Nanny question
Trillian46
member
Hi, I'm new to this board. I have one son, and I will be returning to my job in November. I'm starting a nanny search now, but I don't have much information. Can anyone give me a general idea of what I should I expect to pay? We need someone who is fairly detail oriented (because my son takes three kinds of medication ... and some of the medications cannot be given with food or the other medications), so I'm guessing I'll be paying at the high end of the spectrum. I've posted on my local board, but no one has responded... I saw a website that indicated the national average is around $700 / week (including taxes and sometimes partial health care benefits). Is it really that expensive? We live in a big city, but the cost of living here isn't as high as NYC or LA... also, how do you deal with the nanny tax issues? It all seems fairly complicated at the moment...
Finally, how much vacation do you offer your nanny? Sick days? I understand if you aren't comfortable answering any questions about compensation, but it would be great to hear about vacation and sick days. Thanks in advance.
Re: Nanny question
It really depends on where you live. In Boston, $15-20 an hour is the norm, and you'll need to consider taxes and benefits too.
We have a part-time nanny. We don't give formal vacation days, but she has certain days she can't work when she's scheduled (~5 per year) and when we take vacation or otherwise don't use her when she's scheduled, we still pay her.
This really depends where you live. I live just outside a med COL area, and the rate here is about $12-15. We've had our nanny six months, and pay her $13/hr. I use intuit online payroll to do all the taxes. It was a pain to setup initially, but now it is so easy. On payday I just enter the number of hours and it calculates everything, also prepares and helps manage state and federal taxes. I couldn't imagine keeping track of everything without some sort of help. I want it to be as painless as possible.
We used a nanny agency to find our nanny. I started by looking at sites like care.com, but I didn't like how just anyone can post there. I was more comfortable going with an agency. They worked with us to create a job description and send us the candidates to interview, and handled all the backgroud and credit checks. You will find benefits vary - we gave 15 days, 5 at our discretion and the rest she can use whenever. Whatever you are comfortable giving, just make sure you discuss it up front and have it in writing so you are both clear on expectations.
like pp says.. depends on where you live...
I was looking at nanny's here in Nebraska, and the average rate I found for my 1 infant was around $8-$10 an hour...
She gets basically 4 weeks of vacation and sick time. She takes her vacations typically in conjunction with ours (except this next one she'll be taking a week after us due to flights and schedule and I'm not actually on vacation, I will be in the hospital). It's pretty much three weeks of vacation time, five days of sick time and all the NYSE holidays plus the day after Christmas and the day after Thanksgiving.
We also pay her OT for hours beyond our contracted hours- and we pay that same rate for babysitting. Babysitting we pay for when we schedule it, any OT we pay in the weekly check.