Why can't I find a nanny?!

[BooChunky]

I've been looking for a nanny for four days a week (Wednesday's off) because I'm going back to uni. Every nanny we've spoken to we've stressed that I'm not sure what my schedule will be exactly so we're happy to agree to a daily rate now, so that if I end up home early everyday and let them go, they're not going to be out of pocket. We do have a dog but I'm putting him in doggy day care every nanny day so he won't be an issue for anyone and she won't have to take care of him. We've been really informally interviewing, and during the interview had agreed to 10ph and four weeks holiday, all bank holidays etc... So we really loved 2 of the nannies and invited them back to meet our 2 children and see how they got on. (Though I know this could go badly just because children are unpredictable!)

So, we loved Nanny 1. She was so sweet, my youngest child really took to her (nearly 2, and very clingy to me) and she agreed to the money.... I wanted to offer her the job on the spot, but we had already arranged to see nanny 2 the next day.

So Nanny 2 arrives (after me raving about her to DH about her 10 years experience and how easy it was to chat to her) and it was completely awkward. Then she started on her demands... She wants her 4 weeks holiday and all bank holidays, but also Easter holidays and mid December until January 3rd... Paid. We need someone 4 days a week with Wednesday's off, this was specified a lot and mentioned in our profile, on the phone and at her first interview. Well, she doesn't want that. She's decided she wants Fridays off because she just loves to take long weekends. And if she 'liked the family enough' she would agree to their schedule but she doesn't feel she can at the moment - oh dear! She won't use her own car (although her profile says she will), and needs to authorise the car we want her to use, as we may not have considered it's safety for children. She also wants to be paid 45p a mile for local driving even though we would have to cover all car expenses. She reminds us how great she is, and how wonderful a nanny she would be... A lot. She tells us she's going straight off to another interview so we need to hurry if we want her.

Well, um, we don't anymore!

So Nanny 1... she's very young, she only has 8 months experience and her spelling etc on her cv was awful! But she was so so sweet and lovely and we really wanted to give her a chance because she was just so likeable. She already agreed to 10ph and 4 weeks holiday plus bank holidays and Christmas week so we called and offered her the job...

She comes back to us saying she's changed her mind. She wants £14ph. Minimum.

Fuck.

We really like her so we write a long message saying that my oldest will be at school all day, My youngest will start nursery next year and the following year full time school, so as a long term job it will get easier and easier, the children loved you, we loved you but financially we just can't do £14... We can look to review it in 6 months but for now we can only do 12ph but we've got to look at some finances.

She comes back to us saying that actually, even 12 - 14 wouldn't be enough.

Back to the drawing board.

It must be me?! What are we doing wrong? Is this ridiculously cheap for a nanny? Is 4 days a week weird? Is the 2 meeting process odd?

[bedraggledmumoftwo]

You would have to earn 60k to get enough net to pay a nanny £39k and pay their Ni and the agency, and soon to be obligatory pension. But you aren't working, you're studying. So your husband must be earning a fortune!

[WonderingWillow]

bedraggled does that matter?

[bedraggledmumoftwo]

I know you aren't saying you would pay £14 an hour, but even £12 net equates to £35k inc tax and Ni, plus agency fees and expenses and pension. To get childcare 4 days a week. Wow, just wow!

[lisaloulou84]

Sounds like bliss! Definitely need to retrain.... Fancy a non trained mum to a 14 month old who has a CRB check?

[bedraggledmumoftwo]

Wonderingwillow, it depends on the OP and her circumstances. I am a qualified accountant and earn £60k and I am just shocked that a newly qualified nanny would want all my take home pay to look after my kids four days a week. Shocked!

[WonderingWillow]

Well the thing is, it is BLOODY expensive. And seemingly you have to, in order to get the hours that you need to work a job with anything more than typical hours.

Plus if you want sick cover so you don't have to take time off when the kids are ill; this is what you have to pay.

But that's another thread!

[Dowser]

Can't believe the air of entitlement these women have.

£10 per hour is a good amount .

It's a lot of money to fork out. Can you nanny share at all? Maybe someone who works part time .

[WonderingWillow]

Entitlement is about right

[QTPie]

Nanny2 sounds terrible - the "won't use her own car, but still wants 45p a mile anyway" almost made me spit my dinner out!

Please feel free not to answer this, but do you live in a very nice house? From reading your post, I would say that either neither nannies want to work for you (so are pricing themselves out of the market) OR - on visiting your house - they have decided that you can afford more... (Hence the change of terms between profile/telephone and meeting you at your home). We have a nice house and have had some outrageous quotes from visiting tradesmen (fortunately also somd honest tradesman to balance it out).

Where have you found these two nannies? If it is a nanny agency, I would be having strong words with them to find out what is going on. If it is elsewhere, then you may need to try an agency: you obviously haven't found the right person yet - these two are awful in one respect or another. We used an agency (tried guntree, but there was aN awful lot of poor applicants and I didn't like the two that I interviewed). I hated paying such a high fee for basically only an "introduction", BUT it did work...

The "Wednesday off" will suit someone!

Agree that you need to negotiate GROSS and not NET (maybe they think you mean GROSS? People can be easily confused. If you negotiate NET then you can be in for various tax headaches later on.

Keep looking! When do you start back at Uni? September? You still have time. I know a lovely nanny available from Sept (our old nanny), but unfortunately she is Wiltshire.

[Apatite1]

I look forward to finding an extra £40k when my kid needs a nanny! telling DH he needs to earn more money very soon

[toobreathless]

We have two children and are paying £8/hr for our nanny to do 35 hours a week. That will definately go up to £9 after our third is born although our first will be in school and our second at pre school 15 hours a week.

We are in one of the most deprived areas of the country and very rural.

Our nanny is 21, first nanny job, she works 35 hrs a week (actually sometimes less but we always pay that) but works flexibly as we are both shift workers. This means in reality the children are probably only awake for 2/3 of the time she is with us.

We know it's fairly low but can't afford any more, it is pretty much going rate around here and she was on minimum wage prior to starting with us. In return she does no cooking (I do it all, she reheats) no housework at all even related to the children and I make it clear that any free time when the children are alseep is hers to do what she likes with. She usually watches TV or does Uni work. We give a fairly generous annual leave allowance too, 6 weeks plus bank holidays because although we can't pay her more we can do that. She is desperate to come back to us when I return from mat leave so I reckon she's happy :)

[getdownshep]

Another former NNEB nursery nurse here who would take the job too.
I don't know how to get back into nannying though,I need to update my skills somehow.

[meandjulio]

TBh it sounds like you need to advertise on Mumsnet....

I would agree with getting a little bit more demanding, if anything. Decide the gross salary you will pay (get nannytax to help you with that as i found it very hard to work out ) and advertise 4 days a week, Weds off, sole charge, at this salary. If anyone asks if there is flexibility in the salary, just say a cheerful no. Don't get sucked into any negotiations. We nearly bankrupted ourselves paying for our part-time nanny for a year (and it wasn't at £14 ph either). She was off to the most expensive gym in town, we were eking out the lentil soup with extra water... but actually she was great in many ways and well worth it.

Simultaneously to this I would put out distress signals in every direction and see what comes back - we got our best ever childcare arrangement through the local residents' association newsletter. Do either of you have any friends, neighbours or colleagues employing a nanny? Sometimes a share may be possible, sometimes a nanny's coming to the end of a contract. Don't be disheartened.

[legolegolego]

I found my nanny job on Mumsnet

[mimishimmi]

I don't think £10 an hour is high enough. The going rate for a nanny here in Sydney, Australia is at least the equivalent of £13 an hour. They could earn the equivalent of £10 at the most basic of jobs.

[Lonelynessie]

We found 2 very good nannies via Gumtree and our the doing our own strict vetting. We are in Zone 2 London and pay around £8 per hr.

[meandjulio]

A lot of basic jobs will pay £10 or thereabouts but not for many hours.

[lostscot]

Wish you were in my area, I'd jump at the job!

[bedraggledmumoftwo]

Mimishimi, you realise these are net figures, so £10 ph is actually more like £13. So $26 aud/hr? Not that I think how much it would cost in Australia is relevant- you could probably pay 50p an hour in some third world countries, but probably isn't relevant to the op!

[bedraggledmumoftwo]

And the minimum wage here is around £6.50 if over 21. Op said nanny was really young but not how young.

[foxinsocks]

More than £10 an hour NET is more than most starting jobs in professions like teaching, nursing etc

We also found all our nannies on gumtree and never paid more than £25k gross (which is slightly less than £10 an hour) in Sw London

[Lalababy]

So basically £14per hour NET means that once you add tax, NI, employer's NI - your cost is £55,000. Then someone else writes that £10per hour net is low for someone with no experience or limited experience. Again once you add tax and Ni that means the gross pay is £37,000. And obviously you pay your nanny from your net pay - which makes the proposition of a nanny completely unaffordable. The irony of it all is that some of the nursery workers in my son's nursery in London are paid minimum wage!

[BooChunky]

Aermingers - just once again, the getting home early and letting her go early does not effect her pay at all, it was said as a perk! She'll get paid for full days but probably at least once a week (or as often as uni schedule allows) I'll get home early so she can go, paid! I'm not expecting her to not know how much she's getting.

There are no extra chores (I don't think), tidy up after any cooking / food preparation she does for herself or the children, tidy up toys at the end of the day, change children's bedsheets once a week and put on a load of their washing occasionally.

There's no dog walking, unless they are very early for work or do any extra babysitting they wouldn't even see him. The dog day care is going to pick him up 15 minutes before they get there and drop him off at 6.15, but he's just a spaniel, not a pit bull or anything. He's an escape artist though and has endless energy so we thought rather than worry about him getting out or driving a nanny crazy, everyone could have a better time if he just got out and had a lovely run around a field all day! (He will love it!)

The only requirement for taking holiday is two weeks notice as much as possible so I can arrange cover so I don't miss lectures or placements, like my husband arranging to work from home or my parents helping out. I did say that a nanny friend of mine is asked to take one week when her employer does and how did they feel about that, but didn't press it and actually, as I'm going to have all holidays off with uni, I'm not too worried so I'm quite flexible.

Bedraggledmum - we do okay, thanks, but not rich or Id happily pay the £14!

Our house is just a regular semi detached house, but we live in quite a nice area so who knows what they thought? Next time I interview someone I'll meet them in mcdonalds