Advice Needed On How To Price A Family?

[littlemonkeys]

How would you price a family that needs daycare past your "normal" hours? My hours are 7-5:30 and this dcm needs child care for her 4 y/o from 2pm-10pm only 3 days a week. I thought about just charging her my full time rate that would just balance out with her late hours, but wanted to get your opinions before our interview tomorrow.

Thanks!

[Cat Herder]

There is no amount of money to get me to do those hours..... Especially with a 4 year old....

Definitely START at your full-time rate then work your way up....

[JenNJ]

$1 million sounds about right

Seriously, I would charge hourly. My hourly charge for part time, 2 kids is $10 an hour. So $240 a week.

[care-care]

I watch a baby 1.30 til 9 2 nights a week and its just fine. I charge my dailey rate of 35.00 for each of those days

[Abigail]

Originally Posted by littlemonkeys

How would you price a family that needs daycare past your "normal" hours? My hours are 7-5:30 and this dcm needs child care for her 4 y/o from 2pm-10pm only 3 days a week. I thought about just charging her my full time rate that would just balance out with her late hours, but wanted to get your opinions before our interview tomorrow.

Thanks!

Is this boy going to arrive in the middle of nap? Do you need to give him a bath and put him to bed at a certain time and then stay up until mom picks him up at 10 pm? I would do the $1/minute late fees for sure so you're not up half the night! I agree that your full-time rate is acceptable because she only needs care for 24 hours in a week and the child *should* be sleeping by the time the mom arrives. I know a lot of parents work evenings and many make minimum wage or else you could charge close to minimum wage.

If you want an exact formula, try this: take your weekly rate and find out how much your normal hourly rate is. Double that rate and multiple by the 24 hours of care she needs. This should come out to be slightly higher (6% or so) than your full time rate.

Example: Weekly rate is $125=$25/day=$2.77 for nine hours x double the hourly rate = $5.54/hour x 24 hours needed for care = $132.96. This is $7.96 more than the full time rate which is 6% more. It gives you solid ground and reasoning and explain that since her child arrives mid-way through the day you cannot fill the daytime spot and that her child will have your undivided attention. Feel free to round up your final number to an even dollar. Make sure she pays WEEKLY, not for each day.

[littlemonkeys]

Originally Posted by Catherder

There is no amount of money to get me to do those hours..... Especially with a 4 year old....

Definitely START at your full-time rate then work your way up....

My DH thinks I'm crazy for even considering it. But I figure that I could probably have the child go to bed around 8:30pm like the rest of my own kids do and then it would only be an extra 3 waking hours a day. I don't know the more I think about it, the more I want to turn her away. I have 1 full time space available and I've only been getting part time calls and haven't had any calls in about a week or so. I think I'm getting desperate.

Originally Posted by JenNJ

$1 million sounds about right

Seriously, I would charge hourly. My hourly charge for part time, 2 kids is $10 an hour. So $240 a week.

LMAO

I was wondering about charging hourly for the extended day, but thought it might just be easier to charge a set rate for the 3 days.

Originally Posted by care-care

I watch a baby 1.30 til 9 2 nights a week and its just fine. I charge my dailey rate of 35.00 for each of those days

I don't think it would really be all that bad... I am home every night and as long as I had a carseat so I could drive my older boys to and from practice I'd be fine.

[littlemonkeys]

I don't have anything in my contract about extended days. Does anyone have any examples they can share with me? I'd like to have my contract revised before tomorrow.

[boysx5]

I thought working til six was bad I would never do nite time hours

[JenNJ]

Sorry I thought it was 2 kids. For one child I would charge my weekly ft rate of $165 plus a small premium b of the late hours.

[littlemonkeys]

Originally Posted by JenNJ

Sorry I thought it was 2 kids. For one child I would charge my weekly ft rate of $165 plus a small premium b of the late hours.

That's a little along the lines of what I was thinking... I would only have dck from 2-10pm only 3 days a week and was going to just charge my flat weekly rate. So you would still add an additional premium for the late hours then and how much?


Thanks everyone for all the input... I keep going back and forth if I want to take this child on or not. I think it would be easy... but then again I do have three kids of my own that kind of need my attention in the evening. So, I'm not sure if I want to spread myself that thin... especially for my 18 month old. There are some days that he just can't wait for the kids to go home so he could have his alone time with mommy. More money in this case would result with 3 less days being able to spend time with my family. KWIM?

[momofboys]

I have had many calls for wierd hours, 2nd shift, etc. I tried to convince myself I could do it but in the end when I really thought about it that would be a long day. I have DCK here at 6:30 in the morning. At 5:00 or so I am done, sometimes much earlier like 4:00. IT may not be that hard but it is hard to get back the family time you would lose. To me that would not be worth it. Honestly if you want to give it a trial try I would make sure you charge MORE than your normal rate. I currently charge $25.00/day for my first shift full-timer. I would not even consider doing different hours unless the pay was substantially higher, maybe $30/35-day. It's a hard choice I am sure but I hope you go with your gut instinct while making this decision.

[Live and Learn]

I wouldn't take that on myself but if you must then I would have an extremely high late pick up fee....like $20 minute and also have late pick up past 10pm be grounds for immediate termination ......and then if she is ever late charge the fee and term.

[littlemonkeys]

First, I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to respond... I really appreciate your input.

Second, i really only was considering taking on this child mainly to help the mom out. She told me she was having such a hard time finding care during those hours and went on to tell me how she doesn't have any family close by. So I felt like I could help her and scheduled an interview for today... We didn't have a set time, but she said she'd call around 1pm and would possibly come by at 1:30pm. No call, no show. I called her at 3pm and she said she got back from her Dr appt late and that her son was napping and she'd call me around 4:30 or 5 to let me know she's coming... Again, no call. I'm done with her, unless she has a valid reason for blowing me off twice now.