How much would you pay for a bit of help around the house?

[SignOnTheWindow]

Just trying to gauge what to charge! I'd be available on an ad hoc or regular basis and offering tasks like:
Cleaning
Ironing
Washing
Running errands
Picking up kids from local schools
Supervising and helping with homework (I'm a home-educating ex teacher and tutor)
Walking the dog
Cleaning out pets
Weeding and lawn mowing
Helping with decluttering

I'm in the South East.

A sort of mother's help type role? Maybe £10 an hour.

Do you have an up to date DBS for the kids stuff?

I pay my cleaner £15 an hour up north so I’d pay similar I guess

I’ve paid cleaners £12-15 ph previously so probably about that. We’re in South East London

All those jobs command different rates where I am.

Cleaning- £10-£14/hr
Ironing- £10-30/hr (depends what is being ironed)
Washing- £10/per load
Running errands- no idea £10/hr minimum?
Picking up kids from local schools- nanny rate £15-£20/hr
Supervising and helping with homework (I'm a home-educating ex teacher and tutor)- £20-£30/hr
Walking the dog -£15-20/hr per dog
Cleaning out pets- cleaning rate so £10-£14/hr
Weeding and lawn mowing - gardeners rate £20+/hr
Helping with decluttering- higher end of cleaning rate £14/hr

That's really helpful - thank you all!

@Smallsteps88 I really appreciate your typing out all those figures - thank you.

@Shedpaint

Do you have an up to date DBS for the kids stuff?

I pay my cleaner £15 an hour up north so I’d pay similar I guess

Not an up-to-date one, no, as my enhanced DBS cert expired when I left my teaching job. I am planning to get myself a standard DBS cert, but as a self-employed person, I can't apply for the enhanced cert.

I’m in the north east and my cleaner is £12.50 per hour and she provides the cleaning materials. My aunt pays £17.50 per hour for her cleaner but she does her ironing, changes her bed and puts loads of washing on as the lady is more of a home help service.

Personally I wouldn’t charge less than £15 for any of them OP. Particularly if you will be taking bookings of one hour at a time. You have to allow travelling time to get from job to job which is unpaid and massively reduces your takings for the day. I’m a cleaner and only take 2 hour bookings or more for this reason.

Thanks @Smallsteps88, I have a tendency to undervalue myself!

I think lots of us do, particularly women.

One thing to avoid is pricing yourself to compete with the lowest rates in your area. It’s possible they have lower overheads and running costs than you and can then just drop their price to undercut you. As a new business without a reputation you then have nowhere to go to encourage people to use you as low price was your selling point. When I started I priced myself to match the highest rate in my area. It felt incredibly cheeky but I decided to because 1) people were clearly already happy to pay that rate for cleaning. 2) if they weren’t happy to pay it I would get no customers so could drop my rate if that happened (I didn’t need to!) and 3) people think higher rate means a better service and that’s what I wanted people to expect when hiring me. I work very hard and my rate is justified. But it would have been harder for me to start with a lower rate and then raise it to what I think I’m worth later so I just started at what I thought I was worth and people could either hire me or not.

I’m a house keeper. I do of that and more. I get paid £10 an hour and I work five hours a day on the estate. Sometimes more if I needed for extra stuff.