wage rise

[Smiidge]

Hi all.
Just looking for some advice on my current nannying position.
So I'm working for a couple with two children 18m and 5yrs when they first contacted me I told them I have my own 16m little girl and was looking for a position where I could bring her with me apart from occasions where she could spend the day with grandparents. This was agreed to and I have been working for them for just over 6 months.
I work 10.5 hours 3 days a week and duties include washing clothes / bedding and packing away wen dry tidying and cleaning childrens bedrooms, preparing meals, school runs and taking the baby's to groups as well as getting the children ready for bed when the parents are late home from work (fairly often).
My child now attends a child minder one day a week due to the family's requests so that I can focus on doing the house work (as mentioned above) on the days she does attend work with me I provide the majority of her food from home so they are not paying to feed us.
I use my own car for the school run and do not ask for any contribution towards petrol money. I don't ask for a contribution towards DDs childcare (even though it was at their request).
And I'm being paid £7ph 10.5 hours 3days a week regardless of the hours I do which is normally pretty even (unless prior arrangement of baby sitting) would I be cheeky to ask for a rise in my pay? I'm thinking about £9 an hour. I don't want to be greedy however many people have told me I should be paid a lot more than I am and with DDs childcare being deducted as well we are a bit tight!
Any thoughts would be appreiciated even if you do turn round and say I'm greedy
X

7 net I assume?

I think if you are no longer allowed to bring your DC to work with you, and the rate was a nanny with own child rate, you can ask for a payrise. It certainly sounds like a nwoc rate to me although I don't know whereabouts you are obviously and how much experience you have.

On that rate, I would also say you should be getting a contribution for petrol for the school run. I mean - if it's technically walkable but more convenient for you personaly to drive, and you were being paid top end, I might eat it but not under these circumstances.

THey sound tight though. I doubt they'll go for a two quid an hour payrise, not that I think it would be unreasonable to be paid that in principle.

Do you know what market rates in your area are?

You can't ask them to cover your childcare costs as an expense (I guess you'd be taxed on that anyway) but it should be reflected in your rate that you no longer have the benefit of bringing your child.

and you should insist on being paid for ALL the hours you do, that's crazy.

Please don't take this the wrong way but I am wondering if this is maybe you're first experience of nanny and they are simply taking advantage. Could that be the case?

I think if you stop bringing dd on all 3 days then asking for a rise would be fine. As you currently bring dd on 2 of the 3 days I'm not sure such a huge rise would be justified. For £9ph they could probably hire a nanny who wasn't bringing her own dd?

More information needed:

• £7 gross or net
• paid properly with payslips and tax/NI paid or cash in hand
• how many miles do you do a week
• where are you based
• do you have a contract

£7 per hour whether net or gross is on the low end of things and if it is lower than your local going rate as you were NWOC I'd expect a bit of an adjustment if you don't bring your child every day - but you're asking for a 20% increase which is a bit steep. More if that is net. If the drop for NWOC is 20%, and you are now NWOC only 2/3 of the time I'd expect more like a 7% rise.

I'm not sure about a blanket pay rise, but it would certainly be reasonable for you to tighten up where they are behaving unfairly:

1. You should be paid for the hours you work. If you're routinely working much more than 31.5 hours a week, then you should politely tell your employers that if they need you for more hours then they need to pay you for that time. Give them a couple of weeks to mend their ways, then start telling them at the end of each week how many extra hours you have done and ask to be paid for them. Very reasonable, and I can't see how they could refuse. I'm not too sure what you mean by your hours being 'normally pretty even' though. If you mean that some days they are back late but then the next day you can leave early to make up for it, then you have less grounds for extra pay (although you could ask them not to do that) . Depends what you agreed with them up front.
2. You should be getting petrol / wear and tear on your car for the school run - unless it's close enough to walk and they would rather you did that.
3. It's rather unfair of them to ask for your daughter to go to a childminder after you've started. It's changing the terms of your arrangement. You presumably don't make much on those days after childcare? Perhaps they thought your DD would be at grandparents more, or perhaps they underestimated the impact of you bringing her. Either way, this needs to work for both of you. You should certainly be paid more on the days you don't bring her (since you aren't NWOC those days). If that still isn't enough to be worthwhile for you, then you should have an honest discussion with them which will probably end up either in her coming back with you the extra days or else them looking for someone new (if that really doesn't work for them)

I'm not sure what grounds you have to ask for increased pay on your NWOC days after just 6 months. For me, bringing food with you wouldn't make much difference, since the lower rate reflects the impact on what you can do and how much attention you have for their children, more than extra costs. It surprises me that you don't just feed your DD along with their children though. I don't really know what's standard with NWOC, but personally I'd expect you to pay for her activities, but not sharing food seems odd

Yes, I would ask for a pay rise on the days you don't have your child with you and also petrol expenses paid for (which is fairly normal), max rate you can ask for is 0.45p/mile (although it may have gone up from April), this rate can include wear and tear on your car.

Otherwise, unless you're in London - £7/hour is probably okay for a NWOC for a full day.