How much to pay teenage babysitter for an evening?

[HackneyCabbage]

Was wondering if anyone could advise me what the going rate is for babysitters in the evening? The girl who is babysitting is 15 (mature responsible). She will get here when our 1 young child is already asleep (good sleeper, won't wake up) so all babysitter needs to do is hang out, and call us if by any freak chance anything happens. We are going to dinner around the corner (2 minutes away) for 2 or so hours. I know the more pro babysitting services around here charge £10 an hour- but thats for fully qualified person up to 3 kids and would include activities etc. I was thinking £6 an hour plus get her home (either walk her or taxi)? Is this reasonable?

Its a fiver an hour where we live

I'll be watching this with interest..given that my friend pays £50 for a girl to watch her kids (similar situation) and I think this is ridiculous! I would think a fiver an hour is reasonable. When I used to babysit (yes, it was 1993!) i used to get about £8 - £12 for the evening and if I stayed over it was £20 (at the time, a tank of petrol for a small car! So i'd say £40-50 for an overnight affair)

I worked as a cleaner last year - I only got paid £6 an hour, and I wasn't able to sit watching TV and chatting to my BF on my mobile whilst I was doing it!!!!! It was bloody hard work.

£5 per hour for a teenager and £8 per hour for a person from the nursery.

I'd pay a tenner for that (ie roughly £5 per hour). We basically pay a tenner for a short evening, £15 for a long one.

DD is 10 so plays/watches tv then puts herself to bed & just needs someone present, IYKIWM. Similarly we're always within 5 mins walking distance.

FWIW minimum wage for a 15/16 year old is well under £5 per hour and that's what they're likely to be earning in a Saturday job.

You definitely need to offer forcibly to walk them home (though be prepared to be laughed at by the 6 foot tall 16 yr old chaps).

Gosh- £50 is pretty staggering! 5 does sound reasonable....Minsmum, may I ask more or less where you live? (do you think it varies place to place?)

I used to babysit for our neighbours when I was 15 and they paid me £20 for an evening usually-they liked that better than £x per hour as then if they were home at 9 or 11 it didn't matter in terms of paying me, and I was more than happy with £20. That was the 90s though so maybe a bit more now? It was similar-two kids, both asleep when I got there.

Just checked and minimum wage is £3.68 p/h for a 16 - 17 year old. So definitely as much as or more than that (morally at least, I'm not sure that babysitting is regulated!).

Thanks for all those replies, cross posted!

Wow.... Just because they are teenagers, doesnt mean u can pay them some rubbish amount, a million years ago, when u use to babysit.... Things have changed alot since then!!!!!!!!

My teen DD gets £5 per hour which I think is reasonable for sitting on her backside watching TV

Blimey. I got a fiver an hour in 1997.

To be fair, that was three days a week after school for 90m and 3 hours on a Saturday so both the 7 year old and 2 year old were wide awake!

nannyof3 - so you think that its fine for a teenager to earn £3.98 an hour to stack shelves, but £5 an hour to sit & watch tv/be on facebook while a child sleeps is really unreasonable? There certainly doesn't seem to be any shortage of teenagers willing to take up the offer . . .

chocoroo, I think that daytime is very different - that's childminding not babysitting!

I pay my 15 year old babysitter £5 an hour. He gets here when DS is still awake, but they just play with the Wii until bed time.

Takver...

I think £3 something to do any job is disgusting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Write to your MP then??? Certainly round here teenagers get minimum wage for most jobs, it seems.

A tenner to sit, watching someone else's TV, whilst you do your homework or chat to your friends on FB whilst the children sleep??! I'd do it!!!!! In the 3 years I babysit, I very rarely had to do any work - the parents had done it all before I got there, and I was just there to be a presence in the house in case of emergency (which yes, luckily for me, never happened).

I'm a grown adult with a full time job, but I have worked for this amount doing hard graft. Babysitting is generally not hard graft! There's a reason the minimum wage is lower for teenagers - they don't have mortgages/bills to pay! A tenner an evening, gosh they'd only have to do that 3 times a week and they'd have £30 a week to play with - more than I have!!!!!!!!

My dd gets £20 for an evening of 7pm - 12

If they have her less, she still gets £20 as she has still given up her whole evening to babysit

I used to pay my teen babysitter £20 for up to 4 hours work and £30 if we were out longer. We were never later than midnight though

Thanks everyone. Good to know and really helpful. Looking forward to my birthday meal out tonight!

Hello ladies, my name is caoimhe an I just wanted to get your opinions on whether £3 an hour is enough for 5-6 hours, three days every two week is enough for cooking, cleaning up after and playing with 2 kids, 10 and 4. Thanks [SMILE]

Fiver round here too.