Odd Jobs, How much to pay kids?

[OnHolidayInFrance]

My niece wants me to buy her a top of the line iPad, and wants to pay it off by doing chores at my place every week. We have general tasks: washing windows, cleaning the fridge, vacuuming inside the house, vacuuming the car, tidying and dusting as the regular tasks she can carry out.

I wouldn't class any of the jobs as particularly "heavy" labour, we live in an apartment, so nothing like digging over a garden for instance.

She has just turned 13 and I have no clue what "hourly rate" she would need to calculate when her debt has been paid off.

What would you calculate as the hourly rate for someone her age please?
All advice welcome!

£6 an hour.

There isn't a NMW for under 16s, but the NMW for a 16 yr old is £6.40 an hour.

But it depends a bit on how wealthy you are. Also, if these are jobs that you would otherwise be paying someone else to do. I think if you were thinking of getting a cleaner, who you would likely need to pay £15 an hour for, and your dn is capable of doing an equally good job, then pay her what you were happy to pay any other person. BUT, if you are needing to teach and supervise her (which is quite possible, at only £15), then you would be being generous in paying more than an apprentice wage.
So, £6ph seems more than fair, as she wouldn't be able to get work elsewhere at just 13 either.

Thank you NewName24,

She's already done a bit of housework, yesterday it took her 3 hours to clean the refrigerator (take everything out, wash the shelves and containers, put the stuff back neatly) and also to clean out the fluff from the dryer filter (the one deep inside the machine that gets rinsed with water as well as the one at the top that you clean with every load or two.

She needs constant attention and a zillion instructions literally step by step everything. For instance: I work from home and told her to first take everything out of the fridge then go from there. I assumed with an empty fridge that she would start taking out the shelves and cleaning them, but she came and stood next to me after taking things out and said: "What do I do now?" I had to explain the taking out of the shelves etc. and show her the cleaning.

She has a mother who cleans everything double and who's house is immaculate. She never gets to practice at home, whereas at her age I was prepping and cooking entire family meals and cleaning the whole house because my parents wanted to "rest" when they got home from work. (I realize that with housework, I was at one absolute extreme, she is the very much at the other extreme.)

She is quite timid, so I think she was scared to do anything wrong. She works super slowly, and I did catch her on her phone once, but I said that next time she come to work I will be "minding" her phone just while she works so that she's not tempted. She's happy with that, said it was too tempting to have it close by.

I think your answer is perfect and well considered, especially since she's slow. I can increase it if she speeds up, does a good job, and doesn't need so much attention.

£6 converts to Euro 7.12 so I'll start her at Euro 7,- and will go from there as she gains experience and speed.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply, I just joined and this is my very first post on MumsNet so was delighted to get a reply. :)

You're mad. She'll never pay it off and you ou are going to have to take her step by step through everything.

I wouldn’t get her the iPad in advance though. She will likely loose interest in the cleaning soon enough so will need the motivation to keep going. I’d agree with the above advice for hourly rates.

This. Do not train children to become debtors! Saving up is the goal.

Thanks for ALL the replies. MUCH Appreciated.

She comes from a single parent family where the mother escaped terrible domestic violence.

Her mother is an extremely hard worker and WILL make sure the debt is paid off no matter what, or how long it takes. Her mother is trying to make things better for them both on the lowest income, they qualify for every benefit possible but are still struggling with rising cost of living etc.

They have absolutely no hope of getting any tablet of any sort any other way. They both have old, basic phones, no computer or tablet in the house so this would be used for schoolwork /homework too.

I'm thinking that a simple non-brand tablet that can be paid off quickly might be the better option since there is an educational benefit and her mother agrees she needs one?
Would you agree?