The California bar exam is July 28th, 29th and 30th. I graduate May 22nd. My tentative plan is to hire a nanny for the months of June and July. I was thinking 40 hours a week...hopefully enough time to listen to my ipod lectures, study and occasionally do me-stuff (like errands or the gym... haha, maybe).
I emailed local chapters of my sorority (I knew that would serve a purpose after college!) to advertise a nanny position for this summer while I study for the bar. Now I have to interview them and decide exactly what I want.
I have no idea how much to pay. When I nannied in college, I was paid $15 an hour for really easy work (an 8 year old boy and a 12 year old girl, but usually just one of them at a time...just hanging out with the kids, nothing else). But I'm pretty sure I can't afford $4,500. Even $10 per hour would be a lot of money (although that's what I pay my babysitter now for 15 hours per week). Also, I'm guessing I should not pay under the table, which means that I will need to pay the nanny tax/benefits.
So I have two questions:
1. How many hours should I get a nanny for? I'm assuming I won't get much studying done when I'm home with Timmy alone, and I want to keep my weekends as free as possible as long as I can. But obviously I want to make sure I study enough to pass the bar the first time.
2. What is a fair salary to pay a college student to watch a 6 month old for two months? (Just hanging out with Timmy, no cooking/cleaning/etc...)
Or maybe I can just buy a bunch of batteries and keep Timmy in his swing, occasionally taking him out to feed and change him...
4 comments:
good luck with the nanny- a lot of day time nanny jobs I see are advertised at 12-15 an hour but if you figure out a price you can afford and advertise the job at that price i'm sure you will get interested people- girls LOVE babies!
i brought Jacob to school on monday and I swear I met a ton of girls I didn't know and they all begged me if they could watch him :)
In Portland the going nanny rate is 12-16 an hour, but be very careful about withholding taxes (and saving the money you're withholding, plus your portion) because it seriously adds up. I ended up with a massive (and I mean massive) tax bill the one year I had a nanny part of the time!
Oh, and your little guy is a DOLL! :)
I think $15 per hour is the going rate in Boston too... That's what we pay ours (a grad student who has 3 years experience, with infants) but I have a friend with triplets who pays less than that. She just asks the potential nanny what they'd like to make - let them set the price. I bet you could get a good deal.
There is some information on the IRS website about the nanny tax. It didn't apply to us because our nanny is so part-time and only worked for us for two months we didn't pay her enough to qualify, but I remember thinking I'd have to come back to that information next year.
California is lame - you pay more than some insane low amount ($1500), you gotta withhold.
I highly recommend paycycle.com for tax stuff. i think they even have a free 3 months intro rate, so that would work for your situation.
and, $15/hour for one kid is the market rate. you might consider a nanny share (timmy and another kid), then it goes down to $10/hour. check out:
http://parents.berkeley.edu/survey/nanny2008_results.html
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