How much do you pay your AP?

[Quattrocento]

We pay our AP this:

Mobile phone contract £15 per month
Travelcard £90 per month
Weekly pocket money £65
Language course £900 for the year

She comes to do the supermarket shop or lets me know what she wants in the way of toiletries, food etc and there is no limit on that.

She works 20 hours a week over three set days and has the other four days entirely free. Her work is all childminding, no housework or cleaning.

What do you think? Am I being a bit mean? I remember PPH saying she always bunged her AP £100 a week

If you go over £97/week paid you need to register as an employer with HMRC and are in to the world of pain that is making Income Tax and National Insurance returns.

Pocket Money £65/wk
Mobile Phone £25/month
Use of car:
Petrol £15/week
Tax and Ins £70/month?

Eeek! Ok, an honest answer. £60 for 25 hours which is a mix of language tuition for ds and dd, some cooking (this means that she prepares things she likes to eat for us all), some dog walking, some ironing, hoovering and tidying up.

There's the use of a mobile phone but I don't expect her to use it much for her own social use as she could use the land line or e-mail. If she makes lots of friends I think we'd get her the £10 a month contract my ds and dd have got and we'd pay for that.

Umm, she'd love to drive our car but we don't need her to and she has only just passed her test so I think the insurance would be far too much for us. Plus dh is away a lot and I'd need our second car for ferrying ds and dd around and it would never be here for her to use socially.

She has just got turned down for the free English course at the local college (as her English is so good) and the correct level course for her would be £15 a week which she feels is too much for her to spend and we couldn't afford to pay for it ourselves.

She has a PC in her room and we've bought speakers and what not for her Skype to work.

She has been away with us overnight already and we paid for all food, accommodation and treats.

I think we're paying as much as we can afford. Any more and it would be cheaper for me to give up working part time tbh. Saying that, I'm on a final salary pension scheme so I'd be loathe to do that.

Simply - could you ask around with neighbours / school mums to see if anybody needs a babysitter in the evenings. If she could pick up a night of babysitting a week then that would pay for her English lessons.

£70 a week and that is it for a 25 hour week. I gave her a mobile when she came with some credit on it and we have paid for her flight home.

I have never considered paying her more than that and I do not know anyone who gives their AP any of the extras mentioned. Her work is very easy, we ask very little of her and to be honest if I had to then get her a mobile contract, let her drive my car (which we wouldn't as we live in london) and pay for language school I would be better off getting a nanny. TBH I think that £70 a week for a lovely room in london, all the food she wants and unlimited broadband plus a bit of cleaning and an hours childcare a day is pretty good

Pocket money £85
Mobile phone top-up £10
Car insured for her use incl diesel (unless she wants a trip to scotland or similar!) - lots
Food and drink -some.

Maximum of 25 hours although so far more like 10 per week (because kids not back at school properly yet).
Pocket money is actually £65 for 17.5 hours child supervision, dog walking and clearing up breakfast stuff...plus £20 for dusting/hoovering living areas and stairs (but not bedroom/bathroom cleaning). No ironing, washing or cooking except for her own.

We offered to pay towards her language course if she had to do an expensive one but as it is she has been accepted onto a cheaper class which her parents will pay for.

I tried to make our 'package' as good as we could manage since we don't live in London - have to entice them into the countryside somehow!

AP+ hours (35hrs, including babysitting) - £90. That's split between playing with kids/helping the nanny, school drop offs, babysitting, laundry & tidying. No heavy duty housework except the ironing.

Car insurance - extra £400 - and all petrol costs. Skype costs and occasional mobile top-ups. Plus whatever extra food bits she wants. Language courses free in our area

For ones we get on well with, we also fly them back home (usually Scandinavia somewhere) for holidays - once at xmas and once in summer. And when we take them with us on holiday we give them extra cash so they can go out in the evening or whatever by themselves without having to dip into their own savings.

Quattro - for 3 days with no housework I think your AP should be very happy.

I don't think you're mean - maybe we are! For about 25 hours = 5 hours housework and 20 hours children (1 and 3 but at nursery all week), we give her:

£65 pocket money.
Top up credit on phone, but that is for emergencies.
Unlimited internet (although we say try and keep it to an hour a day)
Car insurance - lots
We provide food etc.
If she comes out with us, we pay travel and food etc.
We will give 2 weeks pay at end of 6 months, and intend to pay her for Xmas hols although we may pay for flight home instead.

i think quattro that your ap is very well off! and the other aps are well paid as well!

Thanks for sharing all - really useful to know - there are some very generous employers out there

FourArms - Thanks for your post. She has made up a babysitting service advert and we have put it through some local homes' letterboxes but no takers as yet. I wrote a list of about 20 possible households and I think we've done 6 so far so will do the others this w/e. Do you think £7 sounds too much per hour of babysitting? We're in a residential area with a fair few doctors, teachers, scientists, bankers, vets etc if that's anything to go by. I thought £5 an hour but ap thought £7 so we went with that. The babysitting money was to be extra spending money, I think. Sorry for the hijack btw.

remember my AP who's leaving? Well her new family is paying her £130 a week for 3 days school drop off and pick up and sole use of a new ford focus!!!!!!!!!!

bloody hell thats inflationary.....remind me ingles2 is she anygood ???

I wouldn't have thought so Jura.......
is she any good? she's very nice and the best AP I've had in a while.... but she's definitely not in that league. Have just been up to her flat... it needs professional cleaners in when she leaves next week. Haven't been up there in weeks and had no idea it'd got so bad... urgh

Approx £600/year at the level of cash payment

id be making her clean it. I had one once who left me 8 black bags of rubbish including 14 empty pizza boxes!!

we're in that league MP....
As I said I never go up there, but she's gone out and left half her wardrobe scattered around house. So I went to dump it.
To say I was taken aback is an understatement.

Thank God she didn't go to a MNetter...

Good job she wasn't interested in us then, as we would have baulked at 130 a week, and would have expected nothing less than Mary Poppins (and a tidy one at that).

Mind you, I am truly up the creek with my current one, but that's another thread

By the way, ingles, are you signed up for London xmas party?

And Jura - it wasn't you that found the boson. I had it hidden in my dark matter all along...

..Next to my dead cat (or is it??)

Quattro - I think your package is fine. We live in London and have an AP + (35 hours) split between drop off and collection, helping me bath kids etc, all cleaning, washing and ironing (whole family). We pay £80 a week. £10 month travel, Provide a mobile plus £10 top up now and again, Laptop, unlimited broadband and skype. We also got her 2 extra cleaning jobs (at previous ap request)which she took over and pay £7 an hour for 5 hours. All her food (and this one is a MASSIVE eater and costs me about £50 + in food a week). She has her own double room also with full independent Sky package and DVD. If we go out together we pay all the costs and we also so far have paid her 3 weeks holiday.

I know Squiffy...I'd bloody want Mary poppins for that too. well, they know what they're getting I gave her a very good (but very honest) reference.
I haven't signed up for the party yet,....was thinking about it though...have you?