Had a great idea, but now where would I find this ery specific kind of au-pair, if thats what it would be...

I once did this sort of thing. I used to deliver the children to school every day, and then have them a couple of evenings a week, plus a couple of weeks in the school holidays.

I lived rent free and paid a small amount towards phone.

It worked well for us all, but these people were friends already, who had a very big house.

mrn - I can also see where you're coming from - but you would be competing against people who would be paying as well as offering a room (we looked into the idea of a 'demi-pair' but in reality if you want someone reasonable to look after your kids you have to at least match the basic au pair rate, even if you need less hours)

Hijack (sorry) AtheneNoctua - any chance you could give me a realistic idea of how much to pay a live-in nanny, I have a thread about my school holiday childcare dilemma here Thanks

Quick! Find a rich mate and burn their house down!

Try the Lady mag, gumtree and greataupair.com but tbh, you are expecting too much in my opinion and the room should be in exchange for domestic duties, not an additional charge on top!

No, I wish! I also don't get use of the car!

I see your logic mrm, but in reality employing live-in childcare doesn't work that way, unfortunately. Very kind of your friend to offer the £20/week though.

I do see where you're coming from, and you might find someone, but I do think that most people looking at gumtree will say, they want me to work for them AND I have to pay toward bills? No thanks!

I think it'll be easier to find someone via a 'rooms for rent' site/part of gumtree.

And bear in mind that you would be obliged to provide food for an au pair, so that would push the costs up further.

I think your answer might be in splitting the two - get a lodger and charge x per month, then employ a babysitter for the evenings. That way, if you lose one, you haven't lost the other ( ! ) and it's much easier to find regular babysitters and lodgers than a combination of the two. You may even find that the lodger would step in the babysitter lets you down.

AtheneNoctua - I was at your guess of £80 Standard AP rate is £60-65 (I pay more because I am rural so harder to recruit APs).

Lilybeto - You don't happen to be studying in Cambridge do you?

AN it's 22 hours a month due to needing a babysitter only every other week, for 2ish hours per evening, Mon-Fri.

Millarkie can I work for you? I do the same now, e.g. student in a city where I can't afford to live. However, I work 25 hours a week, don't have an en suite and get paid £60!!

Oh good grief, what has MN done to me? Am I over quoting prices???

I don't think you can charge someone for a room and then expect them to baby sit for that many hours. Surely you would have to pay them something and the cost of the room could come out of that.

I think you are talking about gettin an au pair. And I agree that you will need to pay her the going rate for an au pair who works that number of hours. Not sure how much that is... probably £80 per week plus room and board... and maybe an English class if she negotiates that upfront. For this price, you could probably also get her to do a bit of housework and run some errands.

How old are the boys?

I think you are actually wanting what is called a demi-pair from your description - this is like an au pair who does 10-15 hours a week for a reduced allowance. Can you think of some more jobs for them to do and possibly advertise it on this basis?

Otherwise I would just advertise the room for free to a local student - possibly a postgrad - and forget about a contribution to the bills because that makes it actually quite unattractive IMO.

What time would 'evening babysitting' commence? You would need someone who could get home in time for you to go out (as well as prepared to give up all evening activities Mon-Fri and get up 'early' every other weekend).
For comparison - I'm in negotiations with a potential AP who is a student at a nearby University (and can't afford to rent a room in the city) - we are asking for her to cover 4pm-6.30pm each weekday (so she can still go out in the evening) plus a small amount of cleaning up.. and offering her a double room ensuite/food/car and £85 per week. (plus side for us is that she is committed to being in this area for a year and she can do extra hours during school holidays)

Your plan is worth a try (ad on gumtree is a good idea). One of the ideas I had was to rent our spare room to a professional person (lodger) and then use the rent to pay for live-out childcare etc.

Oh, I meant to say that £15/week for an au pair for those hours isn't very likely to produce many candidates. You certainly couldn't charge rent/bills on top of those hours.

You may need to re-think asking £20 a week.

Au pairs cost £60+ for a 20 hour week in London, so you could say the equivalent in your case would be £15+ for 5 hours a week, and that's without factoring in the weekends. And some au pairs are (wrongly, imo) put off by small rooms, though having every other week off is likely to be attractive

Also, what about food? For an au pair, you will be obliged to provide food, but not necessarily so for a lodger. Then factor in use of tv/rest of house/phone/internet etc and you may need a bigger re-think.

How about asking around local colleges for people on child care courses, or at nearby playgroups and nursery schools?

A London rate of £10/hour for babysitting is commonplace, but you could get someone young and unqualified for much less, especially if it's a case of watching your tv whilst the children are sleeping. That's a job for a local teenager, I think.

I'd do it but I have got two kids of my own!