If you’d booked a babysitter

[FanofLeaves]

And they’d completed a 7 hour shift for you, entertaining and then putting your small children to bed, and then staying up until you get in at 1am, how soon would you be paying them?

I’m a nanny but I do a bit of babysitting work on the odd weekend for extra cash. Desperately in need of the extra cash at the moment and my bank account is looking pretty bare so am currently getting pissed off looking at my bank account and willing a payment of over £100 (including the uber home I had to get due to public transport having stopped, I don’t drive) to appear.

I sent a text with the amount owed and my bank details, attaching the taxi receipt, at 9:30am yesterday morning.

I think I’m going to either have to ask for some payment to be made in advance, or charging a late fee but this sounds a bit arsey snd I’m worried it might put people off. Then again, if you are say in a restaurant or have had your haircut you pay promptly after receiving that service, you don’t pay it at some point over the next few days!

i’ll send a nudge later this morning but it annoys me that I have to do it.

So I guess my question is, say you’d booked a babysitter, how promptly do you pay them? And would you expect to be charged a late fee for taking 24+ to pay? I get it, we have busy lives, I’m a mum myself, but it just feels like a piss take. I think I’ve had one babysitting gig this year where the money has hit my account before I’m even home, all the others take up to 3 days to make payment.

I think your terms are reasonable. I think people who expect a self employed person to offer credit even for a day or two are piss takers. It’s interesting that they are willing to pay the restaurant upon receipt of the service, but the person who has been caring for their child they treat less favourably.

With people like that you need to be very clear what your terms of business when you first speak to them, when you confirm the booking and when you arrive. Having an app on your phone to process payment while you are there will probably eliminate the problem.

That is not correct. Everyone only gets one tax allowance, there is not a tax allowance per job. Think about it for a moment, and you'll see why it couldn't work that way.

Ideally everyone should be given an estimate before the job total as you leave and pay on the day, but sending a reminder the next day is reasonable as a prompt. I don't think you should be leaving it until 9.30am to send the bill, people might then be in meetings all day and unable to pay then forget by the evening. Send it on the night or 7am latest so it can be sorted out outside of their working time if you want to ensure prompt payment.

I would expect to leave pizza or something for a teenager (and would have checked what they eat, but for a grown adult setting out their meal seems a bit strange. When BIL babysat, we just left £20 in the kitchen to order whatever he wanted. I think you need to request before you go if you want food, as people won't know what you eat. The meal plus uber must be adding £25 -£30 to the cost for families, so it's all best to be declared. It may be easier to just use the family's uber account rather than having it charged and mixed up with your income.

@GRex it was a Sunday morning when I sent the bill, I feel any earlier would be a bit intrusive but I should definitely outlay a time frame to be paid before the booking.

An oven cook pizza and an Uber to go 4 miles down the road absolutely wouldn’t be adding £25-30 to the bill 🤣

But like I said, I do not request food unless asked. I just think it’s nice for it to be considered. It’s actually quite rare to do a babysit where even snacks haven’t been provided or I’m not told to help myself, but there are a few houses where this happens.

I think the difference is the time of night they are going home. When I used to work in an office, if I worked later than 9pm my employer would pay for a taxi home.

I couldn’t in good consciousness let a woman or a teen leave my house after midnight without ensuring she got home safely.

Ideally everyone should be given an estimate before the job total as you leave and pay on the day, but sending a reminder the next day is reasonable as a prompt. I don't think you should be leaving it until 9.30am to send the bill, people might then be in meetings all day and unable to pay then forget by the evening.

I think it’s ridiculous to keep reminding people to pay you for a service they have already used. These are adults with responsibilities, they shouldn’t need all the stars to align to remember paying someone. Its disrespectful of others time and effort to not simply pay them. Why should she need to time her reminder just right for them to pay her on time.

I’m interested in how many people leave meals and pay for taxis home for babysitters, on top of paying them (presumably) - this must really add up, can I ask how much would be typical? Do you do the same for cleaners, or any other trades and if not, why specifically for babysitters?

I always leave a choice of food and snacks and will either drop the babysitter home or pay for her taxi. She’s looking after my children usually until late in the evening she will often be feeding my kids and should be able to eat too and I want her to get home safely. It’s not the same as cleaning or any other trade.

Whenever I have to pay someone via bank transfer I do it right away, as soon as they told me how much I owe them.

I did get paid last night anyway but 48 hours after completing the work I do feel is quite long. And also there are two parents involved here, either one of them could have transferred if the other is busy/doesn’t have an app.

I will stipulate in future payment within 24 hours and look into getting the app on my phone that some posters helpfully mentioned.

We use university student nannies through a provider and they have obviously been trained to deal with this very well as they use the same phrases, which I think is excellent.

When it’s booked they say ‘I’ll need you to book me an uber to get me home as it’s too late for me to get home safely’ And they double check that when you leave or state ‘If you come home after x I will need you to book me an Uber to get me home’

And then on the night they say as I have my phone out to order the uber ‘Would you mind transferring the money now?’

Sometimes they add ‘I’m a student and I have no access to spare funds’

It’s all very polite but I love the transparency of it and it shows they have had issues before.

So now I get my phone out just after I greet them to do both things. They don’t really care how my night was, they just want to be paid and get home!

As I already said, we always pay our babysitter cash on the night but TBH I don't think 48 hours is excessively long - if they took a month, now that would be a long time. The fact that you say in your OP that most of your clients take up to 3 days to pay indicates that that is normal.

I suspect part of the issue is that if you can afford a babysitter, it probably doesn't really occur to you that the babysitter has an empty bank account and really needs that money urgently. So I think if being paid within a day is really important to you, the onus is on you to be really clear about that.

If the issue is that you want to wait to know exactly how much the Uber is going to be, I would just roll it into the price (i.e. tell them it's an extra £10 after 11pm and you pay for the Uber) and then you can ask for cash or do the card payment on your phone.

It is correct.

In addition to your personal allowance, you can get tax free allowances for the first £1,000 of income from self-employment. https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates - see under "Other allowances"

Just like you've got a personal allowance, but you don't pay tax on any bank interest you receive up to £1,000 (for basic rate taxpayers - £500 for higher rate taxpayers).

The key point here is that OP had a salaried job elsewhere and this babysitting money is classed as a "trade". If she were a self-employed nanny then the babysitting would be taxable too, but they're two different sources and types of income as far as HMRC are concerned.

Glad you got paid eventually OP.

Nanny and babysitter are the same job, one is more skilled but they are the same job. SIC code 8351. You might use 8811 by the look of it, but that would be more like a nanny/cleaner role.

I pay immediately. Usually check beforehand if they want cash or transfer.

It wouldn't matter what the SIC code was if both her main work and the babysitting work were both under self-assessment. There is only one £1,000 allowance available full stop.

Her main income comes from Employment Earnings, not a Trade.

You could earn £100,000 in employment income and have a side hustle selling homemade earrings on Etsy that earned £600 in the year and you still wouldn't have to declare the £600 from Etsy.

No, you are mistaken so please stop giving out tax advice that you are clearly not qualified to provide. Profit motive, volume of transactions and similarly to trade mean it will fall foul of Badges of Trade. You can see definitions here: https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim20205.

Guess the main thing is what do you earn a year @FanofLeavesffom babysitting

as I said previously if uou do one a week anything over 20 over the year will be taxed and need to be declared

or £85 a month

I’d pay the babysitting fee on return and the taxi the next morning.

@FanofLeavesdon’t babysit for them again….

Glad you got paid

https://www.mobiletransaction.org/accept-contactless-payments-tap-on-phone-options/

There are a few apps. I'd ask for a deposit paid on arrival - say roughly half the amount then rest next day

It’s also ridiculous to expect people to work out what your payment terms are.

Commercial invoices are often 90 days. Holiday bookings are often in advance.
Restaurants tend to be immediately after service. Cleaners vary. Some immediately after. Some in advance. Some a month or week in arrears.

You need to tell people what you’re looking for. Then you can expect them to stick to it. If you don’t give a time frame, they may well not think they’re late.

I don't use professional babysitters but I'd absolutely make sure I paid before they left the house, whether that's cash or transferring it - whichever they preferred. I'd also have no issue paying for the taxi home if no safe public transport was running.

Re food: ive always got frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets, fish fingers etc in, as well as stuff for sandwiches, crisps, biscuits etc, and I'd make it clear they'd be more than welcome to help themselves to anything like that.

And yes, I always offer tradespeople a drink and a sandwich/sausage roll or some biscuits if they're here for more than about half an hour. It's a couple of mins of time and a few pennies...if it makes someone's work day just thet little bit nicer, it's worth it.

The time of day is irrelevant. The comparison is pretty simple - both trades go to the customer's house to work. Let me know if that's too complicated for you and you need further explanation.

I think it might be you that needs to rethink that. I really don’t know how you can think of it in such black and white terms, it’s not the same in the slightest.

If that's the case, my CTA, ATT qualified business partner has given his own brother in law incorrect tax advice.

He's an electrician, employed by an electrical contractor and has provided some self-employed electrical work to my company. My BP told him that he doesn't have to register as self employed unless the income from his self-employment trade exceeds £1,000.