What should I pay my friend for babysitting my kid?

What’s a good amount to pay a friend to watch your baby for 5 days for about 9 hours a day? Baby is 21 months and you’re providing all his food and snacks

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Well child care is not cheap but she is your friend so maybe you both can work something out together that works for her and you.

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A lot. That’s an invaluable friend you got there

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Is this for one week only or will it be a continuous arrangement?

Minimum 20-25/hr. Thats average where I am.

Although she’s your friend it’s the added responsibility that comes with a toddler that’s not your own .Definitely worth it’s weight in gold to get someone you know and trust to take care of your little one .

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I see where I live it’s $18 an hour

Depends where you live, your combined income and besides childcare, expectations.

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150-200.
If they take excellent care of my baby, I’d owe them the world.

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A full time job the going rate where I am for full time daycare is at least 40 to 50 a nanny would be a lot more

I pay 50/a day but usually for 6 hours

Where I live, a childcare center is like $350/week. We luckily had a nanny 3 days per week and paid $100/day - that was for twins in 2021.

55$ a day and I’m in California

Depends on the area where you live, minimum is generally 15 plus an hour

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I’d say see what the normal is in your area. In my area licensed care providers average 20-30$ a day from 8-5ppm.

I am reading these comments and I am so completely thankful that my kids no longer require childcare!

Honestly, do some research for child care costs in your area and communicate with your friend. There are several factors that should be considered when determining how much you should pay.

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Lisa Poissant she is lucky to have you as family❤️

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Sometimes friends do things for each other to help each other out , if that is the case, she should give her a better deal. It could also ruin a good friendship if each one of you starts comparing what you’ve done for each other.

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At the very least $100.00 a week. Should be more. At least half of the average daycare cost in your area.
9 hours a day 5 hours a week.
That’s full time daycare if not more.

Pay them what’s required, it’s an actual job.

I would pay at least $250 for those hours. I pay $170 a week for daycare now and I am trusting strangers to care for my baby. Not having to take him and being with a trusted friend would be worth the extra to me and I wish I had that.

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Where are you based? If in the uk, if you’re providing more than 2 hours a day caring gif someone else’s child, you have your be registered and insured

My mom used to watch my kids from 8 to 5, most of them in school but 2 toddlers at home, I paid her $50 a day and she lived with me completely bill free. If you got a friend willing to step in and be a good babysitter, one that you’re trust, pay her whatever is necessary because that is very hard to find lol.

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Here in New Zealand it’s $25-30 an hour nannying.

My sister would come to my house and watch my 1 year old. So all my food etc and I paid her 200$ a week cash and that was 10 years ago.

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What is the going rate for a daycare in your area? I would be paying her the same.

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I would personally just ask them what they would like to be paid for it. And if they try to say you pick the price then give them a number to negotiate with

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Child care provider here, I charge 250 for infants and that’s low for my area.

ask her so you know your not underpaying her expectations

The same rate your local daycare does :woman_shrugging:

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I watch my friends kids for free so idk lol. During covid I went to work from home and my friend needed somewhere for her 6 and 12 yr old to go. So I just told her to drop them off with me. It depends on the situation. How close are you? Are you stable financially, is she? Is she a sahm? Does she have other FT work.

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I have someone watching my 15mo 6 hrs a day 4 days a week, charging 30 a day. I provide breakfast, lunch and 3 snacks plus drop off and pick up

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I charge my friend $20 a week for the 2-3 days I watch her 3. I have kids of my own and as we see it they’re family.:heart_hands::heart_hands:

I would say about $150 a week. If it’s a friend that is offering to help, the friend should be fine with that extra $ every week. However, don’t assume that amount will be sufficient, talk it over with your friend.

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At least $100 a week
At the least

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My best friend and I rotated kids. I have 2 girls and a boy and she has 2 boys. I would watch them Mondays and Tuesdays and she would have them Wednesdays and Thursdays. The weekends we rotated each child having 1 on 1 time with parents, girls weekend, boys weekend, and spouses weekend. Now that she works and I don’t, I keep her kids whenever she asks, just like she did when I worked. All of our kids are in the same cyber academy and next week, I’ll have her boy’s Sunday-Thursday for testing. We do what works for us, this will NOT work for everyone. Very rarely does money change hands with our families.

For 5 days 9 hours a day I would pay them what I would pay a normal daycare for a week. $300

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I used to pay $15 a day and she watch 2-4 other kids. That being said, ask her. :grin:

My babysitter charges 125 a week and I provide food.

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At least 100 a week if that is good with her. That’s a big job daycare probably would be 200 and up.

Minimum wage at least. Or work a deal out. Friend taking help helping you when that friend could be working for someone else. It’s a lot but I feel that’s fair. A friend may cut some slack. Or work out deals on stuff. But having almost 2 year old can be a lot. Daycare usually cost twice as much. Be even more if not, if still in diapers and not pottied trained.

My state I believe minimum is 12 something.

12x9=108

108×5= 540

Daycare around here are 300-600 more than that. Least for a good daycare.

If I could afford daycare I so would. I could work more. But then again it’d go to daycare.

With providing everything and friend can eat whatever there and what not, I’d knock down to seeing 300-400 a week. Benefits for friend, free food, everything needed and more is provided, and no taxs taken from her checks.

At a daycare it would typically be $230+ each week id probably pay her $200

That’s a lot of time for her to be babysitting and my son is 21 months to and they are into everything and hard to manage but especially if it’s someone else’s kid lol if ask her and see what she says but just know that her being your best friend she’s going to give you a much lower price then she would anyone else and me personally, I’d add to it just because. So if she said $125 a week I’d probably do $150+. I’d also look up what daycare prices are in your area and go off of that as well.

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Avg rate is between 8-15 an hr.
Google the rate near you and work out a number you both can live with.
Personally, I charge less bc if they could afford actual day care, they wouldn’t need me. :rofl:

50 a day… 40 for watching him. 10 for food.

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I charged my friend to watch her son 30$ a day I watched him from 9-2 she provided everything for him. I started watching him around 2 months till now he is a little over a year I also go to her job and watch him there for her comfort.

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I’m watching my niece and nephew for my sister in law to be able to go to work everyday from about 8:30-4 pm except the weekends. but it is family and I really don’t mind watching them as they play with my daughter (their cousin) and they are ages 4, 3, 2 and she had asked me how much I would like to be paid, I told her whatever she feels she is able to pay me when she gets her check as I know how expensive stuff is now a days with bills and what not so it works for us. And I don’t need a whole lot but anything helps at this point in life. I think it being your friend maybe sit down and talk with her and go from there to see what is fair and what she’s expecting for payment . My sister in law also packs them a lunch and some snacks but obviously being at aunties I share stuff with them too when I feed my daughter. They are on a waiting list too for a daycare in our town but that’s not till September. So I’m trying to make it fair for her to be able to afford that as well when the time comes.

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Here the rate is $40/day
Research what it is in your state

Duh, if she’s a friend ask her!

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Ask your friend what they want to be paid-i would hate for your friendship to be ruined if it were not enough.

That’s 45 hours a week, that’s basically a full time nanny. Not just babysitting. I’d say at least $15 an hour but she’s doing overtime also

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I wound look at the average cost of in home daycares per hour per day is in your area
And negotiate that with your friend

Pay the going rate in your area just because it’s your friend she’s doing a service /job

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My grandson paid 800 a month in OKC. He moved to Maryland and now has to pay 1600 a month

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$500 a week minimum, that’s a full time job and your taking care of a life

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My babysitter charges $15 per hour and she comes to our house. We provide everything… We also provide transportation for her

I would discuss this with the friend whose going to be watching the little one, but personally I don’t charge my friends for child care. We look at it as a good play date for our kids, that being said majority of these little people are my god children so I don’t feel like I should be paid to have them

My friend charged me what a childminder would cost (one who looks after multiple children). At the time it was £5 an hour. I’d suspect around $75-90 a day these days.

I use to pay $30 a day Monday-Friday

I would talk to her about it. Discuss what you can reasonably afford and ask what she is expecting. If you guys are friends, you should be able to work out something that benefits both of you. I could tell you I would provide food/snacks (it’d be easier to feed the same thing to both my kids and your kids than making separate meals) and I would probably expect about $250/week. If I wasn’t providing food, I’d look at around $200/week.

Is it ONLY five days or like five days a week as this week be repetitive? That makes a biiiiiiiig difference as well as are they putting the baby to bed those days etc.

These comments are ridiculous. You pay her whatever childcare cost in your state. 

I would just ask your friend how much is she wanting/asking. A. Your friends and
B. Location matters too, so I would research your area and see how much local daycares usual charge. Everywhere is different…someone of the prices in these commentary are way high for my area.

Everyone’s situation is different I’d ask her if she’s your good friend she will probably ask for less than a babysitter.then I’d just do a bit more than that.so if she asks for say 50.00 a day I’d probably give her atleast 70.00…also even if she’s providing snacks I’d pick up a few of her and my kids favorite snacks milk etc and drop it off at the beginning of the week.

In Australia our full day rate is $113.00. The government cover $75.15 of that so our out of pocket is $37.85. I would be paying them at least $37.85 per day.

Look into what daycare is in your specific area. It’s different all over, so you won’t get an accurate answer on here. However for the answer where i live I would expect to pay around $150-200 a week and it would go up from there. You could find a stranger online offering to babysit for cheaper, but they wouldn’t have any kind of certification and I wouldn’t trust them.

Minimum wage is $15/hr where I live, I definitely wouldn’t pay less than that :thinking:

I charge my friends 10 hr so 9 hrs/ 90 bucks 10 hrs /100 I also feed the kids and I also potty train when the parents ask me to and I have my own son too since he’s homeschooling

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I don’t know. Maybe a kidney? Nah ask her

20 an hour atleast or won’t want to work when older if it’s nit worth it make her happy to do it she has got ya kids ya no

Pay her as much as you possibly can afford and some, considering your child will be in great hands plus you don’t want money to ruin a friendship and that’s nine hours a day with a baby she’s putting in the time

Holy crap, these comments are all low balling as heck. You need to have a real conversation with your friend, this is NOT babysitting. This is a full time, nannying position to a toddler nonetheless. None of us know what you can afford so I won’t go there. Do your research for rates in your specific area. Do right by your friend, that’s all. If you’re unable to agree on a legal, FAIR rate. In my opinion, this would be AT LEAST, minimum wage in your area plus OT for ALL hours worked over 40 hrs/week. I would recommend looking at daycare/nanny share rates if that better matches your budget.

I’ve always heard 20-30 a day.

Whatever you guys agree on. I definitely would talk to her so you guys are on the same page. Don’t want to hurt a good friendship in anyway.

Overnights they give me 50. Not overnights they give me 35. Only because lately I’ve also been feeding her outa that money because it’s easier to get a happy meal than try to get her to eat what I make

If your friend is babysitting for you 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, that’s a full time job. She wont have time to have another full time job in order to pay her own bills/needs if shes watching your kid that much. You need to pay her (at a minimum) what minimum wage is in your area.

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The same as you would a daycare

I’m a sahm and already have a couple families that pay me $30 for one kid and $10 a sibling a day. So when my best friend needs me to watch her little 2 year old she pays me whatever she can mostly $20 and sometimes she don’t pay or I don’t make her pay he’s my nephew I hate charging her to keep him when I’m already home anyways but she does always bring food!

I used to go to the family’s home to watch
kids and I charged 50 a day. I did a few chores too such as dishes and laundry

40$ a day is given rate for in home daycare around here now for infant

Your friend make sure she awear of her responsibility and what they include. If she’s watching two 50.00 but if she’s running them to school 75.00