AP and car?

[gintastic]

Is it normal to give AP use of a car?

We live in a village, but there is an excellent half hourly bus service to the local towns (one in each direction) and to the nearest city, although it takes an hour to get to city. About 3min to one town (small) and 15min to other town (large with good shopping etc). The bus runs all night Fri/Sat if you want to go out. Bus stop is opposite/next to our front door, so no walking along country lanes.

We are considering an AP for summer holiday childcare, if we bought a bus pass for her, would that be enough or would a village location be expecting use of a car?

Will they need a car to transport your children around? Will they need it to get to college?

If not, then bus pass sounds fine. It can be very costly to get car insurance for an aupair (due to their age, limited experience of driving) so not something you want to provide unless there are no other options.

There is a college in both towns, so she would need to choose a course at one of those, or find one in the city on the days I don't work (I do 3 days a week, she would have the other 2 completely to herself). I haven't researched this.

As for the children - there is lots to do on both the bus routes, museums, swimming (although I don't think this is an option as 1 person can't take 3 children where we live), most of their friends are in the village or in the close town. They are used to the bus as I use it often. There are things they wouldn't be able to do as you would need a car, but there are many other options.

I would say it could be fine as only 3 days (ie you could take children places not easy to get to on the other 4)

However a use of car could be very beneficial to you as it will be quicker getting to and from places for her so freeing up more time for au pair to do something else for you all. Ie if kids party finishes somewhere at 4pm they might not get home until after 5 if waiting. If in car maybe 4.15 and she might start cooking/ get childrens homework done etc in that otherwise wasted time.
She may also pick up groceries in supermarket/ anything else if there is a car to easily get it and children home in.
Also things like if a child gets sick (but not ambulance sick), she could drive to the doctors and either get them checked or wait for you to meet them there.

So basically I think yes it's possible, but to get the most out of her being there I would def look into car insurance etc.

Oh also if she's looking after for more than a few hours one day and holidays I would get her a bike/ kids seat/ ( not sure how old your children are) bike rack for car whatever's needed so they can either load car up an drive to late park/ woods and cycle or go from house if safe. Perfect way for all kids to get worn out in holidays :)

Problem as always is finance... But I will definitely look into it. DH can get the bus to work, so if he could do this 2 days, she would have no car for 1 day and then if she desperately needed one on a day off I'm sure we could arrange that. Mostly cos I'm knackered from work, so staying local is fine by me! And I don't mind using the bus. Some of my village friends think I'm mad, but if we don't use it...

I'd steer clear of AP's and cars, I had 2 who said they were confident drivers and I actually feared for my life. Plus I only have a little car and it cost me £74 a month to get a 30 year old with 8 years driving experience put on my insurance, a bus pass is more than fine, from my experience they prefer public transport than driving on strange roads anyway (I've had 5 aps now)