How much to pay 14yo neighbour to feed cat once a day for a week while we're away?

[TropicofCapricorn]

Hi, how much do you think is sensible for them?

Come in, one sachet, one scoop of biscuits, top up water. Only needs one time a day.

£20?

Yes, but they also have to make sure they're available for that time, you can't just calculate the actual 10 minutes they spend in the house. Plus, as stated above, OP will probably be expecting them to alert her about any problems.

My excellent 15 year old catsitter gets £5 a visit, and for that she walks 15 minutes up the hill and 15 minutes back (Although she's got quite a round in the village at peak holiday time, so she may be doing another couple of pets on the way). She let me know when my greenhouse door got smashed in a gale, and she and her dad cleared it up for me, bless her.

20 is the going rate here for a week - it's well over minimum wage for the time spent!

£50 for the week. It used to cost me £17 for a single 15 minute visit using a pet pals service

£5 a day is a bargain, you sound stingy.

And many others disagree!

So is the cat going outside as usual whilst you're away? I'm going away in June & friends & family will be visiting twice a day to feed her & let her out in the morning & get her inside on an evening. Mine will have litter trays inside in case she needs to go overnight.

£20 a day is stingy. I’d pay 40-50£ out of curtsey.
I’d acc be quite offended if a neighbour of mine asked my 14 year old to do this for £20!

50 quid. They'll be more than happy to do it again. It's a pet, it's not about the time it's about the responsibility.

I'd pay them a tenner a day. So less than an hour's minimum wage, as s/he's underage?
Put down clean water and food, (one of my cats makes a mess when eating and throws food out of the bowl, so I'd need them to clean that up also!) Then quick look/stroke of cats to make sure they're ok, quick check that no windows are open/nothing awry. Maybe water houseplants a couple times?

I'd say that's worth £10 a day.

You need the teen motivated to do it properly and to do it again..

50 minimum

It's not an hourly rate job, it's a give me your daily commitment job. Forget it's only 'opening a pouch'. They are guaranteeing to turn up every day and look after your pet.

But OP has been clear that she isn’t expecting the neighbour to check on the cat, stroke cat, clean up, water plants or check the home security! Teen won’t even have access to the house. The job is literally to go next door, open porch, but down food and water, shut porch and go home. Job will take less than 5 minutes.

I think £20 is fine, that’s almost £3 a day so even if the job takes 10 minutes each time that’s the equivalent of around £17 an hour which is well above minimum wage for an adult let alone a teen and reality is the job will probably take even less time daily!

£10 a day is the going rate for a daily visit for a professional cat sitter here.

For that they are insured, DBS checked, experienced, prob know more about cats than me and have a cat first aid certificate. Will even take the bins in and remove the post from the letter box :)

what a load of nonsense. The kid is not obligated to do it - he can say no if he doesn’t fancy it - so exploiting a teen is a massive over reaction.
All of mine have done this for neighbours at one time or another . As neighbours have done for us. They would be thrilled with £20 for and hour and ten mins work . (10mins a day for 7 days) . Much much more than the current £7.75 ph NMW !!

£20-30

Not even 7 days... Sun-fri.

Anyway I'll do £30.

Ha ha, why do you think I'm asking him to water plants and check the house? Like where in my OP was that?

My kids have always fed the neighbours cats for free - they’ve obviously missed a trick! But then I don’t pay my friends and family to feed my cat. So I think £20 for once a day is fine- I would pay more for twice a day, if it was someone I didn’t know well. I guess it depends how desperate you are.
But why do you only feed your cat once a day? Is that a thing? My fat boy would leave home if we tried that.

Maybe I'm too generous. I'd still take it as being an hour of someone's time. But I guess you're right. I suppose I'd be concerned they might skip days if they felt they're not getting enough?

£25 is fair

€40. Teen will love that, parents will be happy. Good neighbours. It is what I pay and it is fair.

Atleast £5 a day

So what. We can't all agree on everything.

Plus some people do like to be little dramatic as well as make things up....
Some people think I'm exploiting a child. Some people are imagining scenarios when he is expected to check the house, water plants, play with the cat etc. some people seem to think I'm expecting him to take him to vets...
Some people seem to think I'm getting him to travel 10+ minutes each way for this job.

When in reality he's going to put food a d water down for a cat once day that he'll never see, 10m from his front door. All with his mother and father in the house next door...

Honestly anyone would think I'm sending him down the mines for 13 hours a day.

So they don't actually have to go further into the house than the porch. However, what do they do with any uneaten food? You don't want fresh food on top of old. Also, I would want the water bottle refilled during the week and the water bowl completely emptied and rinsed, at least every other day. It's still not a huge commitment but up to £5 per day might be fairer (and much less than you would have to pay a professional.) Alternatively, if you provide a reciprocal service, like watering the garden when they're away, you might get away with less.

(I used to look after a friend's cats that "just needed fed and let out/in twice a day". In practice they never both appeared when I went round and called, so it took several visits to get both in and fed. Then they hid around the house so I had to hunt them down to get them out. I was round 6 or 8 times most days.)

£5 a day? I pay £10 a day but that is two feeds.