AIBU to think they are paying too little? (nanny related)

[sunshineinthenorth]

I've started looking at live-in nanny jobs, and I came across an advert today which I think is unreasonable, yet I'm unsure of what a 'normal' nanny salary consists of.

The family in question want a live in nanny (provided with one bedroom in their house) who works 12.5 hour days, 5 days a week and babysits evenings twice a week too, as well as clean and dog walk.

copied from ad- duties include:

• Light housework
  
• Changing sheets
  
• Laundry and ironing
  
• Cooking for the whole family
  
• Running errands
  
• Be in the house when our daughter returns from school
  
• Taking our daughter to occasional appointments
  
• Babysitting once or twice a week
  
• Dog walking
  

for all this they will pay £150 a week. Is this reasonable? It doesn't even work out to minimum wage and it is central London based.

Aware I might be being slightly naive!

[HakeLively]

Of course it's not reasonable! It's shocking!

[HakeLively]

Sadly I see these quite a lot though. Was it on Gumtree?

[Astoria7974]

It's a live-in position right? So presume living costs are covered

[PaperdollCartoon]

Yeh that's definitely not ok!

I think they think that's a reasonable Au Pair situation, rather than Nannying, for that pay. But Au Pairs shoudn't do anywhere that much.

[PaperdollCartoon]

Astoria even with living costs covered you're expected to pay at least mimimum wage for the actual work done.

[Astoria7974]

Agree that they don't want a nanny they want an au pair. I pay my nanny £1000/mth for 4-6hours of work per day.

[HakeLively]

Even if living costs are covered, that's waayyy too low for the vast amount of hours they want worked. And I get the impression that the nanny is living-in for the convenience of the employer more than anything else.

[QuackDuckQuack]

I doubt that it's legal. There is an exemption on minimum wage for au pairs, but this doesn't look like a au pair job.

[babyunicornvomit]

That's only just over £2 an hour that's crazy!
Even factoring in that you get free accommodation in central London, that's obscenely low.
I'd say look how much renting a room in their areas would cost you and work out how much your living costs would be on minimum wage doing those hours. For example if minimum wage is £7.20 and you're doing the above hours (62.5 weekly) you'd be earning £450 a week, which is £1800 a month. Say it's £800 a month to flatshare in that area, that's £1000 you've got left, leaving out tax etc for now.
On what they're offering, you're getting £600 a month - this isn't a lot to live/travel etc in London!
^obviously do the sums more accurately but just to put it into perspective, for the hours they're asking this is peanuts!

[Hairyfairy01]

Is the child at school all day? If so it sounds ok to me.

[babyunicornvomit]

Also re-reading the above it seems like they want a househelp-chef-nanny-dogwalker-cleaner... all for £150 a week? Nope.

[HakeLively]

Really *HairyFairy?

[HakeLively]

Bold fail- HairyFairy.

[babyunicornvomit]

I assume the child is at school Hairyfairy but they expect her to walk the dogs, clean, change beds, cook etc during that time, so it should be paid.

[sunshineinthenorth]

the child is at school but they want childcare before and after and cleaning/errands and dog walking in the day time

they also want the candidate to be a full time carer/cleaner in the holidays

[Hairyfairy01]

Maybe my expectations are low :-). Surely light housework, a bit of laundry and dog walking won't take all day so working it out by the hour isn't really fair? I'm thinking whoever gets the job must get quite a bit of free time, plus they are presumably getting there rent, food and bills included. To be honest I don't earn much more in the NHS and that's without the majority of my bills being paid (take home pay about £250 a week).

[MontyPythonsFlyingFuck]

That's miles under NMW and IIRC you can only count a small amount of money (£6/day?) for living in, which takes it to the still-shit total of £192/wk. Who would one report them to? I thought NMW covered all employers?

[Notcontent]

Ha, ha - they are basically looking for a live-in slave!

[HakeLively]

I don't see, from that list, where the 'free-time' would come in? It states 12.5 hours, 5 days a week.

[Vermillioncomfyshoes]

I don't see how a nanny's duties can include walking a dog.

Surely that takes the job to a whole different level.

[HakeLively]

In a nanny and I walk the dogs! I love waking the dogs

I get paid a proper wage, though.

[TheWitTank]

Good grief. That's a shameful amount to offer for such a role.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

They want a house elf.

Bastards.

[Want2bSupermum]

A nanny is there to provide childcare not clean the house, walk the dog, change sheets or cook for the family.

They are looking for a student who can help them out during the holidays with childcare not a nanny. They should be more specific. I expect 12.5 hours per week, not per day which is GBP8 per hour.

[JCo24]

"Cooking for the whole family" - uh, what?