Is this extortionate for a nanny?

[planningaparty86]

We are north west based. My nanny charges £15ph net, with tax and NI etc that equates to just under £19 ph. So an 8-6day is nearly £200.

She's great with the kids in terms of activities and taking them out although I must admit I've been underwhelmed with the food - pizza for lunch is on the menu very often. She's also very pernickety in terms of mileage. If she drives 1 mile to the local park, it goes on the "extras" list.

I also kinda expect that for that price she would be doing lots of jobs around the house for me. She tends to fold away my washing but that is it.

She has 2 children under 5 to care for atm during summer hols, after September it'll mainly be just the 2 year old. Putting the 2yo in nursery would be £60 (including all good) a day whereas the nanny will be £160-200. Plus food, plus whatever she spends on days out, plus mileage.

Struggling to see the value I am getting here and thinking that she is extortionately expensive especially for this part of the world.

Any views?!

Constantly amazed that people resent paying a qualified professional
person the going rate for the incredibly important job of looking after children.

@CurlewKate

Agreed. Especially when they are probably paid more and thinks they are worth it but other professionals are not.

This is dated 2021-2022 (I can't find one for 2023) but should give you a rough idea of salaries per area www.nannytax.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Nannytax-Salary-Index-2122.pdf

Our nanny works 7-7 each day (Mon-Thurs) which means she does all the morning jobs and gets the kids fed, bathed and ready for bed in the evenings. Perhaps extending the hours slightly would help, or in the holidays if you are happy with the kids being more relaxed just leave her to get them dressed from 8am.

We employ a nanny/housekeeper - some nannies are really funny about doing any chores at all. I've even seen some even moaning about clearing up their own mess. We employed a nanny/housekeeper for this reason and listed all the expected jobs in their contract.

The kids are both in school full time so if she didn't do jobs around the house she would be sitting around doing nothing for most of the day.

If your nanny uses her car, she should claim expenses. We have an electric car we provide so there are no costs (well other than usual / charging of course) - perhaps you could provide a car instead, even with petrol it will probably end up cheaper.

We pay £16ph gross in Kent. This is for a fairly inexperienced qualified nanny. You definitely want a gross pay agreed in your contract.

Our current nanny is awful at cooking, but great at getting the kids to school on time and OK at arranging kids activities. They are human, and have different strengths. Our last nanny always was late on the school run, but food was fantastic and she always left the house in the way she found it, if not better. She was also sick a lot, whereas the current nanny is never sick. But the old nanny was very creative and you could tell loved spending time with the kids, turning up for birthdays when she wasn't even working. Current nanny does the minimum required. It can be hard to find the perfect fit (on both sides - for nanny and employer ) when someone is in your home so much.

@CurlewKate I'm not sure that's what it is.

Speaking only of my own situation, I went back to work in order to stay relevant in the workplace for when the kids are older and we don't need childcare. I thought if I stayed at home for years as a SAHM it would be almost impossible to get a job again.

This however means that my salary basically goes straight to the nanny. I don't get any financial benefit from working. This means that when the nanny leaves the house a mess after watching the kids all day, I do feel a bit resentful that I've worked a full day and now have to clean for the evening and it leads me to question whether it's worth paying for them, or if I should just quit. I frequently have this dilemma and am currently contemplating quitting and going back to being a SAHM.

I could ask more of the nanny I know, and have, but often you get a flurry of activity for a week and it reverts to as before. Plus it's not the usual employer/employee relationship - they are in our home. They look after our kids. We want them to be happy and I don't want them resentful and therefore not caring for the kids properly. So the tendency is not to complain too much. Especially if it's not critical and I can live with it. But the cost does make you realise you need to genuinely feel helped by their contribution.

Some nannies in my experience seem to be very entitled and don't understand their job is one to facilitate another job and make parents lives easier. Refusing to clean up a mess you made, or empty a dishwasher is just ridiculous - If I took the bare minimum approach to working as I've seen some nannies do, then I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up without a job.

Childcare is one of the most important jobs and often undervalued particularly in the case of SAHPs but with a nanny it is often just a simple calculation of cost versus benefit for the employer. It's not a lack of value for the work involved.

It depends on the mile- might be fine in town or a city with good pavements but a more rural setting might just have a lane which isn't safe to walk, especially with small children.

@cloudchaos you need to tell your nanny that you want to come back to a tidy house

The way you left it this am

Hoping you leave a tidy home for her

Agree as kids get older it is harder to find the perfect nanny /hk

Most nannies don't want to clean esp if went to college and trained etx

A good hk/cleaner isn't always good for playing with kids

You don't pay 1 to 1 in nursery though so it won't cost this much...she's not in central London ...and she's already said nursery is £60

@Blondeshavemorefun yes I know... I have said things and when she still doesn't do it, I find it too confrontational to keep asking over and over. I'm fine being assertive with employees at work, so I'm quite frustrated with myself that it feels so much harder to set expectations with the nanny!

Yes it's clean when she arrives but by the time she leaves at the end of the week can be like a bomb site! That's even with my cleaning up what I can in the evenings. She is young-ish. Late 20s and I wonder if that's something to do with it. She let the kids get out a paint roller and a load of paint brushes for decorating the walls and left them all in the kitchen sink and on the work surfaces covered in paint. I left them for her to clean up the next day but they remained there all week so had to do it myself in the end. It's that sort of thing - the kids shouldn't have even been playing with them, wasted rollers apart from anything else!

Anyway it's hard to find the perfect fit. We get some things with this nanny we didn't with the last. And no one is perfect least of all me!

Know it's hard when in your home /with your children

Maybe text her and say along the lines you love it that she does craft with the kids but she needs to tidy up whatever they've played with

I don't get any financial benefit from working.

You presumably have a pension with employer contributions? You are at the same level you were when you went on mat leave, or at least not lower? And do you think that when your kids are 5 that if you reentered your career after a 5-year break that you'd be on the salary that you're on after staying in the workplace? Additionally, if you're not a single mother, then your salary covers part of the childcare, as does your partner's, even if it totals your income.

So the financial benefits may be reduced during nursery years, for sure. But they're not zero, by a long shot.

@PostOpOp like I said, that's why I returned to work. I did have a drop in pay actually as for a while I didn't work and I'm not back up to pre-kids pay. I also don't have a pension. Not to derail the OPs thread! My point is, that for me the decision to have a nanny has to be based on whether it makes sense financially or whether I should just do it myself, not anything to do with not valuing the services provided.

Working in a nursery as I do I wouldn't recommend it. Huge staff turnover, sometimes have to adapt hours as can't staff it properly and getting calls at work to say your child has a temperature and can you collect. Late fees if you get stuck in traffic also. Change your nanny if you are not happy.

Yes £15 per hour gross is he going rate for north west . If you don’t want to pay the nanny mileage , then you need to provide a car and pay for petrol. You are getting high quality childcare , nannies do children’s laundry and cook to your chosen menu. They look after sick children , they work unsocial hours , are still there when your trains delayed , nurseries close at 6 pm
and would require another adult to pick up
or ring social services if you are late. Plus nannies worked all through Covid when others were working from home - often working in household with numerous other staff.

Then let her go and enrol at the nursery. I think you should consider your rerequirements and learn a lesson. A nanny is not a domestic servant. You seem to think she is. She's great with the kids - that's worth a lot.

But the OP is paying £15 net or just below £19 gross so I guess you're saying that is over the going rate?

@planningaparty86 Turn it on its head - if your full time job was nannying 2 children what do you think you would charge?

For op area she's paying top whack

I'm sure she can get a better nanny for less money if she isn't happy

You don't sound like you appreciate having a nanny which is fine. Based on your priorities you would be better going to nursery. Nannies provide one to one, consistent care and not in a germ factory.

I would definitely outline exactly what you want your children fed though. Pizza shouldn't feature often.

Though as I said is there lots of pizza in the fridge

I would feed the children what the family brought

Why shouldn’t she charge mileage for even short journeys? They all add extra wear and tear to her car. Personally I wouldn’t drive a mile to the park, I’d walk. But I do have to drive a lot of short trips to get the children I nanny for to activities on time. I’m always shocked how little petrol I use when on annual leave, even driving a few hundred miles to go on holiday I’ll often use less than I do driving multiple short distances around town for work.

I'm an experienced and qualified former Nanny. For that salary I'd be offering something better than pizza.

I'd say the salary isn't excessive but it's generous.

You just need to make sure you communicate with her. You set the menu and have some say in what activities they do. You can have a list of child related tasks (depending on the contract you have with her). For example on a Monday you could put a load of the children’s wash on for the nanny to hang out. Tuesday she could wash their bedding and re make beds. Wednesday a quick tidy dust and vacuum the kids rooms. Thursday quick clean if kids play area. Friday hang out another load of kid’s washing.

With meals set a menu
when they have pizza just buy the bases and toppings they can make it together. Don’t have any frozen crap for her to feed them. All needs to be what the kids like but homemade.

End of day the kids need to be fed at 5, bathed and in pjs by 6.

You need to be clear with your expectations, but don’t micro manage her.

I live in South Yorkshire our local nursery is £37 a day.730-6. Including all food and outings.

It’s far too expensive. Nursery is much more stimulating and educational for a toddler that age imho, a far richer environment than a nanny at home and great for socialisation and fun with other children. Nurseries have great activity resources too compared to what she can provide at home and a wider menu. Eg. at the moment my two-year-old’s nursery have big water play areas, planters for gardening and mud kitchen, tanks of giant snails the kids are learning to look after. All the staff have early years qualifications at a lot of places too

Our nursery in inner London is £84 a day including food for that age group, 10 hour opening time (we usually leave D.C. for 7-8). DC not in nappies anymore