Danny B

My Wife has been asked to look after another child, she would collect the girl from Pre-School at 11am and look after her at our house until about 4pm.
It's actually no trouble as our Daughter is best friends with this girl and the Mother would prefer she stayed with us rather than a stranger.
However the Mother has asked my Wife how much she would charge for this service?

We don't have a clue, what is the going rate for 20hrs day care per week, collection from School with lunch at our house?

Thanks

Lisa_W

I have no idea about the going rate, but I suspect if it is anything like the UK, your wife may have to register as a childminder (or the equivalent name here) before she can take payment for looking after the other child.

I used to look after a friend's two kids after school and like your wife, it was not a problem as I was a friend of the mother, the kids were friends with mine and were at the same school as mine. So I just used to collect them from school, feed them, then deliver them home when my friend finished work. But I did not want to go through the hassle of getting registered with Social Services etc, as I was really doing it as a favour to her. Every now and again she would give me gift vouchers for Tesco or gift vouchers for a facial etc or some other treat. Someone else we knew paid a friend to look after her daughter and someone else actually reported them to the Social Services and they paid a call on the unofficial childminder and she had to stop.

So it may be more than just a case of how much you can charge for doing it. I am sure if she is seriously considering doing it, you could ring up the relevant agencies and find our about registering and they may give you an idea of local going rates.

dingbat

About $12 - $15/day for those five hours, including the food and pick-up. There is little regulation of in home care, but child minder type situations are typically $25/30 a day outside Vancouver. It is taxable, so you might want to look at the benefit of losing a full spousal deduction for the sake of a few $$. Your wife has to provide receipts for the tax year to the other parent. Your wife won't need any license and will not be checked by anyone, unless she has more than three kids in the home that are not hers. Check your household insurance, however, as you will need a higher liability coverage and your vehicle, if used for pick-up's, will have to have commercial insurance coverage. If the little cherub hurts herself or is involved in a car accident while in your wife's care, people do not hesitate to sue.

http://www.interiorhealth.ca/Health+...on/Child+Care/

R I C H

Danny, a neighbour of our looks after her neighbours daughter from 6.30am (provides breakfast) to school bus time (8.15), then after school for an additional 1.5hrs. She charges $20 per day for that.

Steve_P

The $30 per day figure seems to tally with Calgary.

My son and his wife are paying $1200 per month for two children (14 months and 30 months) for an average 20 days per month in a day home situation.

Cheers
Steve

Danny B

Thanks for all your replies, we didn't realise that child care was that cheap here in Canada. A far cry from the extortinate rate in the UK.

Like you say Dingbat, it's probably not worth the hassle nor the risk of losing a friendship over, should the child get accidentally hurt.

Thanks again

cov-canuck

Not a knock on anyone here, but just a question I've had for a while - at what point do you stop referring to a child in months and start referring to their age in years? I know in our software (medical records) we list year and month, and total months up to 36 months, but I was talking to someone the other day and they said their grandson was 42 months old (which just sounded ridiculous). Just curious.

Steve_P

I would normally refer to my older grand daughter as two and a half but found it easier in the post above to use months as I had done so with the younger of the two.

So for me two would be when I would normally start referring to them in years.

I agree 42 months does sound odd.

Biiiiink

Wow, that is low. We pay our 14yr old babysitter 10 dollars an hour

babsi

I was going to have someone look after my 2 year old for 1 day a week from 10-6. It didn't work out for various reasons the main one being she wasn't prepared to make effort for Kai to adapt to the situation as he was screaming on the 1st day. Of course it was all my fault he wasn't ok there well to cut a long story short I was willing to pay $50 a day taking all my own food. He actually went with someone in September who was very good but unfortunately is in demand so she can't look after him, she charged $10 an hour which I thought was high but she was VERY good.

MrsLauder99

We currently pay £38 (??$76ish/day) for our son in private nursery. He can be in from 8am-6pm, although on the whole we have him in from around 9.15 (as I have to drop my daughter off at school first) and then I pick him up at about 4.30pm. I have to provide the food for him as well, except snacks. I have been wondering what Canadian daycare would cost but were hoping we won't need it as want to make the move for one of the reasons that one of us wouldn't need to work and we could have quality time with the kids.

I think in generaly childminders in UK are charging around about £3.50/hr so maybe $7/hr would be a good benchmark??

HTH

Danny B

Yes it does seem very low paid doesn't it? I don't know what minimum wage is here in BC but I suspect it's more than the $4hr that these child minders get.