More childcare/au pair questions - long (sorry)

[Millarkie]

I know that there are a lot of au pair threads at the moment but I didn't want to hijack someone elses. Please help.

Dh is in the process of being made redundant (not voluntarily).
At the moment we use before/after school club for our termtime childcare, but because dd is only 4 there is a limit to the number of times she can go to after school club per week so I work a reduced week and pick the kids up from school at 3.30 twice a week, dh picks them up at 4.45 once a week and I pick them up at 5.45 twice a week. Dh does the morning drop off at school at 8am.
In school hols we use a mixture of me, dh, grandparents and a fab student teacher who acts as a holiday nanny (but will graduate this year so will not be around for Christmas )

Dh is applying for jobs, these will either be local - in which case I can imagine him being able to drop the kids at school but not the 1 school pick up that he does. Or if he ends up getting a job in the city he will not be able to do the school run at all.

No childminders drop/pick up at our school.
Can't afford a full-time nanny unless we move the kids to a state school (this is a possibility but wouldn't be until Sept anyway). One of the reasons we chose to put kids into private school was the 8am-5.45 cover (school fees are less than nanny salary).
So I am guessing that our only option is to recruit an au pair to do the school runs. We have the space for someone, and we are used to having nannies in the house (and lodgers before we had the nannies!)

so Questions

1. Is there another option that I haven't thought of?
2. how much do you think the au pair expenses come to? (not the pocket money but food, car insurance, gym membership, language course fee, other stuff???) - If it's too much I may have to renegotiate my contract and work less hours rather than get au pair I guess.
3. How quickly can you recruit? Should I try an agency just to get someone with references checked etc in a hurry?
4. We live in a village so would need an au pair who drives - is it difficult to find an au pair who is confident (and safe) driving in the uk.

Would particularly like to hear if anyone uses an au pair when they do not work at home/work contract etc, ie. they have to be at work for certain hours and cannot come running at the drop of a hat.

Thank you!

Ok - too long - sorry.

seems like an expensive way of managing school pick up/drop off?

We were paying £80/week in pocket money, but the additional food and utilities is not insignificant. I reckon ours cost about £600/month.

We did, however, have a wasteful american girl (2 hour washing machine cycles to 'handwash' 2 items of clothing) who refused to eat carbs (makes for very expensive shopping bills). And I'm very very jaded by the whole experience.

Thanks Brummie - I was thinking it would be about £500 ish? Wishful thinking then!

Just can't think of any other ways to cover the school run.

I've just worked out that (assuming dh ends up locally and therefore can continue to drop the kids at school) I could just about rearrange my hours to manage 2 pick ups at 4.45 and 3 pick ups at 5.45 a week..but that depends on

1. my boss letting me do that
2. the headmaster accepting dd into after-school club 5 days a week
3. me not collapsing into a gibbering wreck working long days 5 days a week

That also gets away from my agreement with dh, that we could move this far from my job (for the sake of his (ex-)job) as long as he took more responsibility re: childcare.

Maybe we should just sell the house and get dh to become a SAH Dad

I think the cost of driving insurance will push the cost of an AP up.

What about a nanny-share/mother's help?

Hi Millarkie,..An AP is possible for you. I know lots of people offer their Ap's Gym membership and all the rest of it and I do too, but you don't have to.
Firstly decide how many hours you need. AP's are either 25 / 30 or 35+
For 25 hours you will need to pay between£60 and £80 a week.
Agency or not... Well I know a lots of Mnetters sucessfully use Au Pair World, Great Au Pairs etc Pro's no agency fee Cons takes a lot of time trawling.
I use an Agency here but there are other good ones. Millenium, Peter Pan, Almondbury.
Pros no trawling, police checks, replacement AP's, aupair to aupair friendship site, Cons costs a bloody fortune!
I too have a AP driver as we live rurally. Can I recommend an AP at least 22, (insurance costs a fortune otherwise!) and with 3 years driving. AP drivers are usually AP +'s who cost more. For 30 hours £80 - £100
This is outside London, inside is a bit more.
we currently have a 24year od German girl who has been with us 5 months now. She is a very good driver but I have had drivers from Romania and Czech R who were dreadful! for her on a little old micra business use it costs £35 a month with the AA
Language school, again you don't have to pay especially if you are not in London. I'm in Kent, AP pays £6.50 a week to attend college 2 mornings.
If you don't have Skype, phone bills can be big....I recommend getting it!
Can't think of anything else...
HTH's

Millarkie, my au pair does not cost me £600 a month, much less than £500. But if you have to pay for car insurance, it is worth looking at how much that will cost, as that will be substantial.

If you just need her for the school run, I am guessing you won't need her for more than 25 hours a week.

We pay ours £65 a week for 25 hours. With expenses, it comes to about £400 a month in total.

Food: £25 per week. Admit she does not seem to eat much. But we cook every dinner, so easy to just increase ingredients for her.

Car insurance: none

Gym membership: don't offer. Local leisure facilities.

Language course fee: ESOL classes offered by local community college, so cost is not great. Au pair did not ask us to pay. Not all employers subsidise.

Transport: none, but some employers offer bus passes or top up, especially if it is necessary for school run.

Phone: none, beyond initial PAYE top up and free phone.
Utlities eg extra heating during the day, electricity, water - estimate £30 a month

Occasional optional babysitting eg if child is ill and off nursery, £20 per hit.

Thanks Frannikin - yup - car insurance is a big issue. Do mother's helps do school runs? I thought they had to work alongside a parent? Nanny-share is something that I have asked around/ registered on websites etc since we moved here, with no joy. We used to nanny-share in London before we moved out here - but it doesn't seem so popular here.

Thank you for all your advice Ingles - will look out for 22 years and older! No gym, No college fees. We use skype already.
The only hours I really really need are 4.45-6.45 on one day a week (the afternoon when dh picks up at the moment) but also maybe early morning 7-8am ish - if dh has to get the train into the city.
so that's 8 hours per week - madness! S'pose I'll bump it up a bit with some tidying up and loading dishwasher - will be hard to find 30 hours worth for a driving au pair + though.

It's living in the middle of nowhere that's the problem I think! But it is sooo beautiful here.

I've done a lot of reading archived threads too today, so I think I'm all set - now I just need dh to get a job!!

Thanks Blueshoes - it's great to see the cost broken down like that - especially food because we eat vegetarian (dh and ds are veggie, dd and I eat meat but not at home) so our family food bill is very small, and I'm out of touch on how much it costs to eat a 'normal' diet ( I will see if we could get a veggie au pair, but happy to supply meat for a meat eater, will mean a few of the meals will be separate each week I guess)

Millarkie, our aupair happens to be a veggie! She eats dinner with us, without the meat. We bulk up with veg for her. Lunch tends to be sandwiches. And she does not snack much. We are very lucky.

I have heard of aupairs eating you out of the house, with speciality foods and copious snacks and drinks. But in that case, just give them a budget for food - I think £35 a week for food is plenty for one person, anything over is for their account.

Mother's helps could do school runs I should think - but again the car insurance might be high!

In my experience MHs do a mix of sole and shared care - but as your children are school age and you're considering an AP your MH would essentially be an English AP.

Shame you can't find a nanny-share - sounds like what you're after really.

Hmm too many hyphens in that post.

Frannikin - I guess if I found a MH, they would probably have their own car - since they would have to get to work (ie. get to my village). It is a very small village - just 3 roads really, so unlikely to find anyone who could walk to work.
That has given me an idea though - I might ask the neighbours if there are any older teenage type (uni age) children in the village who might like an 'out of college hours' job. - our 'holiday nanny' is a student with her own car..if only she went to the local uni! S'pose it's worth asking around.
i think the lack of nanny-share possiblities is due partly to the lack of working mums round this area - I am a bit of a freak for working 5 days a week.

Blueshoes -good idea about the food budget - and good to know that there are veggie au pairs (might be easier for us to cope with).

If you have a local uni then students may well be a possiblity.

I'm a student and I nanny PT in term-times (nursery pick up) and holidays, and I presume you've had a positive experience with a student already so you don't have to get over then "but you're so young"/"students are all irresponsible drunken time-wasters" hurdle

There aren't lots of students round here - the Uni is in the city which is 20 miles or so away, but there may be students who live at home, since the price of uni is so high nowadays.
Certainly don't think that students are irresponsible time-wasters. Our 'holiday nanny' is great with our kids, arranges lots of fun, and some chill-out time. I think she was 19 when we first employed her, and she's 20 now. Very that she'll be looking for a real teaching job from September.
And a UK student (or MH) would have benefits compared to an au pair I guess.

Millarkie, you might not find it to difficult to get a veggie aupair. I assume meat-eating families might find catering for a veggie aupair slightly less attractive. My aupair did not state she was veggie in her profile (I got her off an aupair website).

I would say that you might find it slightly more difficult to find an aupair for a rural location, than say a big city like London or Manchester. But before she worked for me, my lovely aupair was in a small village with one bus. So you will be able to find one.

Thanks Blueshoes - weirdly enough, although we have no useful link to the local town and no local school etc, the village has a mainline train station (I commute to London every day) - so am hoping that that will make us a bit more attractive than complete isolation.
I have heard rumours that if you stand in the right place by the station and wink at the bus driver, he'll drive you back to town - but according to the timetable the buses go one-way to the station from town in the morning, and from the station to the town in the evening. (Obviously they magic themselves in the other direction). Mad place to live but it is lovely honest.

Ok, so the plan is - dh to get job (soon, please), then to ask around village re: students/MHs and simultaneously start hunting for older, driving (or bus-driver winking) veggie au pairs.

Thanks everyone - feel better now I have a plan!

Milarkie, have you tried ringing Herts Early Years Childcare Service? they are part of the County Council and have a list of all the child minders in the area and who drops at which school. I'm sure you've tried this but might be worht a look if you haven't

Thanks Mattesdon - I'm not in Herts but I have searched for childminders using our local childcare information service - there really are none who drop/pick up at our school (probably because it's a private school I guess).

millarkie, sounds like a good plan.

If you do go down the aupair route, another thing your dh could slowly scope out is language schools in your area (ESOL classes are cheap and widely used by aupairs to improve their English).

The aupair could always work it out once she gets here, but experience shows they need a lot of handholding when they get here, particularly if they have never lived in UK before, as is usually the case. Also, they might need to apply for the classes months ahead of the Sept term start. I got mine the application forms once I made the offer so that she could apply even before she started. The sooner they can start lessons, the better, because they get out of the house and start to make friends.

Other things include local leisure facilities, library, cinema, park. How they can get around.

In your profile, definitely big up the access to London bit. It is what these young people go for.

Ingles2 has already mentioned them - I use these aupair websites: Great Aupair and Aupair World. Have a quick browse around. You have to vet carefully. There are lots of threads on mn on how to do this. But it is relatively cheap and it is always a matter of luck whether you end up with a decent one, whether you use an agency or website.

Thanks Blueshoes.

I'm pretty sure there's a college in town which does some sort of English course for au pairs - so I'll look into it (dh is in a bit of a funk due to a lot of complications over the redundancy, I'm the one worrying about practicalities!)

I have a big folder with maps/leaflets etc which I have used to help our nannies get to know the area (and the children) but I'm expecting an au pair will need a lot more handholding than an english speaking nanny (that can be dh's job - hee hee)

You're brave Millarkie! Have had AP's for years now and don't think dh has ever said anything to them!!
He's not being rude, is just very quiet and tbh I don't think he even notices they're around!
I know blueshoes has mentioned that you can't guarantee a good AP from either an agency or a website but the one thing in an agencies favour if you're in an isolated area is the aupair2aupair site which can only be accessed via an agency. Basically all the agencies list their Ap's by postcode, so you can search for other AP's nearby. my AP did this and made 3 girlfriends in the 1st week. It definitely helps!