friend paying au-pair peanuts

[houmousexual]

I have a friend who is very wealthy, lives in a big house, thinks nothing of spending £££ on all sorts of overpriced rubbish, constantly talking about her holidays, how much she spent on her handbag etc. She is very lefty, hates the Tories, Labour this Labour that, reads the Guardian.

Anyway she just told me that she is paying her au-pair (19 year old scottish girl) just £100 pounds per week. this girl is expected to do all the cleaning and look after my friends daughter (mum doesn't work) bring her to and from school etc. She expects her to babysit in the evenings too and do some weekends. am i right to be shocked and dissapointed? i know she doesn't have to pay for a bed and food but i still think this is not a lot for a full time job and goes against whole left wing thinking (not having slaves).

Gosh, I had no ideas au pairs were so badly paid! It's almost legalised slavery. I'd have thought £250 a week fair, especially if the au pair is expected to babysit evenings & weekends as well. Or alternately, pay her £100 a week & then an hourly rate for any additional babysitting.

It depends on how many hours she is doing ... you don't really say. I always understood that au pairs were expected to do about 20 hours a week, leaving them free for study/language courses in either the morning or the afternoon.

I'm more interested in why your friend bothered to have a child, only to palm her off on an Au Pair for the majority of the time

I'm with the op on this. I was thinking of hiring an Au Pair but was thinking it would be over 200 per week. It wouldn't cost me any more in him/her having a room in my house and not bothered about the extra food. If I didn't pay at least this how would the AP ever save up any money to start their life after being an AP such as saving to rent their own place. It would trap them somewhat.
Hopefully I should get a response then when I advertise!

I'm more interested in why your friend bothered to have a child, only to palm her off on an Au Pair for the majority of the time confused

Oh God, not one of these bloody comments again.

Seriously???!!! Do you say that to all women who work full time?

Do you say that to men who work full time as well???

100 per week is loads for an au pair,i used to be one about 10 years ago and got 55 a week.

does sound like a reasonable rate to me.

for all you know, all of the time you don't see the au pair, she's not with the kid. i wouldn't go jumping to conclusions.

Lemongrab-totally out of order. My experience of people who say those things are of utterly boring sad women who know the names of all the kids in their child's class, every aspect of the curriculum and live ttheir lives through their children. Is that any worse than what you said? Horrible horrible thing to say.

Don't mean to derail but there are some knowledgable people on her and ex AP's. if I live in a town would I need to give the AP use of a car for school pick ups. It is only 1 mile away but wouldn't want to seem that I am expecting them to do something that I don't do myself or would that just be for a nanny?

~Problem is this isn't an au-pair. You can't just employ someone on the cheap and call them that.

Au pairs have to be foreign (usually here to learn English). You simply can't have a British au pair.

What she has is an employee under normal UK law.

She needs to provide at least minimum wage to her. There is a set amount that is offset for free accommodation provided.

£34.37 a week. If the accommodation is free, the offset rate is added to the worker’s pay.

So, she is paying £134.37 a week for how many hours work?
If the girl is over 21 then she can't work more than 21 hours a week without her wages dropping below minimum wage.
If the girl is 18-20 then she can't work more than just under 27 hours a week without her wages dropping below minimum wage.
If the girl is under 18 then she can't work more than 36 hours a week without her wages dropping below minimum wage.

She pays less than the rate for National Insurance and tax, so that isn't a concern (but tough on the girl).

It does sound rather exploitative.

In any case, she should stop calling her an au pair. She is an employee. Mother's help, nanny, girl Friday, whatever.

Strange comment Lemongrab. My friend who has an aupair is a surgeon as is her husband. When they are not saving people's lives they are having lovely evenings, weekends and holidays with their much loved Dd. She has a brilliant life and has met some really fantastic friends through having au pairs.

ALL au pairs are employees are under UK law. Foreign language student or not. This has been the situation for many, many years. If you don't have the right to work in the UK, you are not permitted to be an au pair.

The idea of 'pocket money' is a thing of the past.

Live in employees are exempt from minimum wage.

I am not a surgeon but I do have a job and am the main breadwinner. I am off to Japan tomorrow evening on a duty visit (not through choice but I always get the crappy ones). I love my job and spend some time offshore as well. I live abroad and have full time live in help and I certainly don't feel guilty. In fact the thought of being judged for it by that type of person makes me glad they don't think I am great, that would be worse.

how would the AP ever save up any money to start their life after being an AP such as saving to rent their own place
£100 per week with no living costs and you can't work out how an au pair could have savings? Even allowing for the odd shopping trip, coffee with friends, nights in the pub, etc , it would be easy to save £200 per month. Lots of people don't have that kind of spare cash and manage to bank some.

It would depend on how many hours the 'ap' is doing. Full time nanny hours: taking the piss. Standard ap hours: generous wage.

OP, YABVU

This is a weird thread. If it was in Chat, and the question was 'how much should I pay my aupair' then it looks like the answer would be around£70-100/week dependant on a) duties b) hours and c) location.

But posting about someone elses aupair because you are clearly hugely jealous of their life and don't like them very much and probably want to stir up trouble 'curious'? Odd. Just odd.

FWIW, our au pair is Australian, works around 35 hours a week (although it varies, and I don't count babysitting), has use of the car for school runs only, gets full room and board etc and £90/week, in London. Hope that helps.

Oh, and I only had 3 dcs for the child benefit and tax breaks, dontcha know?

We pay £80 per week for cleaning (not all, we clean on days off), nursery pick up and drop off and some occasional childcare. We will put it up to £100 because she wants to do more childcare, with sole care of DS 1-2 days per week. As this will save us on our nursery bill, we will pass the saving onto her.

She lives in Greater London, has her own double bedroom, TV and bathroom, all her food paid for... She's off to Scotland this bank holiday weekend though, so she doesn't do too badly at all!

£100 is a damn sight more disposable income than she'd have if she got minimum wage and had accommodation, food, bills and transport to find out of that.

HayDayQueen Absolutely not, but unless I've completely mis-read the op, the mother doesn't work. That was my point.
I completely understand and support all women (and men) who work full time and have their children in childcare or who employ a Nanny or Au Pair.
I just genuinely don't understand why a woman would have an Au Pair to do all of the cleaning, look after her child during the day, do the school run, and babysit at weekends if she doesn't work.
My comment was not a condemnation of working mothers.

Exactly joysmum. £100 is a really good amount of weekly disposable income. I know some families don't have that!

lemon it's the mother's choice really, and if she's got the money; why not? She might not be working, but she might be or have been poorly, or she might be setting up her own business and not telling anyone just yet, she might be writing a book or any number of things. It's totally up to her if she wants to do that.