A friend volunteered to watch my daughter this summer while I am at work. It will be for about 15-20 hours each week. She said she didn't want any money, but I wouldn't feel right not paying. It's been a long time since I even paid a babysitter. What is a fair price?

I would say $50 - $100.

How old is your daughter? What are the hour times? (meaning time during the day/evening) Is she babysitting at your house or hers. The going rate here in Alaska is between $5 - $10 per hour depending on the age and number of children being watched.

I think $4 -5 an hour is a pretty fair price.

If she doesn't want to accept cash, what about Gift Certificates then for the local grocery store, movie rental places, eateries, gas station, etc...

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"Why must you speak, when you have nothing to say." Horatio Hornblower

What's the situation? Does she have a DD the same age? I think $60 is fair.

Where do you live?
What hours?
Who is providing snacks & meals?

Daycare pay isn't done by the hour. Babysitting for a few hours in a once a week situation would be paid by the hour, IMHO. I live in West Central AR and have a friend that does in home daycare. $75. per child per week, snacks, breakfast, lunch provided.

I'd call around and see what local daycare centers charge and pay her in that range.

The going rate in Ohio is 3.00/hour

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Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like. - Will Rogers

Imagine this?
We were live and paying highly reputable licensed sitter for 50 hours a weeks only costs us $50 a week. Which here at times seems very high because the low income jobs....BUT after seeing what you're all recommending has left me scratching my head.......

HERE: 1 child for 50 hours = $50
AND for each additional siblings is only $12 more a week per child.


WOW! Is all I can say for yall's childcare...
The amount that yall are paying for one child, I could send a baseball team to the sitter.

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email is moserlara@yahoo.com

The going rate for in-home daycare around here is $125 per week. Daycare centers (the good ones) are in the range of $150 -$165 per week (the last time I checked).

Daycare here runs $25 a day.
I did some in-home childcare and asked for $22 a day (which included lunch and snacks provided by me).

This was a year ago.

Babysitting and daycare are different scenarios... I consider babysitting to be evening and/or weekend when spouses and school age children are at home. Babysitters make more than Daycare Caregivers. If they were paid the same, no one would be able to afford to work!

I would ggogle the cost of living in your area.

I checked into daycare centers for my SIL a couple of years ago for one child and it was 125 dollars per week and you brought their lunch and snack everyday. That was a couple of years ago!!!

I recommend that if she doesn't want you paying her I would give her a gift certificate to the grocery store every couple of weeks, or have her house cleaned for her every couple of weeks. Also, what about taking her kids one night a week so she can go out with Dh or something like that. Or you take lunch stuff and snack stuff for EVERYONE, every week.

I am bartering services with a teacher now for my youngest DD to be tutored......She tutors three hours a week and I clean her house once a week. Works well for all and no one has to report it on their taxes!!

Just a few ideas to help out, let us know how it goes!!

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Vicki


TLJ Women united in Spirit!

My daughter is 9 and she has a daughter the same age, so they pretty much keep each other company. We live in Virginia. She is making lunches, but I have been sending juice and snacks.

wow. yall pay a LOT. my 4 yo goes to daycare on base. we pay $198/month. That includes breakfast, lunch and 2 snacks. Plus field trips, etc.

Before that she was going to a sitter we'd had for years. She charged $75/week and that included everything also.

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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? " ~Epicurus

I think it's a win-win situation for both of you. To me, it's so much easier to have a children over to play with my kids (mine are 4 & 7). It's much less work than when it's just me and my kids at home.

I would work out a deal with her that you will give her either cash or gift certificates to places that would be fun for her to take the girls -- Build-A-Bear, movie theater, roller skating, pool/water park, amusment park, paint your own pottery place, restaurant (for lunch), etc. If the girls are into a certain craft (beads/jewelry making, scrapbooking, etc.), you could buy the supplies and send them with your DD and the girls could enjoy those during the day.

I think anything that would make the other mom's job easier and keep the girls entertained would be appreciated!

I had thought about $50 per week. If she won't take the $$, I do like the idea of g.c.s so that she can take the kids out for fun activities. I would love an arrangement like that!

My own slant on this: I would never pay a child care worker *less* than the local minimum wage plus 20-25% more.
My kids are treasures, they deserve the best I can afford.
That said, I can *not* afford this in my area, so economically, it made better sense for me to stay home.
Also did a lot for my peace of mind ;-)
And so I quit my job nearly a year ago.
And we, a larger than average fam, are making it just fine, TYVM ;-) It's tight, financially, but not as hard to do as I thought it might be. Best decision I ever made ( okay, marrying dh is up there, too , cuz his salary can support us ifr need be.


MZ

This is a bit extreme, IMHO. In my area, there's no childcare provider that would expect to be paid $300. a week per child. That's just exorbitant.

its funny this should come up today. Another board I post on had a mother whose DD was offered $200 a week to keep 2 kids and she was offended that she wasn't offered more.

I said the going rate around here was about $125 a week and nobody agreeded with me. They were all saying nannies should get $7 an hour or more. I don't consider a high school girl babysitting for the summer a nanny.

I wish I could share this with them so they can see I am NOT out of my mind and that other people pay as little as I did.

I think $75 would be more than fair. I paid $60 a week for aftershool care and I would put this on par with that plus a little extra for food which is how I got to the $75 number.

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MyCoupons is #1 for holiday shopping!

to poster Powellrj.......I couldn't agree with you more. A high school girl isn't a nanny and shouldn't be paid by the hour. Even a nanny is on a salary, aren't they?
I was offended a while back when DD told me that one of her friends was babysitting for a friend of her mother's for the summer. A big total of $40. a week. That's a rip off!! That's taking advantage of child labor and the mom and her friend should be ashamed of themselves.
Daycare rates vary widely according to where a person lives. What seems cheap in one area is high to another.

Another thing to keep in mind with daycare centers and even some babysitters, they are watching more than one child.

Our former neighbor kept about seven kids, I believe, at $2/hour, so she got $14/hour, and she charged whether or not the kids showed up. 14X9 hours/day = $126/day... = $500/week... = $2,500ish/month. That's about $30,000/year. Not doctor pay by any means, but the average household income in our county is $38,000. Hers is a supplemental income for their family, so their family collectively earns well above the average for this area.

Given that the kids will be playing together which can actually be a help sometimes and that she doesn't want money for it, I would think that $40-50 a week would be a nice gesture. She can choose whether to use that money for activities for the kids or keep for herself. I would continue to send the juice and snacks also.

cj/

Look, I am one of those folks who can make a nickel squeak. But I believe that , in general (deals aside, as in child care), you get what you pay for.
I misunderstood the OP's query, thought it was merely about hourly babysitting, mea culpa.

I have never needed full, or even half time, child care, so I am obviously outta the loop.

I have needed hourly babysitters in the past and have paid the best ones I could find more than the going rate to ensure I would get the best possible short term care for my brood of kids that were both special needs and otherwise.

I have no idea what I would do if I had to hire half to full time child care. I probably (and this is only *me*) would choose to not work outside my home.

*Not *an indictment of other folks, merely my own personal prefs.

I *have* worked half time outside the home, gave up a very gratifying and financially lucrative job in the past year to be home w/the kids more.

I have found I only needed sporadic child care for my 6 kids in the past 20+,years. At this point my kids are all old enough to be their own *babysitters*.

We all choose where our precious financial resources are best spent, and in my past, whenever I've needed childcare, we've chosen to pay more than the local averages to ensure we got the best. And we've lived in various parts of the U.S. (no, we are not military ;-)

BTW... it's always worked ell for *us*.
MZ