What do you pay your babysitter?

[Princess Row]

What do you normally pay your babysitters if you go out for a few hours?
From newborn to young teens.
I would love to know the ages and price you pay!

 

[Janepod]

What do you normally pay your babysitters if you go out for a few hours?
From newborn to young teens.
I would love to know the ages and price you pay!

$15/hour for high schoolers, $17-$20 for adults. My son is 7.

 

[aprilgail2]

I don't pay one but my 13 year old babysits and gets anywhere from 12.50-15.00 an hour. Last weekend for 6 hours she got 100.00.

 

[Princess Row]

WOW! I charge $10 an hour for two kids and usually $12 for three kids, most of the time the kids are under 5.

However, I was recently asked to be a nanny for a family I know through a mutual friend. They asked me to watch their two week old baby for 5 days a week 3 hours a day $100 a week.....
I agreed just for a few weeks..... mind you this is about 6.50 an hour.....
Then they changed it to:
5 days a week
4 hours a day
TAXED
YEP TAXED!!

I asked for $150 untaxed and they said I was over priced.

Another note:
I DRIVE to their door EVERYDAY, about a 30 min drive.
A day care would charge way more than me, wouldn't deliver to the house, is often watching other kids at the same time and will charge late fees if not picked up at a certain time....


So I am currently home for summer and not babysitting at this time.....
but I will be letting them know I am not returning....

 

[Laura66]

I don't use one anymore. My son 19, and daughter 22, both nanny and babysit and get at least 10 - 15 bucks an hour. They both have cars so they have their own transportation and often drive their charges to and from their summer camps/activities.

 

[JessicaR]

$15/hour for high schoolers, $17-$20 for adults. My son is 7.

I don't pay one but my 13 year old babysits and gets anywhere from 12.50-15.00 an hour. Last weekend for 6 hours she got 100.00.

Wow! Kinda surprised at these high rates. Good for those making them though!

How old was the child watched, April?

I can see higher rates paid for babies and toddlers for sure. Overall not a shabby salary for sure even around here, LI.

 

[Laura66]

Wow! Princess Row! You are sooooo being taken advantage of - and she knows it! The family my son babysits for wanted to pay him 50 bucks a day! The kid is 4 years old has been kicked out of 2 day cares for aggression. He politely told them um, no!

 

[gunner2010]

$15.00 an hour for us...

 

[Lisa71]

We pay 10-12 an hour. Two kids and they are 6 and 7. DS is not potty trained yet due to CP but does great with our sitters. No baths, cooking, or cleaning..just watch the kids. We pay more if it will be late. We did not use teens until DS was almost 3.

 

[aprilgail2]

Wow! Kinda surprised at these high rates. Good for those making them though!

How old was the child watched, April?

I can see higher rates paid for babies and toddlers for sure. Overall not a shabby salary for sure even around here, LI.

5 year old boy.

 

[ali in wonderland]

I pay my adult sitter $15-20 per hour. I always round up and the price changes oly due to the number of my children she is watching. We are very generous in other ways with her. We have taken her and her boyfriend on vacation. We let them do their laundry at our house. My daughter babysits, and she charges $10 per hour.

 

[robinb]

I need to have my 13-year old newly minted HS DD read this thread! She loves kids and I keep on telling her she could make some good money!

 

[Chelley00]

Wow. I know this usually varies by region but I'm feeling really cheap!

Our summer sitters are teenage girls (they rotate days and aren't working every week) and we are paying them $8 per hour for an 11 year old and an 8 year old, and they are here 3-4 hours a day. I usually round up and kick in a little extra because gas is so high plus I make sure there are things here for them to eat for breakfast and/or lunch depending on when they are here. I asked around and found people paying $6-$10 an hour so I split the difference.

 

[Tinijocaro]

Dd15 sits for two families. One pays 10/hr, the other pays barely 5/hour.

 

[gemini2727]

My daughter babysits for a number of families in our neighborhood, some with two kids, some with three. She gets $10/hour.

 

[Princess Row]

WOW!
Thanks for all the input!!

 

[superme80]

I usually pay $10 an hour for 2 boys 4 and 2.

 

[A_Princess'_Daddy]

We usually pay around $12 per hour and round up to the nearest $10 increment (easier for cash). The going rate is lower around here (Des Moines, Iowa area, and most sitters have quoted us $10 per hour), but we need sitters fairly often because of evening events for our jobs, and we want to make sure that the sitters will be available when we need them. Paying better than average helps them choose us when faced with multiple offers, because good sitters always have multiple offers, in our experience.

We pay our summer nanny $500 per week, which is a steal in my opinion (50 hours a week, +/-) but it was a 25% raise for her over her last family and, in reality, it's a pretty cushy job, as they spend 60% of their time at our country club where the lifeguards and kid club attendants do most of the watching and so our summer nanny is able to relax and work on her tan. She professes to be very happy, and seems very happy, so I'll just enjoy the "good deal" that I think we are receiving from her.

 

[Lintasare]

Man babysitting has gone up. When I babysat in middle and high school I earned $2 an hour, by the time I graduated I was earning $3, sometimes $5 if there was more than 2 kids.

I think I am in the wrong line of work.

 

[luv2sleep]

It really depends on the region. You pay more in places like NY and CA. There is a huge jump in the price of Childcare when you even go from southern to northern CA. For example, for Childcare the going rate per month for a 3 year old was $800/month where I live in southern CA and $1500/month in north therm CA.

The in home sitter rate varies like that too. Here in southern CA the regional rate is anywhere frI'm $12-20/hr for one child and in northern CA the lowest rate is $15/hr and up from there. This is all just for one kid. Add more kids and usually the rate is 1.5x the original rate for 2 and upwards from there.

On another board I visit, when this was discussed, people in places with lower costs of living could get away with paying a good babysitter $8/hr for 2 kids. Here in CA that wouldn't even happen for one kid.

I also live I'm a place where my little 1800 sq foot home cost over $500K when I purchased it and the going rate for the same size home in northern CA is now over $700K. Mine unfortunately did not hold its value and is now worth less. My friend's home in northern CA (the same sized home) did. A friend of mine in NC has a much larger house than mine and it cost her much less than mine. I think she pays $150L for it or something. In a place like hers where the cost of living is obviously much less there's no way they'd have to pay $12-15/hr for a sitter.