antodeco wrote: » Hi all, Looking for some help. My wife is looking to go back to work full time in the new year, and as a result are looking for a live in Au Pair. We both (will) work Mon - Fri. Myself, I'll leave about 7:15am and my wife about 6am. She returns about 4pm and myself about 7pm. We have 2 children (1 is mid to late teens, and the other in preschool age). This means really only 1 child to be looked after. He attends school 9am to 12:30pm, 10 minutes walk away. Is there anywhere someone would recommend to find au pairs, based on experience? I'd also like to know what the typical rates are for au pairs. We will be offering them their own self contained flat (front door, garden, en suite bedroom, kitchen and living room, all bills covered), as "part payment". Assumption on this would then be around €120/€150 a week on top of this. Not sure if this is too much/too little as information online varies. We live 15 minutes bus from Dublin city centre also. The expected requirements would be: - look after youngest from 7am and drop off to school for 9am and collect at 12:30, and mind him until roughly 4:30pm, exception being school holidays where he will be looked after 7am to 4:30pm - Light household duties - Occasional evening minding (once or twice a month at most) Thanks for any help.
ectoraige wrote: » When we looked for an aupair we advertised on a number of websites, easyaupair.com is the one we found ours on, but there were others, I can't remember. We had a number of email exchanges and then Skype interviews, first with just us, and then with the children, until we felt we'd found a good match for our family. You will need to be paying any aupair €9.80 an hour, you can deduct €54.13 per week for room and board, so during the term you should be paying €239.87 per week. In the summertime where you're expecting a 47.5 hour working week, this will rise to €430.97 per week. Are you or your wife able to obtain leave for term-time or reduce hours in the summer?
Subcomandante Marcos wrote: » So you want someone to look after your kids for less than minimum wage? Niiiice.
antodeco wrote: » Thanks for your useless post. I came on here asking for advise not for a smart comment. As mentioned,I was calculating the cost of renting towards their payment, but didn't know how it worked. I'm glad boards is so friendly towards people these days looking for advice.
Gwen Cooper wrote: » Hi there, I used to work as an au-pair for over five years. Based on what you're offering, you should have no problem finding an aupair beacause the accommodation sounds like a dream (most aupairs are stuck in a box room for the time of they stay) and the pay is a little bit above the average. However, as other posters mentioned, there's the minimum wage thing. Aupair was never meant as a job, it was always considered more of a cultural exchange, so it had different rules for pay, the pay wasn't considered wages, it was always called pocket money. In the last few years there were two court cases that I know about where an aupair sued their hostfamily for lost income and the family had to pay her back, I think that the family in the first case had to fork out €10,000. I did an AMA on being aupair a few months ago, if you want to give it a read: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057914024
antodeco wrote: » I was actually reading that, didn't know it was you! Thanks It seems that it makes more sense to put the au pair in a box room, rather than their own accommodation, based on how much the "bed and board" is only worth.
Sunflower 27 wrote: » Sounds really low for someone to earn 120/week. Who would even live on that? Isn't the dole more (and you can get rent allowance)?
antodeco wrote: » That's why I was asking was it too much/too little. It seems like it makes more sense to keep the flat rented out and either have an Au Pair living in the spare room, or just have an Au Pair for the times as required. My daughter is 15 so there's no kidding required for her!
Sunflower 27 wrote: » I think I answered your post by saying it seems too little to me. Why not just advertise to pay someone for the hours you need? Lots of people will already have accommodation. No way could I live on 120 a week. And a young person? They'd not be able to go out or enjoy themselves at all on that. It sounds like a terrible set up for them.
antodeco wrote: » That is the other option. Would it be common enough for a childminder to come to a house for 7am and drop a child to school for 9 and then collect at 12:30 and mind until 4? That would be roughly €300 a week?
Neyite wrote: » Is there any way that either of you could negotiate a shorter working week or working from home a day a week? It wasn't an option for me but my partner did have that option and it was the only way we managed. We've since moved nearer family who are happy to help out with wraparound care, we had no other option really.
antodeco wrote: » Thanks all. Based on the above, It actually seems like it doesn't work out financially at the minute as we would actually be losing money due to school fees, au pair fees and transport for my wife if she were to go back to work!
ectoraige wrote: » ...You will need to be paying any aupair €9.80 an hour, you can deduct €54.13 per week for room and board...
spuddy wrote: » Hope nobody minds if I hijack this thread but we're in a similar position, looking for 20 hours a week of help. Based on what I've understood we're effectively an employer for the said au pair, which means €9.80 and hour + 8.7% employers PRSI (8.7% Class A employer PRSI on weekly earnings up to €386), less accommodation / food. That's €196, less €54.13 = ~€142 to the au pair, and additional ~€17 to Revenue if I've understood correctly?
ectoraige wrote: » I *think* that's right, you should also send them on a Manual Handling course which would cost up to €100.
lazygal wrote: » Revenue doesn't categorise au pairs as anything but employees. People paying cash under the counter are leaving themselves wide open to having backdated payments for employers prsi and so on. I think you'd be foolish to think someone you'll be employing isn't an employee because of nebulous cultural stuff. Most people use au pairs for cheaper child care.
spuddy wrote: » I had a look on Revenue's website and specifically found the following document which clarifies the situation."A "domestic employee" is a person e.g. an Au Pair, who is employed by a domestic employer solely on domestic duties (including the minding of children) in the employer’s private dwelling house. The employee may have other employment with a different employer." It would seem pretty clear cut that you're expected to act as an employer, with all the associated overhead. In our case, ww have no real wish to become employers, it's simply not worth the hassle.
