For those ladies with a nanny or other type of caretaker...

MyShellyBelly · December 2011

Let me begin by apologizing for not posting as much as I used to. Since I started back to work, life has seemed a lot busier to say the least. I try to read posts every evening in bed, but I fall asleep (more like pass out from exhaustion haha) before I can reply.

My question:

For those of you that have a nanny or other caregiver, are you giving your nanny a bonus for Christmas? If so, how much?

We bought our nanny a toaster (her toaster broke and she's never bought a replacement) and we are going to give her a bonus. My DH and I can't agree on how much though. He says $50, but that seems way too little to me. I read that it should be a week's salary, buy my DH says that's way too much.

What are you ladies doing?

Again, I'm sorry about not being around as much...I'll try to work on that because I miss you wonderful ladies

LVBlvd · December 2011

Well, I have only a once a week nanny, so we won't tip for Christmas. But we do tip other people, like our maid. I gave her a $100 tip.

I think a weeks salary sounds like way too much, personally.

I would give her in cash what you would spend on a nice gift.

JillRock96 · December 2011

Our nanny is off for Christmas break (and on vacation in Florida, lucky lady!), so we gave her half of what her salary would be over break. I also bought her a small gift card to Panera (her favorite).

BeccaLandes · December 2011

we have a sitter who comes 2 days/week. we are going to give her $100 as a holiday gift.

i think $50 is too little for someone who is there everyday, but i agree that one week's salary is a little too much.

tnkrbl21 · December 2011

The boys go to daycare 2x's a week and I was going to go get her a target giftcard for probably like $25. Honestly with another baby on the way we can't really afford too much. I know that she'll use it and hopefully she'll appreciate it. I was also going to have the boys make her a christmas card and bake her some cookies. I think a week's salary is a bit too much.

MrsAMR · December 2011

I am giving a weeks salary plus a Starbucks card. Maybe it's just where I live (NYC) but most people here give at least a week, if not two weeks.

Mr.&MrsS · December 2011

We just switched day cares. Last year we gave our old woman $100 each. We couldnt afford to give them both a week pay. This year we just left them at the beginning of December so we gave them $100. We just started with our new child care situation December 5th (family) so we will give her a $25 gift card. It may seem small, but she has only had the boys for 3 weeks. (And she just got married and we gave them $100 for that and we werent invited to the wedding, so I think that kind of makes up for it).

I think she would be happy with whatever you are able to afford to give her. Maybe $100 is a good compromise?

schmoodle · December 2011

I've always heard 1-2 weeks salary for a full time nanny. Ours has only been with us 2 months and only one of those full time so we did closer to a half week salary. in the future I'll probably do 1 week salary. I think it's very different for a babysitter or occasional sitter than someone for whom you're their sole employer/source of income.

lovemymonkey · December 2011

We gave our nanny 2-week's pay. I asked my local girlfriends who have nannies what they gave as Chritmas bonuses and 2-week's pay was about average. It ranged from $200 - $2000! We fell in the middle. ;-)

EastCoastBride · December 2011

We're giving her a bottle of wine and $100. that's about the average of what we pay her weekly (he goes 2 - 3 days a week).

JenCW · December 2011

We are giving our nanny one and a half week's pay and a small gift (she works three days/week). We usually wouldn't give quite as much, but we are taking a vacation the first week of January, so she won't be working that week. We thought it would be nice to compensate her some for the time we'll be gone.

To me, for a full-time nanny at least one week's pay would be appropriate, but I live in a high cost-of-living area.

ohiostategal · December 2011

I have someone that comes once a week from 9-3 and I gave her $70 added on to her check this week. FWIW we live in a lower COL area.

lnle · December 2011

I think we're giving her $100 cash and maybe a small gift card or gift. she works for us 20 hrs/wk.

Sarafuss · December 2011

Roman goes to a sitter 2-3 days a week and we gave her $25 gift card to Kroger. Money is tight right now otherwise I would have liked to give her more. Especially since Roman is a handful!

Mouseygail · December 2011

We take DS to a small, inhome daycare. She is super cheap and amazing with him. We are giving her $200 and a small gift.

laura1 · December 2011

Last year we had a nanny 2 days a week. We gave her 1 weeks pay, and then also paid her for the week before Christmas when we were away. But a good nanny is hard to find, so we were more than happy to do it!

This year, we couldn't find a good nanny, so the kids are in pre-school for 2 days a week, an extended day (7am -11:30am, and we may be making it until 1pm in January). I gave their teachers $30 gift cards to Starbucks. We also have a regular babysitter who comes 1-2 times a week for 3 hours each time, and I also gave her a $30 gift card to Starbucks.

pamela-matt · December 2011

We are giving ours 1/2 weeks pay extra. She works 35 hours per week. She has been with us since Sept and is always off when i am...some of those times we pay her for that off time. We are also doing a paid weeks vaca in Feb.

MyShellyBelly · December 2011

Thank you for all the wonderful replies! I'm going to have my DH read them as well. Thanks!

Ali212 · December 2011

My one caveat is I lived in NYC with our nanny so COL and the whole nanny thing is a bit out of control there but what we did was pretty standard for NYC so here goes. For the holiday bonus, we always gave cash of two weeks of her pay (again, standard with all my friends who also had nannies). In addition, we would get her a little gift from my daughter (something small-ish in value, $30 or less).

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