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Fellow Parents. How much do you pay a baby sitter per hour?

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ch33zw1z said:
It's based on sitter's experience and qualifications(cpr/first aid trained, ability to respond in emergency kids situations). $10 is more than fair. Yea, it adds up quick...my wife and I ask our parents or my brother usually.
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CPR trained? Jesus, how paranoid/neurotic are people?
 
Zero, we trade off with the parents of my son's friends. He goes and plays over at their house when we want to do something and we take their kid when they do. Sometimes we pick each other's kids up from school too.

Works out well.
 
Fausto said:
Going rate here in ATL is $10/hour.
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Thats where I'm at.

The lady is in her 30's, qualified in child care and CPR.

But realistically, she's spends maybe 2 hours tops with him being awake then at least 3 hours of a 5 hour total watching TV.
 
crashtestdummy said:
So perhaps you'd be able to shave off a buck or two an hour, but that's only going to save you $10 at most, so lets look at the rest of your math:



It obviously depends on what part of town/the country you're in (a decent burger in Manhattan costs $20, for example), but $50-$100 is a lot of money to spend on dinner for two when you have a young kid and are tight on money. There are less expensive, hole-in-the wall type restaurants all over the place that have surprisingly good food and are cheap. It just takes some time to find them.

Another option, if you are looking to go out with friends, is to start a rotating dinner club. Making a meal for 6 or 8 is only marginally more stressful than cooking for two, and by rotating around a group, you're only cooking a small fraction of the time. You can still leave the baby with a sitter so you can relax, without running up such a bill. Each time you cook, it will likely only cost you $50 (or less), so you end up bringing down the overall cost of going out by 3/4.

Also, there are many cheaper alternatives to going out to a movie. If you get weekends off, go enjoy something outside for free, and make the dinner the end cap to your evening. Or, if you really want to see a movie, spring for DVDs/Netflix instead of a theater. You're not being social during the movie anyway, and it's not as if you're likely to run into lots of people there. There's more than enough good movies out there that you haven't seen yet.

I understand that these options are not for everyone, particularly if you're used to a particular kind of lifestyle, but they are an option that will make your social life a lot cheaper.
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I'm not that tight on money, but it's because I'm frugal with wasteful spending. We go out so infrequently that it's usually for a special occasion like a birthday, anniversary, etc so it's often paired with a pricey meal.
 
A friend of mine gets $20/hour to babysit for some Comcast bigwig and his wife. They pay her under the table and she gets +$10/hour if she has to work more than her usual. This is in Philly by the way.

Not typical, but people pay a lot. Honestly, I'd say $10/hour is reasonable. If you're trying to go cheaper I'd do something like $8.50/hour.
 
lokiju said:
I'm not that tight on money, but it's because I'm frugal with wasteful spending. We go out so infrequently that it's usually for a special occasion like a birthday, anniversary, etc so it's often paired with a pricey meal.
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If the pricey meal isn't wasteful, though, I wouldn't think the better babysitter is, either.
 
$10/hr for a high-schooler (Los Angeles).

Our two main babysitters are a 17-year old next-door neighbor girl (with a younger sister who will take over when big sister leaves after next year) and a 16-year old boy who lives about 6 houses away.

Both sets of my in-laws are local, so we get a lot of free babysitting, too.

We either do dinner OR a movie (usually just dinner) and then a trip to Starbucks near the house.

MotionMan
 
my bro usually pays my daughter 10 an hour for sitting his two smaller children. friends have offered her 5 an hour, she may or may not accept.

mine are all teens now, so i dont pay anything. i used to pay 4 per kid tho, and i have 3.
 
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