Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously every family gives what they can, but I was under the assumption that bonuses were the norm, especially since these girls make such little money and provide such critical support. We pay the $200 via direct deposit and then give $500 for birthday & Christmas and then another $1000 at the start of their travel month. We then do the standard thing as you must in thr suburbs of having an AP car and then covering her gas, she gets a CC loaded with $250/mo for her personal incidentals, so she can buy whatever food she wants above what I buy and gas and whatever personals she needs.

The talk of a $20 monthly bonus for a "stellar" job and a an "exciting" $200 annual bonus quit shocking considering what these you people do for us and how little they are paid.

There is no way you are a HM. If you were, you would not be referring to adult women and men as "these girls."

Sorry to disappoint. My APS have been 18/19yr olds. They are girls to me. They need quite a lot of guidance and support.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously every family gives what they can, but I was under the assumption that bonuses were the norm, especially since these girls make such little money and provide such critical support. We pay the $200 via direct deposit and then give $500 for birthday & Christmas and then another $1000 at the start of their travel month. We then do the standard thing as you must in thr suburbs of having an AP car and then covering her gas, she gets a CC loaded with $250/mo for her personal incidentals, so she can buy whatever food she wants above what I buy and gas and whatever personals she needs.

The talk of a $20 monthly bonus for a "stellar" job and a an "exciting" $200 annual bonus quit shocking considering what these you people do for us and how little they are paid.

There is no way you are a HM. If you were, you would not be referring to adult women and men as "these girls."

And HPs as "you people."

Anonymous wrote:Obviously every family gives what they can, but I was under the assumption that bonuses were the norm, especially since these girls make such little money and provide such critical support. We pay the $200 via direct deposit and then give $500 for birthday & Christmas and then another $1000 at the start of their travel month. We then do the standard thing as you must in thr suburbs of having an AP car and then covering her gas, she gets a CC loaded with $250/mo for her personal incidentals, so she can buy whatever food she wants above what I buy and gas and whatever personals she needs.

The talk of a $20 monthly bonus for a "stellar" job and a an "exciting" $200 annual bonus quit shocking considering what these you people do for us and how little they are paid.

There is no way you are a HM. If you were, you would not be referring to adult women and men as "these girls."

Before we got AP's bank account set up, we were rounding up because who has exact change each week? Now that we're on direct deposit, we give the exact stipend.

I read the aupairmom article on it and thought it was a good argument, kind of the same argument in favor of the earned-income tax credit being paid in one lump sum. I've already given our AP a nice mid-year bonus and will give her another bonus when she completes her year.

We also do full call, text, and data, and don't ask AP to chip in for gas since she's staying local with most of her outings. I don't count those as much.

If I paid cash each week, I'd round up for my own convenience. I would feel very petty handing her $0.95 in change. However, since I pay with direct deposit, I don't really see what the point of rounding up is since it's just as easy either way. If I was going to give more, why stop at $200? Why not give $204 just to be THAT MUCH BETTER than the families giving $200?? Seems ridiculous. If I wanted to increase the stipend because I thought it was too little, I'd increase it way more than $4. My employer doesn't round up my paycheck either just to make it a pretty round number.

Anyway - We give PLENTY of other perks and are very generous about covering expenses and things they want to do. To me , the stipend is what it is and that's the one thing I don't have to think much about because it's right there in the AP contract.

Obviously every family gives what they can, but I was under the assumption that bonuses were the norm, especially since these girls make such little money and provide such critical support. We pay the $200 via direct deposit and then give $500 for birthday & Christmas and then another $1000 at the start of their travel month. We then do the standard thing as you must in thr suburbs of having an AP car and then covering her gas, she gets a CC loaded with $250/mo for her personal incidentals, so she can buy whatever food she wants above what I buy and gas and whatever personals she needs.

The talk of a $20 monthly bonus for a "stellar" job and a an "exciting" $200 annual bonus quit shocking considering what these you people do for us and how little they are paid.

We don't round up. Instead we add the extra money ($200) over the course of the year to various gifts we give the au pair. I feel like it is more exciting to get a $200 bonus than an extra 4 per week.

We round up. $4 and change the week is the price of a Starbucks. I'd feel petty not to round up, but I see nothing wrong in other people not doing it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're expecting our first au pair soon.

We're going to be doing an automatic transfer into a bank account so it certainly isn't like I'm looking for quarters, but... do folks pay the base or round up to $200.

Base pay via direct deposit. However, I am one of those who provides a cell phone with data plan, unlimited talk and text, so I feel like this is a pretty significant perk. I also share cars with AP and am pretty liberal with the gas in that she has my credit card to fill up the car and even though the AP is supposed to contribute her own gas money each week, we are on the honor system and I am quite sure that I am subsidizing AP's personal transit. There is a nice discussion of this on au pair mom. Some people on that forum take the $5 or so a week that it would take to get to $200 and use it to buy a $20 gift card each month to give to the AP when her performance is stellar.

I thought these "perks" were normal? My AP has a cc I've given her and ALL her gas goes on that, plus ANY food she wants to buy outside of expensive restaurants and paying for her friends. She also has her own car. $20 for "stellar" performance?! How generous.

Haha

Note that the APs talk about the families that give the exact stipend. My AP knows family who counts out the change.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're expecting our first au pair soon.

We're going to be doing an automatic transfer into a bank account so it certainly isn't like I'm looking for quarters, but... do folks pay the base or round up to $200.

Base pay via direct deposit. However, I am one of those who provides a cell phone with data plan, unlimited talk and text, so I feel like this is a pretty significant perk. I also share cars with AP and am pretty liberal with the gas in that she has my credit card to fill up the car and even though the AP is supposed to contribute her own gas money each week, we are on the honor system and I am quite sure that I am subsidizing AP's personal transit. There is a nice discussion of this on au pair mom. Some people on that forum take the $5 or so a week that it would take to get to $200 and use it to buy a $20 gift card each month to give to the AP when her performance is stellar.

I thought these "perks" were normal? My AP has a cc I've given her and ALL her gas goes on that, plus ANY food she wants to buy outside of expensive restaurants and paying for her friends. She also has her own car. $20 for "stellar" performance?! How generous.

We give $200. And, like PPs, have unlimited data plans and also provide almost unrestricted use of a car (no road trips) and we pay for the gas.

I wrote a response before telling OP to look up the big thread on this on aupairmom, but I see it didn't post for some reason. OP, definitely go look that up. Some people do give 200 and some people don't. We used to, until I realized it was $200 extra over the year, and I didn't think that anyone actually recognized this (either me or the AP). Certainly, I didn't feel the AP was appreciative of this.

I have stopped doing the extra and now do the extra gift cards. We also do a sizable bonus at the end.

Like PP, we do the full data plan, unlimited talk and text, AP has dedicated car, etc. Our AP definitely doesn't feel that we are short with her due to not giving an extra $4 per week because we are very generous with her in ways that she recognizes and appreciates.

Anonymous wrote:We're expecting our first au pair soon.

We're going to be doing an automatic transfer into a bank account so it certainly isn't like I'm looking for quarters, but... do folks pay the base or round up to $200.

Base pay via direct deposit. However, I am one of those who provides a cell phone with data plan, unlimited talk and text, so I feel like this is a pretty significant perk. I also share cars with AP and am pretty liberal with the gas in that she has my credit card to fill up the car and even though the AP is supposed to contribute her own gas money each week, we are on the honor system and I am quite sure that I am subsidizing AP's personal transit. There is a nice discussion of this on au pair mom. Some people on that forum take the $5 or so a week that it would take to get to $200 and use it to buy a $20 gift card each month to give to the AP when her performance is stellar.

We're expecting our first au pair soon.

We're going to be doing an automatic transfer into a bank account so it certainly isn't like I'm looking for quarters, but... do folks pay the base or round up to $200.