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my greetings to all of you. i was wondering about thepossibility of hiring a private driver in Chicago, and a permanent nanny for my young children. If you know about that,would you kindly tell me about their salaries? ,thanx a lot.

Zoe Bell

Can't help with the nanny but you really shouldn't use your email as your user name. Spam bots trawl this site and your probably in for a fair amount.

Pulaski

I wouldn't hire either other than through an agency, so the agency can take care of the background checks and licensing requirements. So the agency(s) will be able to advise you of the appropriate salary ranges.

Some of it dangerous.

penguinsix

The problem with hiring domestics is that you are responsible for the tax withholdings and filings, which can be a bit annoying. If you hire through an agency they end up with the responsibility for all that, along with the background and licensing bits. You do pay a bit more for this.

As for a driver, you need to seriously examine the issue of legal liability. Is it a driver driving your car or are they driving their own car or a company car? Who is the one that has to pay insurance and does that insurance cover you as the owner / passenger / third party. In the US the issue of liability is a MAJOR concern so sorting through that is something you'll need to handle.

That said, often people do have nannies and cooks and gardeners and whatnot, but they just pay them cash and (illegally) avoid all the paperwork.

MsElui

i found a nanny through care.com. (two in fact). I did have to do the ss and medicare withholding and file tax stuff and that wasnt fun but it suited me at the time. care.com can do some background checks for you and can record reference checks - or you can do the ref checks yourself.

GeoffM

Don't rely on the agency for everything. Our first nanny somehow managed to sneak her (lack of) work history past the background "check" by the agency. Nice enough girl but things just weren't adding up; in the end we let her go and she went without argument. Our current one was recommended by friends; I deal with her taxes and stuff; she's turned out significantly better than the agency one. Just our personal experience of two.

kins

You could also look at sittercity.com for a nanny if you don't want to pay massive agency fees.

Here I would expect to pay a nanny around $12 to $15 per hour, plus mileage if they're driving their own car. Chicago being a big city may be more expensive.

Then you need to think about tax, insurance, etc.

Bob

I'd think you'd be paying more. That's about a bit less than what you'd pay a high school kid down here...nanny is usually a minimum 4 hours at $25hr.

Pulaski

Generally in life, you get what you pay for. How much is it worth to you to get competent, trained, licensed, insured, screened, taxed, law abiding domestic staff to look after your children safely?

GeoffM

Having an on-demand nanny for 4 hours isn't the same as having a 5-day-a-week live-in nanny though. We pay well below $25/hr - hard to pin it down to a specific figure as she's not a clock watcher, plus she gets "benefits" like all meals included which an on-demand nanny is unlikely to get.

Bob

Aye, well that's the going rate down our way for a non-live in one, even if they're all day or not.

The minimum hour is regardless of using them for a half day or not though.

Just shows how variable it can all be.