Child Minder - How much to expect to pay?

aj89

Hi,

Just looking for opinions on how much to expect to pay a childminder for two half days.

Childminder will be collecting from Montessori (about a 2min walk from their house) at 12:30, and my child will be collected from there between 16:30/17:00. Childminder will be providing dinner.

Cheers

GAAcailin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058358318/child-minder-how-much-to-expect-to-pay

where are you based? can be a big difference between cities such as Dublin and rural; Is she minding other kids and maybe including her own. You are probably looking at about €6 per hour and extra for dinner. You need to ask her how much she expects too. Iron out all the details - like are you paying her until 5pm irrespective of whether you pick the child up at 5pm; will you still send you child to her during school holidays and if not do you pay her or do you have a term time agreement. Will she take him/her when sick etc.

good luck with it

Sixtoes

Dublin min €60 per day for those hours. €12p/hr and extra for meal.

aj89

Yeah we are outside of Dublin.

It's a family friend, who has a child very close in age to mine. They will also be minding one other child on one of the days that my daughter is there.

blue note

Would people mind giving their input if you have an idea. We're trying to agree a rate with our minder to a change in the setup. Now she would be

Available to take the 2 kids from 8 am in her house.

Dropping off the 3 year old to and from playschool (5 minutes away) for 3 hours.

Pick up by 5:30.

There are no other kids in the house. It's in Dublin. We provide the meals.

Any thoughts on what the daily rate should be?

GAAcailin

HI,

when you say a 'change to the setup' are you already employing this person? If so there may be some legacy arrangement that is relevant.

Presume the 3 year old will go to her outside of termtime - say about €16 per hour. €160 per day to mind both your kids. DO you think she'd be looking to mind more kids or is that one of the benefits i.e. she'd only have your 2. SHe must have some idea what she thinks she should get paid too..

Rows Grower

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122337509#Comment_122337509

6 euro an hour?

I find this very hard to believe in this day and age.

Rows Grower

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122503328#Comment_122503328

It'd have to be 150 euro a day minimum I'd say, one thing for sure I'd want anyone looking after my kids to know they are appreciated and will be well rewarded.

I'm still in shock after reading someone else suggesting 6 euro an hour is fair.

GAAcailin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122559642#Comment_122559642

Apologies - I meant €16 per hour (duuh), was thinking €160 per day. NO way €6. should have re-read my message..

Rows Grower

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122559694#Comment_122559694

Thanks be to God for that!

blue note

Thanks for these replies all. We had the first child there for two years, but I wanted fresh opinions on what a fair rate for what we were now engaging her for was. We don't want to underpay for obvious reasons and don't want to overpay for other obvious reasons.

There are advantages and disadvantages for us and the minder with one child and now two. For the one on one care that we had for the couple of years we were happy to pay a premium compared to what minders who were minding multiple children were charging. Similarly for two we're happy to pay a premium for the lower child / mind ratio, but not double what we'd pay for one.

For anyone looking for information - we agreed 140.

As with every arrangement, there are things particular to this one that aren't necessarily common. While it's an agreed 9.5 hours, in reality it's been 8-8.5 per day for the last year. There are lots of days off for the minder when we go back to my home county for a few days or on holidays. And an afternoon off most weeks when the older child went to the granny's house. Yes it's true that the minder has to be free these days in case we need her, but she gets plenty of notice that she'll have a day or two off next week, or a week off next month. I'd certainly love to get those random days off. And the annoying one - since they're in the minders house, when someone is sick there we generally don't send them. The logic being that they'll get sick and we won't be able to send them then anyway, so it's better to hold on to them when they're well as opposed to bringing a sickness into the house.

The other great thing for the minder only minding one is that she can get so many jobs done during the day. Her kids drop offs and pick ups, shopping, cooking, meeting friends. You'll still get a lot of those done with two, but you're more restricted and it's harder.