Do you begrudge paying your babysitter minimum wage to watch TV?

missbiggles1

missprice wrote: »

£18 per night per dog, I have 2 dogs.
Nothing against kennels/catteries and have used them previously but I am liking the personal touch here. I know where my sitter will walk them and which dogs he will walk with them. My dogs adore his own dog and seem to like him too. It's working well so far with him and of course I am helping the local economy :T

If there was no local dog walker I would use the kennels

But you didn't say it was for 2 dogs, in fact you specifically said "overnights are considerably more at 40 per dog per night" and then went on to say it was the same price as kennels.

No wonder I thought it was overpriced!

(We've often used home carers but I wouldn't expect to pay double the rate for 2 dogs anymore than I would if they were in kennels together.)

Gloomendoom

alex21 wrote: »

Surely you are not paying a babysitter to watch tv but are paying for the peace of mind knowing there is somebody there in case there is an emergency.

Exactly. Like the pilots in airliners.

missprice

missbiggles1 wrote: »

But you didn't say it was for 2 dogs, in fact you specifically said "overnights are considerably more at 40 per dog per night" and then went on to say it was the same price as kennels.

No wonder I thought it was overpriced!

(We've often used home carers but I wouldn't expect to pay double the rate for 2 dogs anymore than I would if they were in kennels together.)

Oh dear so sorry for not being specific enough.

The dog walker charges £40 per dog per 24 hours ish.
The kennels charges £9 for a day plus £18 for an overnight per dog so the dog walker will not charge me any extra for being an hour late say, although I would give him more anyway.
The kennels will charge me another few quid on a rising scale depending how late I was up to £9.

So not a great deal of difference in price but I get a more personal service.

As to why I could possibly ever be late and be so incredibly rude in that way, generally it's a old car rally I go to and the old car in which I travel could well break down (because of its age) although it hasn't yet, stuff happens.
When he simply walks them for me, he collects from my house and brings back to my house. Plus he is a great guy and he is doing his best to not claim benefits ever and you just can't beat that personal touch.

Any more questions about my choice of dog walker over kennels? I realise this is a money saving site but it's more about the best you can get for the right money. Not just cheapest alone.

missbiggles1

missprice wrote: »

Oh dear so sorry for not being specific enough.

The dog walker charges £40 per dog per 24 hours ish.
The kennels charges £9 for a day plus £18 for an overnight per dog so the dog walker will not charge me any extra for being an hour late say, although I would give him more anyway.
The kennels will charge me another few quid on a rising scale depending how late I was up to £9.

So not a great deal of difference in price but I get a more personal service.

As to why I could possibly ever be late and be so incredibly rude in that way, generally it's a old car rally I go to and the old car in which I travel could well break down (because of its age) although it hasn't yet, stuff happens.
When he simply walks them for me, he collects from my house and brings back to my house. Plus he is a great guy and he is doing his best to not claim benefits ever and you just can't beat that personal touch.

Any more questions about my choice of dog walker over kennels? I realise this is a money saving site but it's more about the best you can get for the right money. Not just cheapest alone.

It wasn't a case of not being specific, you said how much you paid for a home sitter for each dog and then you said it the same as you paid for kennels, but it turns out it that wasn't the case. Sometimes it's worth just saying "Oops,my mistake" when you make a mistake.

Anyway, I agree that you may need to pay extra for quality care but I still think that charging somebody nearly £600 to look after 2 dogs for a week is excessive, however nice a guy you are.I certainly wouldn't dream of paying him even more if I were a bit late in dropping them off (habitual late arrivee myself:o).

ETA
I must have used at least a dozen kennels in my time, all around the country and have never come across anywhere that charged you a day charge on top of a night charge. If someone quotes £18 pn and you leave your dog for 7 nights then you pay 7 x £18; to charge (£18 + £9) x 7 is absolutely outrageous!

missprice

missbiggles1 wrote: »

It wasn't a case of not being specific, you said how much you paid for a home sitter for each dog and then you said it the same as you paid for kennels, but it turns out it that wasn't the case. Sometimes it's worth just saying "Oops,my mistake" when you make a mistake.

Anyway, I agree that you may need to pay extra for quality care but I still think that charging somebody nearly £600 to look after 2 dogs for a week is excessive, however nice a guy you are.I certainly wouldn't dream of paying him even more if I were a bit late in dropping them off (habitual late arrivee myself:o).

ETA
I must have used at least a dozen kennels in my time, all around the country and have never come across anywhere that charged you a day charge on top of a night charge. If someone quotes £18 pn and you leave your dog for 7 nights then you pay 7 x £18; to charge (£18 + £9) x 7 is absolutely outrageous!

I don't plan to go away for a week or longer without my dogs but I think my fave dog walker is worth that sort of money and more still.

And here http://www.beulahfarm.co.uk/kennel-leeds-prices.php
They charge a day rate which is doubled for overnights. And day rate for part days.

It's actually better than when I last looked it's £22.50 per day for two sharing. Still can't beat that personal touch though.:)

Gavin83

zagfles wrote: »

If people want to consider employment legislation when hiring a babysitter then they should also consider sex discrimination too, and not expect a babysitter to be of a particular gender - as I think this applies to services as well as employment legislation.

With all due respect you seem to be the only one bringing up gender here. I don't see what difference the gender of the babysitter makes.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

If under thirty quid is too much for somebody to pay to look after their offspring, considering they could easily be spending that on a meal, drinks and then a cab home, I'd suggest they stay in and look after their kids themselves.

Otherwise, it's not as if they're anything important - why not just ask the guy sitting on a street corner with a can of Tennants to do it, as I'm sure he would for the chance of a night in the warm with a couple of beers?

I used to be paid twenty pounds in 1988 to look after the four kids next door on a Friday or Saturday night until just before midnight. They didn't sleep, so it was mostly sitting watching TV with them - but they wanted somebody they could trust and knew they'd never be able to go out together without a babysitter.

My childminder was quite cheap, but she stopped work at 6pm when they had to be picked up - the amount others charged for any work past 6pm (I was looking at other jobs where the travelling time meant I'd be getting back nearer 7.30pm) was more than double what I would be earning per hour - and they'd be at somebody else's house and would still need to be taken home. Somebody coming to my house, giving up their evening and then having to get home would have been worth far more than minimum wage to me.

But looking after children is supposedly a low status occupation, so I'm not surprised somebody over there is getting snippy about it.

Ames

I got a flat fee of a fiver for looking after two kids, one of them was a nightmare. Their mum usually came home when the clubs closed, and if she brought someone back I sometimes got extra from him (a tenner from the married man). The night she didn't come home because she thought her flatmate would wasn't much fun, the flatmate rolled in at 5am on a school night. Still only got a fiver.

I'd have loved an hourly rate, never mind minimum wage, not that it existed then.

zagfles

Gavin83 wrote: »

With all due respect you seem to be the only one bringing up gender here. I don't see what difference the gender of the babysitter makes.

Whoosh... The point was that if people expect employment legislation to apply to babysitters then perhaps a far bigger issue than NMW is sex discrimination!

My point was that employment legislation is not relevant as the babysitter isn't (usually) an employee.

ETA: although having said that - it might be a bit of a grey area, possibly similar to a 'casual labourer':

http://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage/who-gets-the-minimum-wage

DigForVictory

Back when my mother needed a babysitter, she needed afterschool care & got the local school head to recommend a "Sensible girl". We were all delighted - the 15 year old got a quiet place to study (at the dining table with us) access to our in-house library (rather a lot of reference texts, my lot being Big on books) & a hot meal (if you count fish finger sandwiches as a meal which we did) as well as cash pay.

Years later, I babysat for assorted families as I was their schoolmates elder sister, understood enough French to manage the bilingual infants & had the inestimable advantage of having a personal medic on call - even the mother of a fragile asthmatic relaxed & allowed herself to go out knowing that if her daughter began to have any problems, I'd be following the very clear house rules & if necessary paging qualified help. All for cash, all back home for midnight & sat watching the TV?! Like stuff - before bedtime I had baths to supervise & brought storybooks to read aloud from; after bedtime , I had prep...

Er, we did also negotiate bedtime so if someone had a heartfelt yearning to watch All of a TV program that went on a full half hour past their bedtime, (this was Way Back When you either saw it or you didn't, and the VHS vs Betamax row had not even started!) then we'd negotiate that said program was watched in full, but all pre-bedtime preparations (including hair, teeth & pyjamas) were completed before the program started.

Simpler happier times, I reckon.