To discover a really experienced child minder charges half what my Bulgarian cleaner does....

[nigelslaterfan]

I mean £8 an hour for the latter, 25 years old.
£4 for the former who I understand has nursery qualifications as well.

It just seems surprising. I guess the CM can have a bunch of kids at once but still, seems wrong somehow!

nigelslaterfan I could kiss you - Thanks

Is her nationality relevant to this observation?

why is it relevant that cleaner is Bulgarian and is 25 ?

And no, you are not being unreasonable to discover the difference

that's what I was thinking squeaver, but yanbu nigelslaterfan. OTOH you also have to factor in supply and demand and competition.

No, well said, her age and nationality is not relevant at all!
She's rather grand and irritating and has a load of wealthy clients now in posher areas than ours and I think only wants to clean the houses of grander people! I don't call her any more because when she does come she just tells me how to run my life and I want to murder her or drown myself!!!

My dh said I could take dd to CM and clean the house myself and save money in theory!

I guess I mean her age and experience is much less than the CM who has proper qualifications and years of experience and testimonials as long as your arm.

But I think people will pay 8 pounds per hour to have their house cleaned, but would not be happy to pay the same per hour to have their child looked after.

Because I think for a lot cleaner=luxury, childcare=essential.

People often seem to want to pay as little as possible for childcare.

But that is mad of us isn't it?
There has to be something wrong with that mindset don't you think?

People who can afford to pay £4/hour for childcare may not be able to afford to pay £8/hour for a cleaner (or childcare or anything else).

Yes I do think it´s disgusting-is that too strong a word?-for people to want to pay as little as possible as for something so important.

But I suppose someone working needs to be earning more pr hour than the person they are paying to childmind.

I also think it has come about by mothers having to work to pay mortgage/bills-even if they don´t want to.

But then you wouldn't be wanting a cleaner for 40 hours a week like you would a CM would you?

That of course is the other thing, AvadaKedavra.

But you would thik that a cm would charge more per hour as they are more skilled.

I suppose they take more than one child so are earning per child per hour.

i would have cm for 4 hours and clean my house in 2 hours and relax for 2 hours, how is that

How much would a nanny cost who is in sole charge & therefore the child is getting individual attention?

Like diddl says, a cleaner is a luxury, a childminder is not.

Oh, and £8 is pretty cheap!!

I agree with diddl. If you had two dc, the price would be the same.

That being said, when I used to have a nanny and a cleaner, it did feel wrong that my nanny earned £9 per hour gross and my cleaner earned £10 per hour self employed. My nanny spoke fluent English, and had qualifications. All my cleaner had a friend who spoke English who I could text with instructions who would then relay them to her in Hungarian.

We've moved since then - new cleaner is still £10 ph, but at least speaks English!

My CM charged £4.20 per hour. She had my 3, plus another three after school. She therefore earns about £25 per hour gross for out of school hours. Which is more than me as a teacher.

I think that's pretty reasonable!

All fair points.

I just hate my former cleaner, sorry for mentioning her nationality, that was unedifying of me.

It's a balance of skilled and unskilled labour and how you judge those definitions. Also supply and demand and you can only clean one house at a time. It's all true.

Thanks!

I dunno, I find childcare pretty easy really. Cleaning the house seems totally beyond me however.

The cleaner will have more downtime too, moving between jobs, as well as having transport costs to pay.

Yeah, what about your kids teachers who look after 25+ kids every day and get paid around 50p per child per hour.

but your cleaner can only clean one home at a time and charge for one home at a time.

A childminder can have several children at once and charge for each one.