AIBU to charge loads for after-school childcare and evening care?

[bookmarkymarky]

I am an occasional babysitter and day time childcarer.

I get asked at least 3 x per week if I can collect children from school and look after them until parents home from work. I could fill the slot 100 times over.....

(During that time cook and feed them their tea, do their homework or reading with them, make them get ready for bed - generally what when my own children were very young would often turn into the witching hour with very tired little people needing rest and quiet .)

....I have always said no, because it breaks the day up into a very short and inconvenient shift and it normally at between £12 and £15ph.

People seem desperate. WIBU to charge quite a lot for doing this shift for one family - £20 to £25ph? More?

I truly wonder what some people would pay, and what they do end up paying with other options?

Of course, you can charge what you like.

It is a case of you not really wanting to do it so they have to pay enough that you now do want to do it.

It is no different from companies / tradesmen / others who give "I don't want the job quotes".

Price it at a level that you can't turn down, they can either say no or they can pay it and make it worth it.

I pay £20/hour for ad-hoc babysitting e.g. 6pm to 7pm if I'm going to be working late.

I’d say that you have a half day / day rate minimum which is xxx and is up to xxx hours no matter how much you use.

I'm someone that employs an afterschool nanny for childcare. I've had three nannies and have lived in three different areas. £18-20p/h is near-enough top end for this – unless you live in London and/or have a very experienced, specialised nanny.

Some nannies, with your dilemma (in that it has to be 'worth it' to them), have tried £25p/h or one even tried £18p/h for one child and £10p/h for the second (which is not, conventionally, how nannying works at all). I inwardly laughed at these proposals, but politely declined – of course anyone must charge what is worth it to them, but equally I can decline it.

At those suggested fees, OP, the parents could simply go and find an afterschool nanny – and likely get more hours for it too.

Saying that, ad hoc childcare can often be priced higher, so how ad hoc is it? Or is it actually a regular gig?

Childminders & ASC in my area charge at least £20 - £25 per child for the 3.30 -5.30 slot. Fixed rate, you cant take just one hour.

Employers dont realise this is why its so expensive for people to work full time hours, its £250 a week for 2 children just for after school. Another £100 on top for breakfast club. Add in commute costs & its a whole wage because you have to pay it out of post tax pay.

I have never yet found a nanny willing to only do the 3-6 slot. Every time, they want extra hours and its worked out more expensive paying the gross nanny pay, than using the childminder.

I would pay more than that for a cleaner, so I definitely would for childcare 🤷

To be honest I’d be really shocked if someone quoted me £13-15 per hour for after school care, that seems cheap to me. I agree go in higher and see what they say. I’d probably expect £20-30 per hour to be quoted

May be area dependent. I've had three separate nannies doing 3-6:30pm over the last four years. This is in south east and east Anglia. Always had at least 2-3 to interview at a time too. I've paid between £15 – £19 gross per hour.

What you can charge depends entirely on your area.

There’s a nanny local to us (there is a dire shortage of childcare) who charges £250 a week for school pick-up to 6pm. She doesn’t do 2/3 day weeks - if you want her you employer her for all 5 days.

She also does 7.30am to school drop off for £150 a week. Again you have to book the full week.

For a while she had two siblings who hired her to collect both their kids, like a nanny share, and she charged them both full whack!

Where BIL lives you can get your children into nursery with a months notice so childminders cannot charge a premium price

I have a friend who does this, she charges £35 per child, and generally has 2 families of 2 kids every day, so £140 in total. It means she can't nanny during the day as she'd have too many kids after 3pm so the rate has to be relatively high to make up for lost earnings elsewhere. It's also a captive audience, after school club finishes at 5:30 and there's literally nothing/nobody else offering childcare until 7pm in this area. I reckon she could charge more tbh, I used to have my kids in with her on the days I commuted to London and wouldn't have been able to cope without that service so it was really valuable and I was happy to pay for it.

I was a childminder I preferred the before and after school slots as I could earn £30 per hour working 4 hours which was £120 per day (although I did cover expenses within this) Day time child care was £30 per day for upto 8 hours a max earning of £90 per day for 8 hours work (and higher expenses)

We are currently looking for someone to do school/nursery pick up and childcare for 3h a day, for 3 kids.

No cooking or dinner involved (apart for the baby but food will be prepped by us). No homework either.

Most likely it will be taking them to the park/playground or playing at home, with taking the older ones to activities 1-2 times a week.

The going rate for a nanny in our area is about 21/h, so it makes sense for us as it's the same cost as the childminder.

[If you're doing this weekly for the same family then you're nanny, not a babysitter. The rates are very different]

Rather than charging per hour, say you charge a certain amount per shift. Or say £20/h minimum booking 4h.