my other sis always tries to pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$100 seems like a lot. I'd say $10/hour and leave it at that.

I agree, that if you normally only pay the kids about $10 an hour for the other work, then $10/hr for this sounds fine. The child will be asleep most of the time and it will already be about 7 hours ($70) which is pretty good.