Message
I've heard too much ... uh... spirited debate on the pay for nannies.
I know nanny pay is low. There is always need for more money.
On the part of the families, mother's job has to pay at least a certain amount to make the nanny worth while. It doesn't matter what the household income is, only what the lowest earner income is. Because if nanny costs more than that, one of the parents can stay home and do everything their way. It really doesn't make sense for us to pay the nanny $20 or $25 if the mom is not earning much more than that. Added with the benefit of raising your own children, basically the MB has to make at least a 100k for any nanny to be worthwhile.
I'm not talking about the $7 dollar nannies here. Those nannies' next step should be to find the $15+ job. I'm talking about the $18 nannies who need more to start a family, but want to have a life of taking care of children.
So, what is a nanny who just absolutely loves children and make this her life's work? Be satisfied making 50k year with no room for growth?
As an MB, it is really hard for me to find the smart, loving, nannies who are motivated to work hard because those people find another career. I don't want these people to be discouraged and leave the nanny profession. We do need good nannies working for the future of our children.
What is the answer? The nannies who need a pay jump from the $18 pay range need to think about opening their own home daycares. You must be smart enough to do it. You must work some as a nanny or whatever else to buy a house in the right zone that allows this. Research what you need to do and plan. One of the requirements is a house in the right zone. Another is for everyone living in the house to get a background check. There are other requirements.
How much HHI would nanny need to buy a home in the "Right Zone"? If nanny (and spouse if one exists) is not able to afford such a home, then what?
A home daycare can have up to 12-13 kids. If you charge 300/week per child, and have 5 children, that is 52*300 *5 or $78k. Subtract some costs for the house you need to have, some helpers, etc. You need to know how to run a business. Manage your workers, not go bankrupt. People will be complaining about you the way nannies on this board complain about MBs. ("My boss says I can't look at my phone during work!") Are you smart enough to do this? Are you smart enough to run a business?
Well, 12 - 13 kids is only feasible if the home one is able to afford in the right zone is large enough to allow 12 - 13 kids to attend said daycare. I would guess there are square footage regulations - the 60 page booklet on family daycare for my state says there must be a minimum of 35 sq ft of space per child, so 13 kids would need at least 455 sq ft, or a room 20 x 23. Frankly, I wouldn't leave my kid in a 20 x 23 room with 12 other kids and 3 - 4 adults. EVER. (Oh, and in my state, family daycare is limited to 6 kids unrelated to the owner.)
So let's look at your math now. 300 x 5 = 1500 a week. I have 1 FT helper, and pay her 8/hour for 40 hours/week, and one PT helper, paid 8/hr for 20 hours/week.. I am open from 7a - 7p, which I had to do to find 5 clients willing to pay $300/week. Food costs for the 5 kids I have are about $200/week, because I offer more than the bare minimum required food - I get clients that way as well, who prefer their kids eat healthy food that isn't pre-packaged, and I offer 3 meals and 2 snacks per day. My 1500 sq ft home costs me $250/week, and the only rooms large enough to use for my daycare are the main living room and the largest secondary bedroom. That means a bit of stress, since I have to maintain those rooms for inspection at any time - NO FUN! Plus, my fairly small kitchen has to hold my groceries and all the dc food. And taxes are also an issue - I pay 15.3% SS/Med taxes because I am self employed, and I also lose another 10% in fed/state taxes even with all my deductions. I have to also pay employment taxes of 10% for my employees on their weekly combined wages of $480.
Earnings = $1500/week
Expenses = 480 + 200 + 250 + 229.5 + 150 + 48 = $1357.50
So now I have earned $142.50 for a 70+ hour work week, and I haven't paid my car note, my insurance bills, my food costs, or pretty much anything else except my mortgage. I have earned a grand total of around $2 an hour, and I have to live at work. Sign me the hell up NOW, because that's just exactly the life I aspire to!
Oh hell, I forgot the $50/week for the 5 year loan I had to take out to fully equip my home day care.
Now stop complaining about your pay. It's the competitive rate. If you are not smart or savvy enough to do this, then you really shouldn't be making more money.
Right. If this is such a great idea, maybe you should do it!
[quote=Anonymous][quote=nannydebsays][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You know you'll need to do your own sick child care, right?[/quote]
Why would you think that? What is the point of having a full time nanny who won't care for sick children? That is a crazy concept. I work with sick kids and if I get sick I use a sick day.
Signed,
an adult nanny[/quote]
If the OP chooses to cut nanny's hours to PT, then presumably nanny will need a 2nd PT job. Therefore, OP will not be able to call nanny in when a kid is ill, because nanny's going to have promised her time to a different family.
It has nothing to do with willingness to care for ill kids. It has everything to do with OP's potential decision to stop paying for FT childcare and take her chances when it comes to illnesses, school holidays, summers, etc.[/quote]
[b]The OP of this thread isn't debating cutting the nanny's hours. [/b][/quote]
No, but she is searching for work to keep nanny busy and make sure she (OP) gets her money's worth. Which is fine, but that attitude (I want nanny to be constantly busy without any downtime!) often leads to one of several outcomes:
1) Nanny takes on more and more and more, and is unhappy and quits.
2) Nanny takes on no additional work, OP is unhappy and fires nanny after hiring a housekeeper who is able to make snacks and drive kids, but less able adequately care for school agers.
2a) Nanny works only PT, finds a second PT job, and is fired because OP is not able to find decent last minute sick care or holiday/summer care, and blames nanny for her self-created problem.
3) Nanny and OP talk, decide on a few additional tasks beyond the household work already being done, and also look at hours to be worked on a YEARLY basis, then choose to compromise by keeping nanny FT and on-call with no expectation of any more yearly raises, since Nanny will be working less for the same wages.
So actually, cutting hours is one of the logical choices OP now has.
Why would you think that? What is the point of having a full time nanny who won't care for sick children? That is a crazy concept. I work with sick kids and if I get sick I use a sick day.
Signed,
an adult nanny[/quote]
If the OP chooses to cut nanny's hours to PT, then presumably nanny will need a 2nd PT job. Therefore, OP will not be able to call nanny in when a kid is ill, because nanny's going to have promised her time to a different family.
It has nothing to do with willingness to care for ill kids. It has everything to do with OP's potential decision to stop paying for FT childcare and take her chances when it comes to illnesses, school holidays, summers, etc.[/quote]
[b]The OP of this thread isn't debating cutting the nanny's hours. [/b][/quote]
No, but she is searching for work to keep nanny busy and make sure she (OP) gets her money's worth. Which is fine, but that attitude (I want nanny to be constantly busy without any downtime!) often leads to one of several outcomes:
1) Nanny takes on more and more and more, and is unhappy and quits.
2) Nanny takes on no additional work, OP is unhappy and fires nanny after hiring a housekeeper who is able to make snacks and drive kids, but less able adequately care for school agers.
2a) Nanny works only PT, finds a second PT job, and is fired because OP is not able to find decent last minute sick care or holiday/summer care, and blames nanny for her self-created problem.
3) Nanny and OP talk, decide on a few additional tasks beyond the household work already being done, and also look at hours to be worked on a YEARLY basis, then choose to compromise by keeping nanny FT and on-call with no expectation of any more yearly raises, since Nanny will be working less for the same wages.
So actually, cutting hours is one of the logical choices OP now has.
I would discount my normal 2 kid rate by less than 20% simply due to the huge workload. Naps or no naps, 4 kids under 3 sounds like a very stressful and exhausting job. So I would charge close to $30.
If this actually happens, I hope nanny has NO housework to do other than loading the dishwasher with the items she used for the kids. No laundry, no tidying, no nothing.
If this actually happens, I hope nanny has NO housework to do other than loading the dishwasher with the items she used for the kids. No laundry, no tidying, no nothing.
[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You know you'll need to do your own sick child care, right?[/quote]
Why would you think that? What is the point of having a full time nanny who won't care for sick children? That is a crazy concept. I work with sick kids and if I get sick I use a sick day.
Signed,
an adult nanny[/quote]
If the OP chooses to cut nanny's hours to PT, then presumably nanny will need a 2nd PT job. Therefore, OP will not be able to call nanny in when a kid is ill, because nanny's going to have promised her time to a different family.
It has nothing to do with willingness to care for ill kids. It has everything to do with OP's potential decision to stop paying for FT childcare and take her chances when it comes to illnesses, school holidays, summers, etc.
Why would you think that? What is the point of having a full time nanny who won't care for sick children? That is a crazy concept. I work with sick kids and if I get sick I use a sick day.
Signed,
an adult nanny[/quote]
If the OP chooses to cut nanny's hours to PT, then presumably nanny will need a 2nd PT job. Therefore, OP will not be able to call nanny in when a kid is ill, because nanny's going to have promised her time to a different family.
It has nothing to do with willingness to care for ill kids. It has everything to do with OP's potential decision to stop paying for FT childcare and take her chances when it comes to illnesses, school holidays, summers, etc.
Anonymous wrote:I told my nanny we have a camera in the basement and for the rest of the year, she never ever went in there and brought all the toys and every single thing upstairs. We pay a lot of money for extra space that we never use.
I would advise against it. I personally think a camera is to gain trust in your nanny that she would treat your charges when no one is around, since you can not have a camera watching every move 100% of the time. If you disclose, the behavior changes and you don't know what she is doing to the kid when there is no camera.
A lot of nannies will tell you that you must disclose but I think this is their way of "winning" in a power struggle. Many will threaten to quit but the same people also complain about living paycheck to paycheck and needing guaranteed hours and such and I highly doubt that they would quit with no notice on the spot if they found a camera. I think if they were so difficult that they could not work under a camera, they'd have a hard time finding a job too, and they'd take months to find a new job while you'd have a replacement in 2 weeks.
I've worked for a handful of different companies, some very large. All of them had cameras. No one ever disclosed them to me, on HR orientation day or after.
Your mistake was in telling your nanny WHERE exactly the camera was located. Your second mistake was not following up and figuring out just what she was doing that she didn't want filmed. Do you still employ her? You also seem to have a very poor opinion of nannies in general. Perhaps that is why you had to hire (and retain?) a nanny who chose to not use the room you told her was cammed. Or maybe your pay rate is not up to par?
This is all parents have to say when interviewing nannies:
"We do reserve the right to place cameras in our home and use them. You have our word we will not ever place a cam in a bathroom. We will also do everything in our power to make sure the cams are not easily hijacked via the internet, and we will follow the laws of this state, which say we <blah de blah> when cams are involved. We also promise that any video recorded is for our own viewing, and we will not ever share the video with others - the only other people who would see the footage is law enforcement if there was an issue that needed legal involvement."
If a nanny refuses to be filmed ever she will say so, and you can eliminate her from your candidate list.
Personally, I would not be thrilled about the chance I was being cammed, but I would understand why parents felt it was needed. I would ask that after a period of time in which they have seen I can be trusted, that they limit or eliminate the use of any cams. And yes, I know some cams can be used to "peek in" during the day, but that would annoy me a bit, especially if the cam could also be used to talk to me/the child.
Op, is it possible that as the babies get older and more active your nanny doesn't have the time to write up the day anymore? To be specific, do the babies naps overlap by more than 1 hour once a day?
Another possibility is that nanny never got feedback on her daily reports, and figured no one cared if she continued or not.
And I would be much more concerned if you keep checking in and see babies alone with nanny out of sight for 5+ minutes on a regular basis.
Another possibility is that nanny never got feedback on her daily reports, and figured no one cared if she continued or not.
And I would be much more concerned if you keep checking in and see babies alone with nanny out of sight for 5+ minutes on a regular basis.
The best way to handle this, IMO, is to tell the family and the nanny now, and ask them to consider allowing you to remain in the share until your kid starts daycare EVEN IF they find a new share partner sooner than January.
You'll need to make your case to the family that their child will be OK if the share goes to a triad for a while, and you'll have to make your case to the nanny that caring for 3 for a short time will be worth it - you need to offer a bonus to her if she is willing to accommodate your change of plans.
Your other choice is to tell them now and make plans to leave the share once you are replaced - perhaps there is a SAHP in your neighborhood who would be willing to provide care for a short time?
You'll need to make your case to the family that their child will be OK if the share goes to a triad for a while, and you'll have to make your case to the nanny that caring for 3 for a short time will be worth it - you need to offer a bonus to her if she is willing to accommodate your change of plans.
Your other choice is to tell them now and make plans to leave the share once you are replaced - perhaps there is a SAHP in your neighborhood who would be willing to provide care for a short time?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Did she tell you she's bored?
I'm not paying her to sit around on her ass all day for that rare time I need her to watch my son when he's sick. All I'm asking for is ideas of things to make her do to justify paying her.
So your child never has school holidays or summer break time? Because THAT is what you are paying her for - to be available to either drop everything and come to care for a sick child, or to work full day(s) when your kid(s) have no school.
If you are concerned about money, consider this: You decide to only pay her for before and after school hours. Therefore, she is able to do much less for you wrt to household stuff than she does now. In addition, she will likely get a second job, and will no longer be able to work full days when you need her. So if a kid is sick, or when there is no school, you will be paying for a temp nanny to cover the times your current nanny is not available. Temporary care agencies charge application and placement fees, and cannot usually guarantee you'll get the same sitter every time, so you'll be doing a lot more "managing" of your childcare.
Yep, you'll save money, but your life will become more complicated and busy. You have to decide if that's worth the lower cost.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Our nanny works anywhere from 17-50hrs a week. I pay her a flat rate of $700/wk. Her "hourly" rate is $10/hr and all additional money is a weekly "bonus". No nanny would work my inconsistent hours at a regular hourly and I want a flat expense.
So it is okay to ignore the law when it stands in the way of something you want?
Are you for real???? PP is paying her nanny anywhere between $12.72 hr plus OT pay for 50 hour weeks and $41.18/hour for 17 hour weeks. Even if nanny averages 40 hours/week year round, she is still making $17.50/hour. Sounds like a good deal to me, and I am usually the first one to speak up about FLSA and nannies legal rights.
Now, if PP was paying$13/hour for 17 hours and expecting nanny to work up to 50 hours a week for the same $221/week wage, I would have no issue with your snark, but geez!
The only situation in which I would consider a downward change in my wages would be if I changed jobs from a long-term family for whom I did some Family Assistant work to a new job in which I was responsible for only childcare for a single infant.
And even then, I wouldn't be happy with more than a 10% pay cut.
Maybe the OP's nanny is working just to add a some income to her husband's wages that allow them to save for retirement and take a nice vacation every year?
OP, your nanny should be making $700/week for a 2 family share that covers 40 hours/week. It's too bad that you can't quite understand this.
And even then, I wouldn't be happy with more than a 10% pay cut.
Maybe the OP's nanny is working just to add a some income to her husband's wages that allow them to save for retirement and take a nice vacation every year?
OP, your nanny should be making $700/week for a 2 family share that covers 40 hours/week. It's too bad that you can't quite understand this.
OP, is it too late to have the new share family pay your nanny $350, just like you do?
I don't quite understand why you are fine with paying more for the same services that the other family will be getting?
I don't quite understand why you are fine with paying more for the same services that the other family will be getting?
Anonymous wrote:The below us what everyone in major cities contracts up and then Breedlove or whatever direct deposit your weekly pay:
Goal: blended $18/hour for 50 hours, $900 weekly gross pay cheque
Equation:40hours*X + 10hours*1.5X = $18*50 = $900/week
Hourly wage X technically: $16.36
OT wage 1.5X technically: $24.50
Do you think most families find it easier to hire a nanny who is only looking at gross wages, rather than having a set hourly range they expect AND OT where applicable?
If so, why do you think your 'formula" above is standard? Is it because nannies may not know they have a right to be paid OT, or because they just want a gros rate that is acceptable to them and don't care what their hourly rate is?
Additional expenses include about a 10% cost for paying on the books, which includes your share of employment taxes and the cost of a nanny tax company's services.
Mileage should not be a huge deal, unless it's a 30 mile drive round trip to music class any everything else. I think for a 3 month old, 2 brief outings a week is plenty, and for a 9 month old, a class, a play date, and a visit to somewhere new and exciting is plenty as well, IMO.
A nanny is the most expensive form of childcare. If you can't afford one, you could seek out a SAHM with a child the same age as yours, or look for a family daycare. Or see if there are 2 college students who could cover your needed hours between them - Nursing, Education, and Social Science majors might be the most interested.
Or, as a PP said, maybe a nanny with her own baby would be a good choice. You could offer a few dollars less per hour.
And if the retention bonus is too much financially, offer to help nanny find a new job when you no longer need her, and offer non-financial benefits if you can think of something that appeals to your choice candidate.
Mileage should not be a huge deal, unless it's a 30 mile drive round trip to music class any everything else. I think for a 3 month old, 2 brief outings a week is plenty, and for a 9 month old, a class, a play date, and a visit to somewhere new and exciting is plenty as well, IMO.
A nanny is the most expensive form of childcare. If you can't afford one, you could seek out a SAHM with a child the same age as yours, or look for a family daycare. Or see if there are 2 college students who could cover your needed hours between them - Nursing, Education, and Social Science majors might be the most interested.
Or, as a PP said, maybe a nanny with her own baby would be a good choice. You could offer a few dollars less per hour.
And if the retention bonus is too much financially, offer to help nanny find a new job when you no longer need her, and offer non-financial benefits if you can think of something that appeals to your choice candidate.
I would do it as long as it was agreed there was a time limit to my providing free services. Then the family could ask me to offer more time if they paid me my hourly rate.
Help the kids make a card, and wish your employers a Happy Birthday.
It's a kind of archaic notion, but "Gifts flow down, not up." is good thing to remember.
It's a kind of archaic notion, but "Gifts flow down, not up." is good thing to remember.
|